Culture & Arts

What does word “culture” means for you? What is your first association when you hear it? Is it the history of a nation, their language or religious beliefs? Is it their architecture, music,arts or achievements? Is it their habits, customs or maybe their moral, values, way of thinking? Perhaps their ideas or canons of beauty? Yes, you guessed it. Its mixture of all things mentioned above, so like every other culture out there in the world, culture of Serbia is also one of a kind.

So, lets see where it all began.There is archaeological evidence that civilization in present-day Serbia dates to between 7000 and 6000 B.C.E. The Serbian culture starts with the South Slavic tribes who settled in the Balkan in the sixth century. The Byzantine Empire ruled the Balkans for centuries,and had a great influence on Serbian culture, until the 1150s, when Stefan Nemanja, united many smaller clans to defeat the foreign power. Nemanja became king and his Dynasty continued to rule for the next two hundred years, a period considered a golden age in Serbian history. It is generally considered that the nature and direction of the development of Serbian culture was determined by the medieval educator and founder of the autocephalous Serbian Orthodox Church, Rastko Nemanjić–St. Sava. The Ottoman Turkish Empire had a great impact on the cultural and economic development of the region, as Turks ruled for nearly five hundred years, however, Serbian culture does not represent just a mere combination of different foreign traditions, but a new culture of great spiritual value recognized specifically through Serbian Orthodoxy(Svetosavlje), unique architectural style, unique Serbian Cyrillic alphabet, rich literature,and a significant contribution to science and fine arts. Fast forward few centuries Serbian culture flourished in parts under the Habsburg empire. First Serbian Faculty is established in Sombor while Belgrade officially became an educational centre of the country.

Miroslav’s Gospel is one of the earliest works of Serbian literature dating from between 1180 and 1191 and one of the most important works of the medieval period. The most well known authors are Ivo Andric,Milos Crnjanski, Mesa Selimovic,Milorad Pavic. Some of the most famous Serbian painters were Paja Jovanovic and Uros Predic. Their monumental paintings of historical events have inspired generations of Serbian artists. Stevan Mokranjac and Kornelije Stankovic are composers who gave the biggest contribution to Serbian music.

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