Literature

There are many ways to learn something about a country before hitting the road. Literature is surely one of the most interesting and efficient ways of getting acquainted with the local culture, history, mentality, tradition and customs.

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. This work was entered into UNESCO Memory Of The World program .The history of Serbian literature begins with the independent theological works from the Nemanjić era. The founder of the independent Serbian church and a figure taken as the originator of national literature, Saint Sava started literary tradition by writing a biography of his father, the Serbian ruler Stefan Nemanja.

After the Turkish occupation of Serbia in 1459,oral literature of epic poems, songs,tales and other forms continued to flourish in rural areas. Folk poems, stories and beliefs were collected and published by Vuk Karadžić, a famous reformer of the Serbian alphabet who has introduced the rule – one letter equals one phone.

The most important representative of the Enlightenment period was Dositej Obradović and he greatest writer of the 19th century was Montenegrin ruler Petar II Petrović Njegoš, who wrote epic poem “Gorski vijenac”.

In the 20th century, Serbian literature flourished and a great number of young and talented writers appeard,such as Milos Crnjanski,Mesa Selimovic,Danilo Kis,Borislav Pekic and Milorad Pavic who is one of the most widely acclaimed Serbian authors,known for his “Dictionary of the Khazars”, which has been translated in 38 languages.

The Nobel Prize in Literature 1961 was awarded to Ivo Andric “for the epic force with which he has traced themes and depicted human destinies drawn from the history of his country.”

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