it as inappropriate to the scriptures. Karadžić was called a crypto-Catholic, and proof was offered in his alphabet when he added the letter “j” as a Serbian Cyrillic letter to represent the sound “y” (as in “yes”). The letter was adopted from non-Slavonic languages, but combined with the fact that his wife was herself Austrian and a Catholic only served to support the Church’s argument that his reforms were undermining the authentic origins of Serbian culture.
His other opponent was Miloš Obrenović, suspicious of the motives of this man who had once been loyal to his rival, Karađorđe. As time passed, however, more people began to appreciate the sense of his proposals, and the principles he advocated for the new orthography gradually found acceptance even in official circles. By the time of his death in Vienna in 1864, his reforms had achieved widespread approval as the modern norm for use in schools and in publishing. There is a statue to Vuk Karadžić today on King Alexander Boulevard near the Library of the University of Belgrade.
M ILOš’S B ELGRADE IN L ITERATURE
Serbian society possessed a rich oral culture at the time of Miloš Obrenović, but relatively little in the form of written literature. Vojvodina was the main source of literature in the eighteenth and first half of the nineteenth centuries. Educated Serbs came from the north to serve in Miloš’s administration, to record the laws and teach in the first schools. Jovan Sterija Popović (1806–56) was one such writer, who lived for some ten years in the city. Vuk Karadžić himself attracted a small circle of Serbs studying in Vienna who supported his attempts, and some of that number wrote poetry fusing elements from the spirit of traditional folk songs with more modern Romantic poetry like Branko Radičević (1824–53). Although not numerous, these writers represented a beginning for modern Serbian literature.
Belgrade, however, hardly featured in the Serbian cultural imagination. The Vojvodina Serbs set their works almost exclusively in their own home towns, while the presence of the folk tradition with its rural ambience far outweighed the emerging urban experience. Belgrade was still half-foreign, not fully internalized as a national environment during Miloš’s rule.
Yet despite its conspicuous absence in the cultural expression of the age, Belgrade and its early history have inspired writers in more recent times—in stories, for example, by the authors Slobodan Selenić, Svetlana Velmar-Janković, and Miroslav Josić Višnjić, all three of whom are major figures of modern Serbian literature.
Selenić (1933–95) spent a year as a postgraduate student at the University of Bristol in the 1950s before returning to Belgrade and, following an academic career, teaching drama. He published numerous novels and plays that met with wide acclaim by critics and the general reading public. He was also an active figure in cultural politics as president of the Union of Writers of Yugoslavia in the late 1980s. During the turbulent years of the early 1990s he was a founding member of one of the first coalition groups, the Democratic Movement of Serbia, to oppose the government of the ruling Socialist Party of Slobodan Milošević.
Selenić’s literary career began with the 1968 publication of his novel
The Memoirs of Pera the Cripple
(Memoari Pere Bogalja), followed in 1980 by
The Friends from Kosančić Crescent 7
(Prijatelji sa Kosančićevog venca 7). This second story is about the relationship between a sophisticated citizen of Belgrade, Vladan Hadžislavković, and an Albanian from Kosovo and newcomer to the city, Istref Veri. The major part of the novel takes the form of a manuscript sent by Vladan to Istref in the 1970s, in which he attempts to make sense of the strange relationship that has developed between the two of them since they met in 1945. He includes the story of his family and their house at 7 Kosančić Crescent,
His other opponent was Miloš Obrenović, suspicious of the motives of this man who had once been loyal to his rival, Karađorđe. As time passed, however, more people began to appreciate the sense of his proposals, and the principles he advocated for the new orthography gradually found acceptance even in official circles. By the time of his death in Vienna in 1864, his reforms had achieved widespread approval as the modern norm for use in schools and in publishing. There is a statue to Vuk Karadžić today on King Alexander Boulevard near the Library of the University of Belgrade.
M ILOš’S B ELGRADE IN L ITERATURE
Serbian society possessed a rich oral culture at the time of Miloš Obrenović, but relatively little in the form of written literature. Vojvodina was the main source of literature in the eighteenth and first half of the nineteenth centuries. Educated Serbs came from the north to serve in Miloš’s administration, to record the laws and teach in the first schools. Jovan Sterija Popović (1806–56) was one such writer, who lived for some ten years in the city. Vuk Karadžić himself attracted a small circle of Serbs studying in Vienna who supported his attempts, and some of that number wrote poetry fusing elements from the spirit of traditional folk songs with more modern Romantic poetry like Branko Radičević (1824–53). Although not numerous, these writers represented a beginning for modern Serbian literature.
Belgrade, however, hardly featured in the Serbian cultural imagination. The Vojvodina Serbs set their works almost exclusively in their own home towns, while the presence of the folk tradition with its rural ambience far outweighed the emerging urban experience. Belgrade was still half-foreign, not fully internalized as a national environment during Miloš’s rule.
Yet despite its conspicuous absence in the cultural expression of the age, Belgrade and its early history have inspired writers in more recent times—in stories, for example, by the authors Slobodan Selenić, Svetlana Velmar-Janković, and Miroslav Josić Višnjić, all three of whom are major figures of modern Serbian literature.
Selenić (1933–95) spent a year as a postgraduate student at the University of Bristol in the 1950s before returning to Belgrade and, following an academic career, teaching drama. He published numerous novels and plays that met with wide acclaim by critics and the general reading public. He was also an active figure in cultural politics as president of the Union of Writers of Yugoslavia in the late 1980s. During the turbulent years of the early 1990s he was a founding member of one of the first coalition groups, the Democratic Movement of Serbia, to oppose the government of the ruling Socialist Party of Slobodan Milošević.
Selenić’s literary career began with the 1968 publication of his novel
The Memoirs of Pera the Cripple
(Memoari Pere Bogalja), followed in 1980 by
The Friends from Kosančić Crescent 7
(Prijatelji sa Kosančićevog venca 7). This second story is about the relationship between a sophisticated citizen of Belgrade, Vladan Hadžislavković, and an Albanian from Kosovo and newcomer to the city, Istref Veri. The major part of the novel takes the form of a manuscript sent by Vladan to Istref in the 1970s, in which he attempts to make sense of the strange relationship that has developed between the two of them since they met in 1945. He includes the story of his family and their house at 7 Kosančić Crescent,
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