2016Art - First Day Cover

225 Years Since the Birth of Sima Milutinović Sarajlija

Simeon Milutinović – Sima Sarajlija (October 3, 1791, Sarajevo - December 30, 1847, Belgrade) was a Serbian poet. He studied philosophy in Germany and met prominent German writers (Goethe) which is when he printed his epic poem “Serbijanka”. Upon his return, he became the tutor of Njegoš in Cetinje, and later a customs and police officer, secretary of ministry, and a member of appeal court. He engaged in verse writing , politics, historiography, and linguistics. Some of his other important works are: epic poems “Trojebratstvo i Trojesestarstvo” (“Three Brotherhoods and Three Sisterhoods”); drama from the history of Montenegro “Montenegrin Pride”, tragedy “Obilić”, a collection of lyric poems and two historical writings: “History of Serbia”, which includes only the period 1813-1815, and “History of Montenegro – from ancient to modern times”.

175 Years Since the Birth of Laza Kostić

Laza Kostić (February 12, 1841, Kovilj - November 26, 1910, Vienna) – Serbian writer, poet, journalist, playwright, translator, and aesthetician, one of the most significant writers of Serbian Romanticism. He wrote lyric and epic poetry, ballads, and romances, stories “Fairy Child”, “Maharaja”, “Martyr”, three plays “Maksim Crnojević”, “Pera Segedinac”, “Turncoat’s Dear” or “Gordana”, aesthetic debate “Basics of the beauty in the world with particular regard to Serbian folk poems”, philosophical treatise “Basic Principle – a Critical Introduction to General Philosophy”, and a large monograph “About Jovan Jovanović Zmaj (Zmajovi), his poems, thought, writing, and his era”. Among his most famous work is “Between Reality and Dream” and “Santa Maria della Salute”. It is significant also to mention his translations of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, and King Richard III.

125 Years Since the Birth of Stanislav Vinaver

Stanislav Vinaver (1st March 1891, Šabac – 1st August 1955, Niška Banja) – Serbian poet and translator, satirist, journalist, man of letters and essayist. He was a member of the group of the new modernistic Serbian writers, as a poet and essayist he founded the Expressionist movement; he wrote Manifesto of Expressionism, as well as the most famous works: a collection of symbolic poetry Mjeća, Stories that Lost Their Balance, Thoughts, Evil Wizards’ Small Town, Lightning Rod of the Universe, Keepers of the World, Icarus Flight, Comrades of War, European Night, Our Daily Language, Ecstasies and Spites of Laza Kostić. Vinaver was the first one to translate Hašek’s The Good Soldier Švejk, Rabelais’s Gargantua and Pantagruel, Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Twain’s.

125th Anniversary of Birth of Tin Ujević

Augustin Tin Ujević (5th July 1891, Vrgorac, Austro-Hungary – 12th November 1955, Zagreb, FNRY) – one of the greatest Yugoslav and Croatian poets. A powerful and fruitful creator of original talent, his presence in literature between the First and the Second World War vividly influenced its flow and development; a poet of expressive sensibility and refined taste, critic, essayist and feuilletonist. As a good connoisseur of foreign languages, he translated Proust, Rimbaud, Poe... His most important works are: Wailing of a Slave, Necklace, Two Chief Bogomils: Tolstoy and Gandhi, The Week of the Underaged, Car on the Street, Unhappy Bell, People Behind the Door of the Inn, Scalpel of Chaos, Thirsty Stone at the Well; the most famous poems: A Daily Lament, Necklace, Thought about Her, Tall Poplars, Departure, Forgiveness.

125 Years Since the Birth of Mikhail Bulgakov

Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov (15th May 1891, Kiev – 10th March 1940, Moscow) – Russian writer, playwright and theatre director. He wrote in Russian. The author of great number of novels, short stories, feuilletons, theatre plays, dramatisations, film scripts and opera librettos. The most famous works include novels The Master and Margarita, Life of Monsieur de Molière, Theatrical Novel, The White Guard, The Engineer’s Hoof, plays Days of the Turbins, Flight, The Cabal of the Hypocrites (Molière), Adam and Eve, Batum, Alexander Pushkin (The Last Days), Crazy Jourdain, comedies Zoyka’s Apartment, Ivan Vasilyevich, and the cycle of stories The Steel Windpipe (A Country Doctor’s Notebook).

125 Years Since the Birth of Lajos Zilahy

Lajos Zilahy (27th March 1891, Nagyszalonta, Transylvania – 1st December 1974, Novi Sad) – Hungarian writer and playwright. One of the most prominent, if not the most read Hungarian author of the twentieth century. Several novels of his have been translated into dozen of languages, and the most famous works are: Ararat, Deadly Spring, The Soul Extinguished, Prisoners, Something is Drifting on the Water, Two prisoners, The Deserter, Revenge of Arms, An Angry Angel, Century in Scarlet.

150 Years Since the Birth of Wassily Kandinsky

Wassily Kandinsky (December 16, 1866, Moscow - December 13, 1944, Neuilly-sur-Seine) – Russian painter who possessed a very high artistic intelligence and a keen sense of colour and form. He gave a deeper inner meaning and association to all colours, so he placed them next to their opposites. He founded Der Blaue Reiter (Blue Rider) art group and was the author of a highly influential book “On the Spiritual in Art”. He travelled far with geometric paintings through expressionism, abstraction, and constructivism. Much like in music, he divided his paintings into three categories: Impressions, Improvisations, and Compositions. His work belongs to the artistic movement known today as abstract expressionism (Fugue, A Riding Amazon, Autumn in Murnau, Nina Kandinsky, Autumn in Bavaria, White Line, Improvisation 209, Composition X...)

175 Years Since the Birth of Antonín Dvořák

Antonín Dvořák (September 8, 1841, Nelahozeves - 1 May 1904, Prague) – Czech composer and conductor of Romantic music. He successfully combined folk music with symphonic and chamber music. He created symphonies (most popular of which is the New World Symphony in E-minor), operas (Rusalka, The Jacobin, The Devil and Kate), symphonic poems, poems, overtures, orchestral compositions, chamber music, and concerti – for Violin, for Cello, for Piano and Orchestra, Humoresque, Slavic Dances. Dvořák was a follower of Neo-romanticism and one of the creators of the Czech national school.