Serb Cultural History Trivia Quiz

Answer: Svetovid

At the time of their settlement in Balkans, during 6th and 7th centuries AD, the Serbs were polytheistic pagans, as were other Slavs, too, at that time. Svetovid is the Supreme deity of the Slavic Pantheon of Gods. He is the God of War, Fate and Fertility. ** Perun is the God of the Storm and of Thunder. * Dajbog ('God who gives') is the God of the Sun and the Harvest and Plentitude, and is also the inventor of calendar. * Vesna is the Goddess of Spring.

Answer: Greek

The Cyrillic alphabet, derived from Greek uncial lettres, also became the national script of the Bulgarians, Russians, Belorussians and Ukrainians. Serbo-Croatian language is written in Cyrillic by the Greek Orthodox Serbs and in the Latin alphabet by the Roman Catholic Croats. * Two Hebrew letters, tzade and shin, were adopted in the Cyrillic letters for the sounds ch and sh.

Answer: Miroslav Gospel

The beautifully illuminated Gospel of Duke Miroslav showed unique Serbian, but also Italian and Byzantine cultural influences. Serbian literature developed from the 12th century, mostly as religious literature, producing biblical stories and hagiographies. After the Turkish occupation of Serbia in 1459, literature declined. ** St. Sava' Nomocanon was set of religious laws written by the first Serbian Patriarch, St. Sava. * The Charter of Ban Kulin is the charter of commercial privileges granted to Dubrovnik by ruler of Bosnia, Ban Kulin.

Answer: Stefan Dusan

Emperor Dusan (reigned 1331-55) introduced the Byzantine system of titles and ranks, and the imperial chancellery was organized on the Byzantine model, as was the uniform organization of local authorities. In the Diets of 1349 and 1354 he promulgated a code containing 201 statutes.

The code covered mainly criminal law, the relations between the classes and between the state and mighty feudal landlords. The law was not based on priniples of equality, but on feudal class positions. However it represented a huge improvement for the pesants of feudal society by protecting them from the hitherto unlimited powers of their landlords. Emperor Dusan's law code, which remained in use until the end of the medieval Serbian state, is a valuable source for the study of medieval society. ** The Canon of Leka Dukadjini is Albanian feudal law, dating from 16th century.

Answer: Mileseva

Mileseva Monastery was built by King Vladislav between 1234 and 1242 near town of Prijepolje. The White Angel of Mileseva, showing the angel on the grave of Christ, overhelms spectator with its beauty. ** The other places listed are also monasteries with very fine frescos. Studenica (built between 1183 and 1196), built by Zupan Stefan Nemanja, is where the first frescoes were painted. Zica (1208/1220) built by king Stefan Prvovencani. Ravanica (1381) was built by Duke Lazar, who died in the Battle of Kosovo (1389).

Answer: Oktoih (Book of Psalms)

Oktoih (Book of Psalms), was printed in the printing press of landlord Djuradj Crnojevic in 1494, by monk Makarius. According to tradition, the printing press was in Obod, Cetinje, Montenegro, but no historical source confirms this. The printing press, bought in Venice and in operation between 1493 and 1496, was the first in southeastern Europe. Five books, printed in Cyrillic letters, are still preserved, and they are the first books printed in Cyrillic among South Slavs.

In the Serbian Orthodox Church, the Oktoih is a book of liturgical hymns for singing, in eight parts.

Answer: Rudjer Boskovic

Rodger Joseph Boscovich (Rudjer Josif Boskovic, as he signed himself, or Ruggiero Giuseppe Boscovich, in Italian) was born in Dubrovnik in 1711 and died in Milan 1787. His father, Nikola Boskovic, a wealthy Serb trader from the nearby town of Trebinje, married a Ragusan girl of Italian origin, Pavica Betere, and moved to Dubrovnik where he converted from Orthodoxy to Catholicism in order continue in commerce. Rudjer went to Jesuit schools in Dubrovnik, and later studied in Italy.

He made valuable scientific contributions in the field of the movement of planetary bodies.

His main work was "Theoria philosophiae naturalis" ("The Theory of Natural Philosophy"). Werner Heisenberg (winner of the Nobel prize for physics in 1932) wrote of his work: ' "Theoria philosophiae naturalis" put forward hypotheses which were confirmed only in the course of last fifty years'.

He was a member of the Royal Society of London, a member of St.Petersburg Academy, a "membre correspondant" of the French Academie Royale des Sciences, and an honorary professor of many European universities. Very delicate work on repairing the cupola of St. Peter's church in Vatican was entrusted to Boskovic. ** Marin Getaldic was also a Ragusan physicsist and mathematician of the 16-17th centuries. Franciscus Bosniensis is a medieval composer from Bosnia. Giordano Bruno was Italian astronomer.

Answer: Dositej

Dositej Obradovic (1742-1811) is the most important Serbian representative of the Enlightenment period. He was a philosopher, writer and linguist, whose writings greatly influenced Serbian literary development. He was, along with Vuk Karadzic, one of two founders of modern Serbian culture. Dositej was the author of a large number of works written in Serbian and other languages, and he established cultural and educational links between the Balkans and Central and Western Europe, creating a basis for the modern Serbian literature.

Answer: Write as you speak, speak as you write

Vuk Karadzic found that Serbian spoken language contained 30 distinct sounds (phonemes). For six of these, the Cyrillic alphabet had no letters. He introduced new letters for those sounds, at the same time discarded 18 letters for which Serbian had no use.

In 1818 he published his "Srpski rjecnik" ("Serbian Lexicon"), a Serbian-German-Latin dictionary containing 26,270 words and many important sidelights on folklore. Though there was strong opposition to his reform from the church and from writers, the Serbian government in 1868 finally adopted Karadzic's amended alphabet. Karadzic's work also influenced some 19th-century Croatian language codifiers.

Answer: Petar Petrovic Njegos

Petar Petrovic Njegos (1813-1851) was the Vladika (prince and bishop) of Montenegro (1830-1851). He was considered an enlightened ruler and a brave warrior. But he is most famous as a poet. His principal works were the philosophical poem "The Ray of the Microcosm," the historical work "The False Tsar Stephen the Small," and especially his epic poem "The Mountain Garland". Written in the ten-syllabic Serb epic tradition, this last formulates the essential Serbian ethos in a highly condensed, aesthetic way. ** Educated, illustrious and liberal, Prince Mihailo Obrenovic was also committed to modernizing and developing Serbia by adopting a more democratic constitution.

He founded the national theater in Belgrade in 1868. * Nikolaj Velimirovic was a 20th century priest, essayist and religious philosopher. * Sima Milutinovic - Sarajlija was a Serbian poet from Sarajevo, and Njegos' teacher.

Answer: Romanticism

Many traits of European Romanticism can be observed in the literature of the period 1820-70, especially the cult of folklore and national self-assertion. A central figure of this period was Vuk Stefanovic Karadzic, a reformer of the literary language who wrote a Serbian grammar and dictionary and collected Serbian folk poetry and stories. Notable Romantic writers of this period include Branko Radicevic, Jovan Jovanovic Zmaj, Djura Jaksic, and Laza Kostic. ** Realism, Symbolism and Modernism are later stages in Serbian literary development.

Answer: Radoje Domanovic

Radoje Domanovic (1873-1908) wrote many, mostly political satires: "Dead Sea", "Stradija", "Thinking of an Ordinary Serbian Ox", "The Leader" and "Danga", among others, where he strongly criticized political usurpations of Obrenovic dynasty as well as national myths and naivity. ** Stevan Sremac, Branislav Nusic and Jovan Sterija Popovic were also Serbian satirists.

Answer: The Belgrade Surrealist Group

Oskar Davico, Milan Dedinac, Djordje Jovanovic, Marko Ristic and Koca Popovic were prominent members of the influential group of artists called The Belgrade Surrealist group. Serbian writers of the interwar period continued to follow major European literary movements.

The influential Belgrade Surrealist group introduced a note of radical, left-wing politics into literature, and some of its members later turned to the style of Socialist Realism. The "Surrealist Manifesto" appeared the liteary alamach "Nemoguce" ("Impossible") in 1930.

Answer: Drina

The literature of the 1930s was shaped by the focus on political and social themes. Among the major writers of the period was Ivo Andric (1892-1975), whose novel "Na Drini cuprija" (1945, "The Bridge on the Drina") reflects the harsh history of of Bosnia under Turkish occupation. Andric was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1961.

His other novels are "The Bridge over Zepa", "Chronicles of Travnik, Prokleta Avlija" ("Damned Courtyard, the Story of Ottoman Prison") and others. Andric's works reveal his deterministic philosophy and his sense of compassion and are written objectively and soberly, in language of great beauty and purity.

Answer: All of these

In 1919-20, the prominent Serbian geographer Jovan Cvijic (1865-1927), author of the influential 'La peninsule balkanique' (Paris, 1918), appeared as a scientific adviser for the Yugoslav Committee on National Borders and Territorial Issues, which participated in the Paris Peace Conference. Cvijic recommended that the negotiations on the issue of post-war national borders ought to embody the natural and social factors developed in his scientific work and asked for a thorough understanding of topographic, ethnic, economic, and strategic aspects of the Balkan lands.

Answer: Nikola Tesla

Nikola Tesla (Smiljan, today Croatia, 1856-1943 USA). His father was a Serbian Orthodox priest; his mother was unschooled but highly intelligent. Tesla was dreamer with a poetic touch. As he matured, Tesla added to these earlier qualities those of self-discipline and a desire for precision. Training for an engineering career, he attended the Technical University at Graz, Austria, and the University of Prague.

He emigrated to the United States in 1884. In May 1885, George Westinghouse, head of the Westinghouse Electric Company in Pittsburgh, bought the patent rights to Tesla's polyphase system of alternating-current dynamos, transformers, and motors.

The transaction precipitated a titanic power struggle between Edison's direct-current systems and the Tesla-Westinghouse alternating-current approach, which eventually won through.

In 1891 he invented the Tesla coil, an induction coil widely used in radio technology. Three Nobel Prize recipients addressed their tribute to "one of the outstanding intellects of the world who paved the way for many of the technological developments of modern times." ** Marconi was an Italian physicist and inventor of a successful system of radio telegraphy (1896). Edison was the inventor of electric light bulb, the phonograph, storage batteries and telephone. Westinghouse was American inventor and industrialist.

Answer: Milutin Milankovich

The astronomical theory of climatic change was developed in 1920 by the Serbian scientist Milutin Milankovitch (1879-1958). The theory also explained climatic fluctuations of Pleistocene times. The theory is based on the fact that the orbit of the Earth around the Sun varies in three ways (precession, nutation). All of the variations are small, but, especially when they reinforce one another, they are sufficient to cause significant redistributions of solar heating between latitude belts or hemispheres. Various astronomical features in the Solar System are named after Milankovich. ** Tsiolkovsky - a Russian research scientist in aeronautics and astronautics who pioneered rocket and space research and the development and use of wind tunnels for aerodynamic studies.

He was also among the first to work out the theoretical problems of rocket travel in space. Mendeleyev was a Russian scientist that formulated the periodic law of elements. Giordano Bruno was an Italian philosopher, astronomer and mathematician.

Answer: Michael Pupin

Mihajlo (Michael) Pupin (1858-1935) was the son of illiterate parents who encouraged his education. Pupin devised a means of greatly extending the range of long-distance telephone communication by placing loading coils of wire at predetermined intervals along the transmitting wire. He also discovered that atoms struck by X-rays emit secondary X-ray radiation. ** Bell was Scottish-born American inventor of the telephone (1876). Elisha Grey was U.S. inventor and contestant with Alexander Graham Bell in a famous legal battle over the invention of the telephone.

Answer: Milorad Pavic

Milorad Pavic, the influental and widely translated contemporary Serbian writer, is best known for his 'Dictionary of the Khazars' (1988) and 'The Inner Side of the Wind' ** The others are also Serbian conteporary writers.

Answer: Vladimir Velickovic

Vladimir Velickovic (born 1935 in Belgrade) is a painter of apocalyptic visions of technological society. Vladimir Velickovic set himself the task mentioned in the question. From his first works, his sole concern was to express and record the nature, shape, force and effects of that evil libido.

He works in Paris where he teached at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux Arts, from 1983 till 2000. He received the highest French recognition for culture and arts, Commandeur des l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. (Commander of the Order of Arts and Literature). ** The others listed are also modern Serbian painters.