[vc_row][vc_column][vc_empty_space height=”30px”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column width=”2/3″][vc_custom_heading text=”Brankovina” font_size=”36″ font_family=”” font_weight=”400″][vc_column_text]According to one legend, a city in Western Serbia was named after the rolled land and the rolled people who cultivated it. Whether the name originated from that or in some other way, has never been determined, but that the land in Valjevo is valid, it is. The history of Valjevo has always occupied an important place in the history of the Serbian people.
The people of Valjevo played a significant role in the national liberation movements. One of the oldest urban settlements in Serbia, in addition to many military leaders, has given Serbian history many great names from the world of literature, science and art. That is why today this is a city of rich cultural and historical heritage, which represents the real tourist pearls of Serbia, but also a city surrounded by extraordinary, untouched nature.
Natural benefits are reflected in the diversity of relief, favorable climate, attractive river valleys, but also numerous springs. The beautiful mountains of Valjevo have an exceptional potential for the development of tourism. Valjevo is located at the crossroads of many roads and can be easily reached from different directions through picturesque areas. Not far from Valjevo is the village of Brankovina, which gained its fame during the nineteenth century, through the dramatic events of that time. That is why they rightly call it “a village full of history”.
This village is the homeland of many personalities of Serbian history and culture. The home of the famous Nenadović family, whose members were the leaders of the First Serbian Uprising, spiritual leaders and travel writers, ministers of the first Serbian government. Although it is one of the oldest villages in the Valjevo region, it entered Serbian history only during the war of Prince Aleksa Nenadović in the Austro-Turkish war. He is the most famous victim of the slaughter of princes in 1804, and with his deeds he largely prepared the ground for the First Serbian Uprising. His started work was continued with great success by other members of the Nenadović family, primarily Duke Jakov, who was the commander of the whole of western Serbia and the leading insurgent leader after the Leader, but also the first Serbian Minister of the Interior. Besides him, there was also Proto Mateja – a duke, a diplomat, a legislator, the first president of the Governing Council of Serbia and a writer of famous memoirs. The only military-educated member of this family was Sima Nenadović, Karadjordjev’s duke and hero of the second Serbian uprising, as well as Jevrem Nenadović. Not only the heroes of the First and Second Serbian Uprising were remembered as great people of the Nenadović family, originally from Brankovina.
Besides them, there is also the son of Proteus Mateja, Uncle Ljuba, a famous travel writer, poet and educator. The daughter of Duke Jevrem Nenadović was Princess Persida, the mother of King Peter the First Liberator, which is why Brankovina is also known as the “mother” of the royal Karađorđević dynasty. The glory of Brankovina was spread around the world by the greatest Serbian poet, Desanka Maksimović, who came to this village as a baby, spent her childhood in it, finished elementary school, wrote her first verses and always gladly returned to her village, her Brankovina. The village, which marked the most carefree period of her childhood, was an eternal inspiration and was sung in many of her works. She addressed Brankovina as a man, with a lot of love, attention and sacrifice. Desanka spent the last days of her life in the homeland she loved so much, and at her request, she was buried there. Today, the sights of Brankovina are presented as a cultural-historical complex, which consists of a set of historical, cultural, educational and memorial monuments, which eloquently tell stories about our past, but also about examples of nurturing tradition. One of the central buildings of the complex is the Church of the Holy Ahrangels, which was completed in 1830. It is the endowment of Prote Mateja Nenadović. The church keeps a valuable church treasury in the form of a museum exhibit, which keeps a cross reliquary from the X century, Haji Ruvim’s carved cross, the Great Gospel that Prota received as a gift from the Russian Tsar, the hand cross Protin, icons of St. Michael the Archangel, St. John and St. Nicholas , as well as numerous old books. Numerous members of the Nenadović family were buried in the immediate vicinity of the church, and the grave of Desanka Maksimović is located in the church gate. In the churchyard, there are buildings of a simple shape, dating from the nineteenth century.
These are five confreres, who, at that time, were built near churches and monasteries and in which the people gathered during festivals, assemblies and church holidays. Sobrašnice are rare examples of folk architecture. Nenadović’s sculpture is also located here, as well as the first state school that was built in 1836, the Protina school. The interior of the Protina school is adapted to the school purpose, and today it houses a museum exhibition, dedicated to the development of schooling at that time. Another school building was erected in 1894 and renovated in 1985. Desanka Maksimović studied there, so today, at this place, everyone can get acquainted with the life and literary path of the poet. A replica of Nenadović’s house was erected in the immediate vicinity, as the beginning of further development of this kind of open-air museum complex.
For Desanka, the beautiful and tame Brankovina was the home of her soul, an inspiration or in one warm word – homeland.
And who better to know about that magic of intertwined threads of the poet’s and homeland’s connection to the poetess herself.
She wrote:
“Poet and homeland? What is the homeland of poets? Is it a vineyard, somewhere in Brankovina, where a little girl “overcame her fear”, listening to the night moans of nightingales and beetles, cowards and owls, feeling the first germs of poetry in herself? Or is it the first sunset entered in a school notebook? Or the first book read in the sunny classroom of a village school that smells of apples and bread from a school bag? Or the moment when it was realized that many things in life are not exactly as experienced in children’s imagination, but have other, larger and rougher dimensions and meanings? Homeland is all the patriarchy of the poet, people, language, glades, sounds and images. Homeland is a hug that warms, softens, rests. Homeland is also a shocking ballad about a peasant’s death. “
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