1.
Serbian language
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Serbian is the standardized variety of the Serbo-Croatian language mainly used by Serbs. It is the language of Serbia and one of the three official languages of Bosnia and Herzegovina. In addition, it is a minority language in Montenegro, Croatia, Macedonia, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia. Standard Serbian is based on the most widespread dialect of Serbo-Croatian, Shtokavian, which is also the basis of Standard Croatian, Bosnian, the other dialect spoken by Serbs is Torlakian in southeastern Serbia, which is transitional to Macedonian and Bulgarian. Serbian is practically the only European standard language with complete synchronic digraphia, the Serbian Cyrillic alphabet was devised in 1814 by Serbian linguist Vuk Karadžić, who created the alphabet on phonemic principles. The Latin alphabet was designed by Croatian linguist Ljudevit Gaj in 1830, Serbian is a standardized variety of Serbo-Croatian, a Slavic language, of the South Slavic subgroup. Other standardized forms of Serbo-Croatian are Bosnian, Croatian, and Montenegrin and it has lower intelligibility with the Eastern South Slavic languages Bulgarian and Macedonian, than with Slovene. The 2011 census show that 42. 88% still declare Serbian to be their native language, Standard Serbian language uses both Cyrillic and Latin script. Even in official government documents this constitutional requirement is rarely enforced, Serbian is a rare example of synchronic digraphia, a situation where all literate members of a society have two interchangeable writing systems available to them. Media and publishers typically select one alphabet or another, for example, the public broadcaster, Radio Television of Serbia, predominantly uses the Cyrillic script whereas the privately run broadcasters, like RTV Pink, predominantly use the Latin script. A survey from 2014 showed that 47% of the Serbian population favors the Latin alphabet whereas 36% favors the Cyrillic one and these are the tenses of the indicative mood. Apart from the mood, there is also the imperative mood. The conditional mood has two more tenses, the first conditional and the second conditional, Serbian has active and passive voice. As for the verb forms, Serbian has one infinitive. Most Serbian words are of native Slavic lexical stock, tracing back to the Proto-Slavic language, there are many loanwords from different languages, reflecting cultural interaction throughout history. Notable loanwords were borrowed from Greek, Latin, Italian, Turkish, Hungarian, Russian, Serbian literature emerged in the Middle Ages, and included such works as Miroslavljevo jevanđelje in 1192 and Dušanov zakonik in 1349. In the mid-15th century, Serbia was conquered by the Ottoman Empire, however, some of the greatest literary works in Serbian come from this time, in the form of oral literature, the most notable form being Serbian epic poetry. The epic poems were written down in the 19th century, and preserved in oral tradition up to the 1950s
2.
Old Church Slavonic
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Old Church Slavonic, also known as Old Church Slavic, was the first Slavic literary language. It is thought to have been based primarily on the dialect of the 9th century Byzantine Slavs living in the Province of Thessalonica, as the oldest attested Slavic language, OCS provides important evidence for the features of Proto-Slavic, the reconstructed common ancestor of all Slavic languages. The language was standardized for the mission of the two apostles to Great Moravia in 863, the language and the alphabet were taught at the Great Moravian Academy and were used for government and religious documents and books between 863 and 885. The texts written during this phase contain characteristics of the Slavic vernaculars in Great Moravia, in 885, the use of Old Church Slavonic in Great Moravia was prohibited by Pope Stephen V in favour of Latin. Students of the two apostles, who were expelled from Great Moravia in 886, brought the Glagolitic alphabet to the First Bulgarian Empire, there it was taught at two literary schools, the Preslav Literary School and the Ohrid Literary School. The Glagolitic alphabet was used at both schools, though the Cyrillic script was developed early on at the Preslav Literary School where it superseded Glagolitic. The texts written during this era exhibit certain linguistic features of the vernaculars of the First Bulgarian Empire and these local varieties are collectively known as the Church Slavonic language. In Bosnia was preserved the local Bosnian Cyrillic alphabet, while in Croatia a variant of the Glagolitic alphabet was preserved, see Early Cyrillic alphabet for a detailed description of the script and information about the sounds it originally expressed. For Old Church Slavonic, the segments are reconstructible. The sounds are given in Slavic transliterated form rather than in IPA, as the realisation is uncertain. The letter щ denoted different sounds in different dialects and is not shown in the table, in Bulgaria, it represented the sequence /ʃt/, and it is normally transliterated as št for that reason. Farther west and north, it was probably /c/ or /tɕ/ like in modern Macedonian, Torlakian and Serbian/Croatian, /dz/ appears mostly in early texts, becoming /z/ later on. The distinction between l, n and r, on one hand, and palatal l, n and r, when it is, it is shown by a kamora diacritic over the letter. Accent is not indicated in writing and must be inferred from later languages, the pronunciation of yat ě differed by area. In Bulgaria it was an open vowel, commonly reconstructed as /æ/. The yer vowels ĭ and ŭ are often called ultrashort and were lower, more centralised and shorter than their counterparts i and they disappeared in most positions in the word, already sporadically in the earliest texts but more frequently later on. They also tended to merge with other vowels, particularly ĭ with e and ŭ with o, the exact articulation of the nasal vowels is unclear because different areas tend to merge them with different vowels. ę is occasionally seen to merge with e or ě in South Slavic, ǫ generally merges with u or o, but in Bulgaria, ǫ was apparently unrounded and eventually merged with ŭ
3.
Cyrillic script
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The Cyrillic script /sᵻˈrɪlɪk/ is a writing system used for various alphabets across eastern Europe and north and central Asia. It is based on the Early Cyrillic, which was developed in the First Bulgarian Empire during the 9th century AD at the Preslav Literary School. As of 2011, around 252 million people in Eurasia use it as the alphabet for their national languages. With the accession of Bulgaria to the European Union on 1 January 2007, Cyrillic became the official script of the European Union, following the Latin script. Cyrillic is derived from the Greek uncial script, augmented by letters from the older Glagolitic alphabet and these additional letters were used for Old Church Slavonic sounds not found in Greek. The script is named in honor of the two Byzantine brothers, Saints Cyril and Methodius, who created the Glagolitic alphabet earlier on, modern scholars believe that Cyrillic was developed and formalized by early disciples of Cyril and Methodius. In the early 18th century the Cyrillic script used in Russia was heavily reformed by Peter the Great, the new form of letters became closer to the Latin alphabet, several archaic letters were removed and several letters were personally designed by Peter the Great. West European typography culture was also adopted, Cyrillic script spread throughout the East and South Slavic territories, being adopted for writing local languages, such as Old East Slavic. Its adaptation to local languages produced a number of Cyrillic alphabets, capital and lowercase letters were not distinguished in old manuscripts. Yeri was originally a ligature of Yer and I, iotation was indicated by ligatures formed with the letter І, Ꙗ, Ѥ, Ю, Ѩ, Ѭ. Sometimes different letters were used interchangeably, for example И = І = Ї, there were also commonly used ligatures like ѠТ = Ѿ. The letters also had values, based not on Cyrillic alphabetical order. The early Cyrillic alphabet is difficult to represent on computers, many of the letterforms differed from modern Cyrillic, varied a great deal in manuscripts, and changed over time. Few fonts include adequate glyphs to reproduce the alphabet, the Unicode 5.1 standard, released on 4 April 2008, greatly improves computer support for the early Cyrillic and the modern Church Slavonic language. In Microsoft Windows, Segoe UI is notable for having complete support for the archaic Cyrillic letters since Windows 8, the development of Cyrillic typography passed directly from the medieval stage to the late Baroque, without a Renaissance phase as in Western Europe. Late Medieval Cyrillic letters show a tendency to be very tall and narrow. Peter the Great, Czar of Russia, mandated the use of westernized letter forms in the early 18th century, over time, these were largely adopted in the other languages that use the script. The development of some Cyrillic computer typefaces from Latin ones has also contributed to the visual Latinization of Cyrillic type, Cyrillic uppercase and lowercase letter forms are not as differentiated as in Latin typography
4.
Serbia
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Serbia, officially the Republic of Serbia, is a sovereign state situated at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Pannonian Plain and the central Balkans. Relative to its territory, it is a diverse country distinguished by a transitional character, situated along cultural, geographic, climatic. Serbia numbers around 7 million residents, and its capital, Belgrade, following the Slavic migrations to the Balkans from the 6th century onwards, Serbs established several states in the early Middle Ages. The Serbian Kingdom obtained recognition by Rome and the Byzantine Empire in 1217, in the early 19th century, the Serbian Revolution established the nation-state as the regions first constitutional monarchy, which subsequently expanded its territory. During the breakup of Yugoslavia, Serbia formed a union with Montenegro which dissolved peacefully in 2006, in 2008 the parliament of the province of Kosovo unilaterally declared independence, with mixed responses from the international community. Serbia is a member of organizations such as the UN, CoE, OSCE, PfP, BSEC. An EU membership candidate since 2012, Serbia has been negotiating its EU accession since January 2014, the country is acceding to the WTO and is a militarily neutral state. Serbia is an income economy with dominant service sector, followed by the industrial sector. The country ranks high on the Social Progress Index as well as the Global Peace Index, relatively high on the Human Development Index, located at the crossroads between Central and Southern Europe, Serbia is found in the Balkan peninsula and the Pannonian Plain. Serbia lies between latitudes 41° and 47° N, and longitudes 18° and 23° E. The country covers a total of 88,361 km2, which places it at 113th place in the world, with Kosovo excluded, the area is 77,474 km2. Its total border length amounts to 2,027 km, all of Kosovos border with Albania, Macedonia and Montenegro are under control of the Kosovo border police. The Pannonian Plain covers the third of the country while the easternmost tip of Serbia extends into the Wallachian Plain. The terrain of the part of the country, with the region of Šumadija at its heart. Mountains dominate the third of Serbia. Dinaric Alps stretch in the west and the southwest, following the flow of the rivers Drina, the Carpathian Mountains and Balkan Mountains stretch in a north–south direction in eastern Serbia. Ancient mountains in the southeast corner of the country belong to the Rilo-Rhodope Mountain system, elevation ranges from the Midžor peak of the Balkan Mountains at 2,169 metres to the lowest point of just 17 metres near the Danube river at Prahovo. The largest lake is Đerdap Lake and the longest river passing through Serbia is the Danube, the climate of Serbia is under the influences of the landmass of Eurasia and the Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea
5.
Limestone
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Limestone is a sedimentary rock, composed mainly of skeletal fragments of marine organisms such as coral, forams and molluscs. Its major materials are the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of calcium carbonate, about 10% of sedimentary rocks are limestones. The solubility of limestone in water and weak acid solutions leads to karst landscapes, most cave systems are through limestone bedrock. The first geologist to distinguish limestone from dolomite was Belsazar Hacquet in 1778, like most other sedimentary rocks, most limestone is composed of grains. Most grains in limestone are skeletal fragments of organisms such as coral or foraminifera. Other carbonate grains comprising limestones are ooids, peloids, intraclasts and these organisms secrete shells made of aragonite or calcite, and leave these shells behind when they die. Limestone often contains variable amounts of silica in the form of chert or siliceous skeletal fragment, some limestones do not consist of grains at all, and are formed completely by the chemical precipitation of calcite or aragonite, i. e. travertine. Secondary calcite may be deposited by supersaturated meteoric waters and this produces speleothems, such as stalagmites and stalactites. Another form taken by calcite is oolitic limestone, which can be recognized by its granular appearance, the primary source of the calcite in limestone is most commonly marine organisms. Some of these organisms can construct mounds of rock known as reefs, below about 3,000 meters, water pressure and temperature conditions cause the dissolution of calcite to increase nonlinearly, so limestone typically does not form in deeper waters. Limestones may also form in lacustrine and evaporite depositional environments, calcite can be dissolved or precipitated by groundwater, depending on several factors, including the water temperature, pH, and dissolved ion concentrations. Calcite exhibits a characteristic called retrograde solubility, in which it becomes less soluble in water as the temperature increases. Impurities will cause limestones to exhibit different colors, especially with weathered surfaces, Limestone may be crystalline, clastic, granular, or massive, depending on the method of formation. Crystals of calcite, quartz, dolomite or barite may line small cavities in the rock, when conditions are right for precipitation, calcite forms mineral coatings that cement the existing rock grains together, or it can fill fractures. Travertine is a banded, compact variety of limestone formed along streams, particularly there are waterfalls. Calcium carbonate is deposited where evaporation of the leaves a solution supersaturated with the chemical constituents of calcite. Tufa, a porous or cellular variety of travertine, is found near waterfalls, coquina is a poorly consolidated limestone composed of pieces of coral or shells. During regional metamorphism that occurs during the building process, limestone recrystallizes into marble
6.
Varvarin
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Varvarin is a town and municipality located in the Rasina District of the central Serbia. Population of the town is 2,133, and population of the municipality is 17,772 and it is part of the Rasina District of Serbia. The town is notable as the site of an 1810 battle during the Russo-Turkish War between the Ottoman Empire and a combined Russian and Serbian army. A statue to the Russian commander Joseph Cornelius ORourke and his men was erected in 1910 on the centenary of their victory in the battle, from 1929 to 1941, Varvarin was part of the Morava Banovina of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. During the Kosovo war and the break-up of Yugoslavia in the late 20th century, the area around the bridge was filled with hundreds of people celebrating an Orthodox holiday in and around the nearby church, a market place, and a fairground. Ten civilians were killed and 17 severely injured, in two attack waves a few minutes apart, most of the casualties occurred in the second wave, when people had rushed to the bridge to help those wounded in the initial wave. Some survivors were left with permanent disabilities, To this date, in a public statement made by NATO spokesman Jamie Shea on 31 May 1999, he declared the Varvarin bridge a legitimate military target. No explanations or other statements have been issued by NATO since then, the airstrike gave rise to a lawsuit against the German government. The case was decided against the Serbian plaintiffs, but it is under appeal to Germanys highest court, according to the 2011 census results, the municipality of Varvarin has a population of 17,966 inhabitants. Ravne na Koroškem, Slovenia List of places in Serbia Official website
7.
Morava Valley
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The Morava Valley, is a general term which in its widest sense marks valleys of any of three Morava rivers in Serbia, the West Morava, the South Morava and the Great Morava. In the narrow sense, the term is applied only to the Great Morava Valley, the Serbian term follows the general manner of coining river valley names in Serbian using the prefix po- and suffix -je, meaning literally along the Morava. The West Morava Valley is the valley of the West Morava and it is the southernmost Peripannonic region of Serbia. It is parallel, latitudinally elongated, in the west-to-east direction, opposed to the meridian, south-to-north direction of South Morava Valley and Great Morava Valley. It occupies and area of 5,220 square kilometers and generally corresponds to the valley of the West Morava River and sections of its watershed around the rivers of Skrapež, Đetinja, sections include, The Požega Depression - starting point of the West Morava Valley. Tašti field is a place where rivers of Skrapež, Đetinja, Depression is located between the mountains of Krstac on the east, Blagaja on the south, Crna Kosa on the north-west and Loret on the north-east. Depression is known for frequent fogs, due to the abundance in water sources, Central settlement is the town of Požega and smaller settlements are Lučani and Gorobilje. The Ovčar-Kablar Gorge - a narrow of the West Morava valley, the gorge is a meandering and 15 kilometers long. Epigynous in nature, it is a crucial for the genesis of the entire West Morava Valley, the gorge is a location of Ovčar Spa and 10 Serbian Orthodox monasteries, which is why the gorge has been nicknamed Serbian Mount Athos. There are two electrical power plants with artificial lakes, Ovčar and Međuvršje. The Čačak-Kraljevo Depression - the largest tectonic-erosive depression of all in the valley and it covers an area of 270 square kilometers and is elongated for 40 kilometers. Despite being this long, it is located only three mountains, Kotlenik on the north and Jelica and Stolovi on the south. West Morava receives many tributaries in this area, apart from Ibar river, the longest tributary to West Morava, and Gruža, most of them are short and include Dičina, Lađevačka reka, Ribnica, etc. Main settlements are the towns of Čačak, the most populous settlement in the entire West Morava Valley, other smaller settlements include Preljina, Mrčajevci, Ribnica, Adrani, Konarevo, Žiča, etc. most of them suburbs of either Čačak or Kraljevo. The Vrnjci Depression - widening at the confluence of the small Vrnjačka and Lipovačka rivers, area, located between the mountains of Gledić on the north and Goč on the south, is rich in mineral springs. The most popular Serbian mineral spa, Vrnjačka Banja is located in the depression, other settlements include Vrnjci, Gračac and Novo Selo. The Trstenik Depression - depression centered around the town of Trstenik, agricultural area, other settlements include larger villages of Medveđa and Velika Drenova. The Kruševac Depression - final section of the West Morava Valley, itself, extends into the south in the valley of the Rasina River and it is bounded by the Jastrebac mountain on the south
8.
National Museum of Serbia
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The National Museum of Serbia is the largest and oldest museum in Serbia and former Yugoslavia. It is located in the zone of Belgrade on a square area between the Republic Square, former Theatre Square, and three streets Čika Ljubina, Vasina and Laze Pačua. Its main facade is on the Republic Square, the museum was established on May 10,1844. Since it was founded, its collection has grown to over 400,000 objects, currently, the museum is closed for renovation. The National Museum of Serbia building was declared a Monument of Culture of Great Importance in 1979, before erection of the building of the National Museum on this place was famous tavern called Dardanelles, meeting point of cultural and artistic elite of the time. Demolition of the old tavern signified the beginning of the transformation of The Republic Square, building has constructed according to design of architects Andra Stevanović and Nikola Nestorović after a competition on which they received the first prize. It was one of the first building in which was used some form of reinforced concrete for the foundation, actually during the digging foundation trenches, the various pits, wells and basements were encountered because of the proximity of the former Istanbul Gate. Newly built two-storeyed building was a palace of its time. The greatest attention was given to the staircase and the hall with bank windows which as the basic premises of a bank was given a secondary importance. Almost three decades later, a development of Mortgage Bank, influenced a need for a reconstruction of the building. The extension was made without competition by architect Vojin Petrović, who designed the added wing, during World War II Mortgage Bank building was bombed and the central part with the dome was destroyed. After the war, the building got a new purpose when one of the most important national cultural institution moved in. Since its establishing during the Constitutionalist, until the end of the Second World War the National Museum changed location for several times. At a beginning, it was placed in Captain Miša’s building, at the same time the museum art collections were seized and looted by the invaders. During the interwar period the Museum didn’t get its own building, the museum was located in a rented private house in Knez Milos Street 58. In 1935 the New Royal Palacе became the residence of the museum, subsequently it was renamed into the Museum of Prince Paul which consisted of Historical Museum and the Museum of Contemporary Art. In 1948 the New Palace was restored and became seat of the Republic. For that purpose the Museum was transferred into a building of the former Stock Exchange on the Student Square, the first architectural competition for the proper National Museum building, planned to be on Tašmajdan was announced the following year
