Filip Visnjic

After the collapse of the First Serbian Uprising, Filip Višnjić moved to Srem and settled in the village of Grku, today's Višnjićevo, which is named after him. He lived in this village in a similar way as before the uprising, but in completely different social circumstances - he continued to sing to audiences in villages and towns throughout Srem, Slavonia, Backa, Banat. But now his repertoire is different from what it was before the Serbian revolution - in it the main place was occupied by songs about the Serbian revolt that he sang himself.

We divide Višnjić's poems into two groups - poems about events that he did not personally attend, but stories about these events were passed down from generation to generation and poems about events that he witnessed personally. The most important songs in the first group are: The beginning of the revolt against Dahija, The Battle of Čokešina, The Battle of Salaš and The Battle of Mišar. Visnjic achieved the greatest achievement in the great song The Beginning of the Rebellion against Dahija, which is the basis of his insurgent epic. In this song, as in the others, one can feel the untouchability of the people's strength, the unbearableness of the subversive, revolutionary momentum that, like a whirlwind, breaks down all the obstacles in front of it.

The following stand out from the second group of songs: Boj na Loznici, Knez Ivan Knezevic, Milos Stoicevic and Meho Orugdzic and Hvala Cupiceva. The songs from the first group are artistically more upgraded, first of all "The Beginning of the Rebellion against Dahija" and the first part of the song "Battle of Mišar", while in the second group the song of special value and significance about Prince Ivo Knežević stands out.

Filip Višnjić is, in addition to Prince Ivo of Semberija, the holder of the shield on the coat of arms of the city of Bijeljina, and after him is one of the three greatest awards of the city of Bijeljina - Medal "Filip Visnjic" awarded for generally recognized work and works of special importance for The city in the field of artistic work and creativity, education, science and culture in general. The Gymnasium and the Library in Bijeljina are named after him, in front of which there is a monument to Visnjic.

The Gymnasium also houses a large bronze relief with a representation of Filip Višnjić who, sitting on a tripod, sings to a woman with a child in her arms and a groom with a bride. The relief was donated to the Gymnasium by Mihailo Pupin on the occasion of the centenary of Visnjic's death. In the letter that accompanied the relief, Pupin said, among other things: "I met Visnjic's songs in my childhood and no memory from that time is more deeply engraved in my soul than that memory. Visnjic's name and his songs should are engraved early in the soul of our youth, because those songs breathe with the purest spirit, so I think that the plaque with his face should be placed in the high school that will bear his name. " The relief is the work of one of the greatest Yugoslav sculptors at the time, the Slovene Rudolf Valdec, who himself was delighted with Filip's poems.

In honor of the poet, one of the two largest cultural events in Bijeljina is held - Visnjic's days, and the Serbian Homer is one of the many links between the city of Bijeljina and the neighboring municipalities of Sid and Ugljevik.

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