Filip Visnjic

Filip Višnjić (1767-1834) is one of the most famous Serbian guslars and creators of Serbian folk songs.

He was born in Majevica, in the village of Trnova, in a part of the village known as Vilića guvno. Blinded by smallpox as a child, Visnjic became a professional singer. With his fiddle in his hands, he traveled throughout the Bosnian "pashaluq", and further, through Herzegovina and Montenegro, all the way to Skadra, wherever the audience gladly listened to him and his fiddle.
In addition to being the editor of old songs, Filip Visnjic was also the creator of new songs. Thirteen songs "from Karadjordj's time", together with several other less important songs by other singers, make up the last, insurgent cycle of the Serbian folk epic.

Associating with insurgent dukes and insurgents, he collected material for his poetry and became a kind of epic chronicler of the glorious insurgent era. He lived mostly near the Drina battlefield, and sometimes he was in the very fire of the clash.

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Knez Ivo od Semberije

Ivan Knežević, better known to the people as Prince Ivo of Semberija, was born in the village of Popovi near Bijeljina in 1760. Along with Filip Višnjić, he is one of the most important historical figures in Semberija.

The first Serbian uprising in 1804 found Prince Ivo in the position of prince-prince of all 12 villages of the Bijeljina Nahija, and at that time (1806) an event took place that made him a symbol of charity and patriotism. Prince Ivo gave the entire property to the Turks in order to buy Serbian slaves captured in insurgent Serbia.

In 1809, Prince Ivo became the leader of the Serbian insurgents in Semberija, who participated in the realization of Karadjordj's "offensive plan" for the spread of the uprising and the liberation of Bosnia, Herzegovina and other Serbian territories in the Balkans. The "offensive plan" failed due to the sudden breakthrough of the Turks into Pomoravlje, all the insurgent armies moved to Serbia, and Prince Ivo moved to Serbia with the Sember insurgents.

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Sofka Nikolić

Older people from Bijeljina and Semberija are happy to remember who Sofka Nikolić was, who died in Bijeljina in June 1982. This woman moved into legend during her lifetime, because as an exceptional singer, along with the famous Italian Enrico Caruso, she was the first woman to win a gold record in Europe for the production of a record in over one hundred thousand pieces.

She was the unsurpassed "queen of sevdah", the megastar of the Seat Stages, a beauty that made people lose their heads and fabulous riches. She was considered a miracle by the singer, who was showered with a hurricane of applause at many famous concert halls, from Paris' Olympia to Belgrade's Skadarlija.

This uncrowned "queen of sevdah" and romance spread the beauty of our song throughout Europe on the concert podiums of European capitals and places where she was a guest.

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Milenko Atanackovic

Milenko Atanacković was born in 1875 in Šid, in a trading family. Immediately after the Austro-Hungarian occupation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, in 1878 his parents moved to Bijeljina where they opened a small shop.

Milenko showed his sense of painting and expressed talent very early, in elementary school and according to everything he showed, it was obvious that he would be a good painter if he further developed and educated his talent. Guided by this, his parents sent him to further education after primary school.

In 1895, the young Milenko Atanacković graduated in Vienna from the preparatory school for the Academy of Painting with the famous professor of painting Schauer, and after that, he spent almost a year in the painting workshop of Paja Jovanović, where he acquired the basis and necessary education to study at the Academy of Painting. in Vienna, where he enrolled in 1896. That painting academy was famous in Europe and an unattainable dream of many young painters. During the first year of study, he received a scholarship from Matica Srpska, and after successfully completing the Academy, he also attended a painting specialization for three years.

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A town in the heart of Semberija. A city of good people, good hosts!