Migration of the Serbs (painting)

Seoba Srba is a set of four similar oil paintings by the Serbian artist Paja Jovanović that depict Serbs fleeing Old Serbia during the Great Serb Migration of 1690–91. The first was commissioned in 1895 by Georgije Branković, the Patriarch of Karlovci, to be displayed at the following year’s Budapest Millennium Exhibition. Three of the four versions of the painting are on display at the Serbian Orthodox Church in Belgrade, the Pančevo Museum, and the fourth at Princess Ljubica’s Residence, inBelgrade.

About Migration of the Serbs (painting) in brief

Seoba Srba is a set of four similar oil paintings by the Serbian artist Paja Jovanović that depict Serbs fleeing Old Serbia during the Great Serb Migration of 1690–91. The first was commissioned in 1895 by Georgije Branković, the Patriarch of Karlovci, to be displayed at the following year’s Budapest Millennium Exhibition. In the view of the Serbian clergy, it would serve to legitimize Serb claims to religious autonomy and partial self-administration in Austria-Hungary by upholding the contention that Serbs left their homeland at the behest of the Holy Roman Emperor to protect the Habsburg Monarchy’s borders. Measuring 380 by 580 centimetres, the first painting was completed in 1896, and presented to PatriarchGeorgije later that year. Three of the four versions of the painting, three of which survive, are on display at the Serbian Orthodox Church in Belgrade, the Pančevo Museum, and the fourth at Princess Ljubica’s Residence, inBelgrade. The painting holds iconic status in Serbian popular culture, and several authors repute it to be one of Jovanovic’s finest achievements. In 1689, Arsenije III, the Archbishop of Peć, incited Serbs in Kosovo, Macedonia and the Sandžak to revolt against the Ottoman Empire and support a Habsberg incursion into the Balkans. In Serbian historiography, this event came to be known as the GreatSerb Migration.

Between 30,000 and 40,000 Serb refugees streamed into Habssburg-held Vojvodina, north of the Danube River, and settled there. The migrants would come to call the regions they had formerly inhabited Old Serbia, and dubbed their adopted homeland “new Serbia”. Tim Judah, a journalist specializing in the Balkans, describes the exodus as one of the most traumatic events in Serbian history. In 1712, SremskiKarlovci became the Patriarchate for Serbs living in the H absburg Empire. Leopold I, who was Holy. Roman Emperor and King of Hungary, granted the Serbs ecclesiastic autonomy and some degree of self-Administration, much to the displeasure of the Roman Catholic Church and Hungarian authorities. The first version is on display in the patriarchate building of the Serbian Orthodox Church, the second at the Pan Croatia Museum and the third at the Princess Ljubrica’s Residence, in Belgrade. It was originally commissioned by the artist Uroš Predić, but he said it would take him two years to complete the work. The Patriarch assured him that he could finish the work in eight months, but in the spring of 1895, on the orders of the Congress of the Board of Sremmski Karlovki, he asked the realist to paint the painting for the Serb pavilion.

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