Nenadovic's Bicentennial Celebration Set for Brankovina

Brankovina is one of the few places in Serbia where family history can be read step by step, from the church complex to the old school and the memorials that all carry the same surname. Ljubomir Nenadovic was born there in 1826, and two centuries later, by a decision made in Valjevo, it is Brankovina that will host the main celebration of his anniversary.

The decision came from the Committee for Marking 200 Years Since the Birth of Ljubomir Nenadovic, at its founding session chaired by Culture Minister Nikola Selakovic. Until now it was known only that the anniversary would be marked, not where, when, or who stood behind the program.

“The organizing committee I chaired today has decided to hold a series of events and celebrations, with the most important ones taking place at the end of September this year,” Selakovic said after the session.

The date was chosen with precision, and that choice needs a note. Reference works list September 14, 1826, as Nenadovic’s birthday, but that date follows the old calendar. Under today’s reckoning, the 200th anniversary falls twelve days later.

“On the evening of September 26, when 200 years will have passed since the birth of čika Ljuba Nenadovic, we will have the opportunity, working with the Valjevo city administration, the Ljubomir Nenadovic Central Library, and the National Theatre from Belgrade, to organize a dignified central celebration, worthy of čika Ljuba, to be held in Brankovina,” the minister said.

The list of organizers says more about the format than any announcement could. When a city administration, a central library, and Belgrade’s National Theatre all appear in the same lineup, the evening program in Brankovina is unlikely to consist only of speeches.

What is happening throughout September

The whole month is planned as a series of scientific, literary, and artistic events, not only in Valjevo but across Serbia. The Valjevo City Gallery will open an exhibition by the State Archives of Serbia devoted to Nenadovic, and from there the exhibition keeps moving:

• The State Archives of Serbia in Belgrade
• Banja Luka and Trebinje, in Republika Srpska
• Montenegro
• The gallery of the Serbian Orthodox Church municipality in Trieste

That route is not an administrative choice but a biography turned into an itinerary. Nenadovic spent a significant part of his life in Montenegro and witnessed the final years of Petar II Petrovic Njegos, while Trieste had been for centuries home to a Serbian trading and church community on the Adriatic. In other words, the exhibition follows the same path the writer once took, a fitting way to honor an author of travel writing rather than gathering everyone in a single hall.

Why the Nenadovic family matters

Ljubomir Nenadovic was a writer, diplomat, and minister of education, but in Brankovina his name never stands alone. His father, prota Mateja Nenadovic, was the first president of the Governing Council (Praviteljstvujusci Sovjet), Serbia’s first government. His grandfather, knez Aleksa Nenadovic, was killed in the Slaughter of the Knezes in 1804, in Valjevo itself.

The jubilee naturally reaches beyond literature. The town that in 1804 was the site of a Nenadovic’s execution is, in 2026, the town from which a celebration in his grandson’s honor is announced, and the distance between those two sentences spans the whole of Serbia’s nineteenth century.

The session was also attended by the mayor of Valjevo, the directors of the State Archives of Serbia, the National Library of Serbia, and the National Museum of Serbia, the head of the National Theatre from Belgrade, and the director of the Ljubomir Nenadovic Central Library in Valjevo.

A detailed program has not yet been released. When it is, the first test will not be how many events were announced, but how many are open to the public that arrives in Brankovina without an invitation.