HIS GRANDFATHER WAS A FAMOUS PAINTER: These are lesser-known facts about Jovan Sterija Popović!

On this day in 1806, Jovan Sterija Popović, the father of Serbian drama and one of our greatest comedy writers, was born in Vršac.

Almost everything is known about his creative work – that he was the creator of Kir Janja, Pokondirena tikva, Ženidba i udadba, Zle žene and Rodoljubci, that he was a lawyer, Minister of Education, and the initiator of the founding of today’s Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, the National Library, the National Museum…

These are some lesser-known facts about this man from Vršac, who, along with two of his fellow citizens (but not contemporaries), was ranked among the 100 most significant Serbs.

Jovan Sterija Popović was born into a merchant family, as the third child. Physically, he was sickly and weak, with an atrophied left arm, which is why he did not participate in children’s games that required strength, but instead sat on the sidelines and observed what was happening. Even then, he acquired the ability to notice the behavior of his peers and fellow citizens, which he later described flawlessly in his works.

The nickname Sterija, by which he is recognizable, is actually the name of his father, who, as a student in elementary school, inserted it between his first and last name to distinguish himself from the many boys who had the same name. It was he who served as inspiration for the writer for the character of the stingy Kir Janja.

The writer’s maternal grandfather was the famous painter Nikola Nešković, a painter and artist with whom modern Serbian painting began.

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In addition to being a skilled comedy writer and playwright, Sterija was also considered the best poet of his time. He is the author of the most pessimistic collection in our literature “Davorje”, while, on the other hand, his poem “Ustaj, ustaj, Srbine, ustaj na oružje” during the Hungarian Uprising of 1848 was something like the French Marseillaise for Serbs in Hungary.

In his youth, he was engaged to Marta Peša, the daughter of a prominent owner of a silk factory in Vršac. That love, however, did not end in marriage, as Marta was killed by a lightning strike. This so disappointed young Sterija that he lost faith in love. However, at the age of 43, he entered into a “reasonable marriage” with the nine-year-older widow Jelena Manojlović.

After only six years of marriage, Sterija, so sickly and disappointed because he had been expelled from Serbia due to disagreements with the then politicians, died in his native Vršac, which was then part of Austria-Hungary. He was only 50 years old. Then he experienced perhaps the greatest of many injustices – his wife Jelena buried him in the same tomb where her first husband Joakim Manojlović rests.

Sterija, therefore, also shares a tombstone with Manojlović, with the front side, which faces the cemetery church, dedicated to him, and the back to Jelena’s first husband. This makes this monument unique in the City Cemetery in Vršac.

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Source: Novosti, Photo: J.J.Baljak/Arhiva