January 27th is a special day in Serbia – it is the church and school celebration of Savindan, named after the first Serbian patriarch and great educator Rastko Nemanjić, better known by his spiritual name Saint Sava.

As befits, the Solemn Academy began with the hymn to Saint Sava.

Then followed the story of Saint Sava and his introduction of the institution of celebration (slava) as a bloodless sacrifice, but also a charitable act, because of which in Serbia there have never been starvation.

The institution of Christian Celebration makes the Serbian people unique in the Christian World. In 2014, the International Committee for the Protection of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Paris decided to include Serbian glory in the world list of intangible heritage of humanity.

In the next scene, the students demonstrated what constitutes the essence of a celebration and how it is celebrated.

Then we heard a poetic address to Saint Sava from the pen of Slobodan Rakitić:

With the story of the Nemanjić lineage, Tsar Dušan’s pine tree and the monastery of the Holy Archangels near Uroševac – destroyed after the aggression against Serbia and the seizure of Kosovo and Metokhia – we preserve the memory until the reconstruction that will soon have to follow.

Many poets sang about the Serbian tradition and about Kosovo and Metoкhia. If Kosovo and Metoкhia were really Albanian, they would have poets who sing about it. But they never have them. This time we were able to listen to ‘Address to Our Lady of Three Arms’, by Ljubomir Simović, ‘Debt to Rastko Nemanjić’, by Brana Crnčević, ‘Before the Icon of St. Sava’, by Jovan Jovanović Zmaj and ‘On the Origin’, by the great Desanka Maksimović.

Once again, a chorus in honor of the motherland – Oh Serbia!

In 2017, the UNESCO committee made a decision to register another intangible asset from Serbia. Kolo (‘the Circle’, folk dance) has become the most alive form of Serbian cultural heritage. As part of family and private gatherings, the performance of Kolo is a joint activity in which all members of the household participate, from the youngest to the oldest, and the skill of playing Kolo is passed down from generation to generation — as language… as Slava (Celebration)… as Poems… The folklore group of the Smederevo High School showed us what it looks like.

It was the final act of this year’s Solemn St Sava Academy. Finally, we present the participants who are responsible for preserving the tradition and memory of the spiritual wealth that Serbia treasures: