Branko Radičević was born in Slavonski Brod on 15 March 1824. Aleksije was his baptismal name before he changed it to Branko, a more common Serbian name. He finished high school in Sremski Karlovci, the setting of his best poems. He studied in Vienna. In 1847 Radičević's first book of poetry appeared, announcing a new era in Serbian poetry. He went to Serbia but soon returned to Vienna to study medicine, where he was surrounded by Serb intellectuals, either living in the city or passing through, including his lifelong friend Bogoboj Atanacković, Vuk Karadžić, Đuro Daničić, Milica Stojadinović-Srpkinja, Petar II Petrović-Njegoš, and others[citation needed]. Radičević's second collection of poetry was a bit weaker than the first[citation needed]. He wrote after this, but never recovered his early raptures, except among the very latest of all his poems, the enchanting welcome to death, in this twenty-ninth year. Radičević gave expression to simple emotion such as joy on a sunny morning or in a fishing boat, pleasure derived from flowers, the exuberance of school youth, patriotic fervor, and love's joys and sorrows. His youthful zeal is also expressed in unabashed eroticism and in the exultation of wine, women and song, according to critic Jovan Skerlić, perhaps the best authority on Branko Radičević. More importantly, he was the first to write poetry in the simple language of the common folk[citation needed]. He attempted to recreate rhythm of the folk song, thus supporting the belief of Vuk Karadžić that even poetry can be written in the language of peasants and shepherds."[citation needed] Radičević proved to be very important to Vuk Karadžić's victory because he gathered his generation of young writers and poets around the cause of language reform. His work was described as the first dew of Serbian poetry in the folk language of Vuk Karadžić. Skerlić writes in his History of New Serbian Literature that Branko Radičević had a significant influence on Jovan Jovanović Zmaj, Bogoboj Atanacković, Kosta Ruvarac, Jovan Grčić Milenko, and other Serbian poets and writers of the period.
He died of tuberculosis in Vienna 1853 and in 1883 his remains were buried in Stražilovo. Radičević's early death was a great loss to Serbian letters; for he was by far the most promising of the younger lyric poets of his time.Djački rastanak (The Parting of Schoolfriends) is the best and most popular of his works. Nothing is lovelier in this remarkable poem than those passages in which he pictures the life of college students. For a time he gives himself up to the fleeting impressions of the moment. He greets the gently rolling hills and coolness of the forest and delights in the view of the Danube valley below with its widening rivers and vistas. In Put (A Journey), a magnanimous allegory, Branko has shown unusual skill in satirical nomenclature by stigmatizing Vuk Stefanović Karadžić's adversaries who disapproved the reforms of language and orthography. His lyrics display extreme tenderness, beauty, originality and delicacy of fancy. Some of his shorter pieces are adapted to national melodies and are sung by young people all over the country. His poetry may be small in bulk and slight in body, but it endures, and will endure, in Serbian literature, because it is the embodiment of the spirit of immortal youth. It has been said that Branko is the poet of spring, and those who have not read him before the meridian of their lives may abandon all hope of penetrating him when the snows of time are on their heads.
Interestingly enough, Radičević left some unfinished work. He left at least one text meriting close attention in any inquiry into Slavic Romantic irony, the ambitious unfinished poem of 1477 lines, composed in 1849, and featuring two titles: Ludi Branko (Branko the Fool) and Bezimena (Unnamed). Seventy-four years later, literary critics Pavle Popović and his brother Bogdan Popović found that in this poetic fragment "there is no poetry whatsoever" and that it "merits no compliment of any kind." Comparisons with European phenomena lead Serbian intellectuals and publicists such as Tihomir Ostojić, Ilija M. Petrović, Božidar Kovačević and Vladeta Vuković to reduce it to an imitation or at best thorough influence of Byron. Only after the centenary of Radičević's death, began the re-evaluation of Bezimena in essays by Salko Nezečić, Ljubiša Rajković and others. Milan Dedinac and Miodrag Popović, in his 1969 treatise, which is the first true scholarly study of the fragment since Ostojić's monograph of 1918, both move Bezimena away from Byron and Romanticism and toward Pushkin's Eugene Onegin and Vissarion Belinsky's essay of 1843 about Pushkin and Realism.

He was best known across Yugoslavia and the Soviet bloc for his influential writings. At a time when no one could have foreseen anything but a bright future for the poet, he died prematurely in 1961 at the age of 27. He was found hanging from a tree in Zagreb, Croatia. This controversial incident was officially recorded as a suicide.

In his one-line poem "Epitaph," he writes "Ubi me prejaka reč" ("I was killed by a word too strong") almost sensing his premature end of life. During the last years of his life, he published five books of poetry

(I Wake Her in Vain, Death against Death, The Origin of Hope, Fire and Nothing, The Shining Blood, criticism, and translations of the French Symbolists and Russian poet Osip Mandelstam. His influence still continues.

From a poem Jugoslavija, he writes -- "Here is how it started in today's necessity everything without fire burning into itself"—predicting the inevitable that was to come some three decades later.

Dušan Popov was born in Mokrin, his education took place in Novi Sad and graduated from Faculty of philosophy in Belgrade with PhD diploma. He became a journalist in 1945, in „Slobodna Vojvodina“ (today „Dnevnik“) and „Glas omladine“ papers. In „Dnevnik“ he went from young associate to vice-chief editor. As a young journalist he became a chief editor of "Tribina mladih" cultural institution. In 1972. he became the first chief editor of the new Novi Sad television. For many years he was a member of board of directors and executive committee of Matica srpska, and three times elected for it`s secretary. In "Sterijino pozorje" he was a chief secretary. He was awarded with the highest city honor "The February award of Novi Sad" for his work on city`s historical heritage and culture.He is an author of „Enciklopedija Novog Sada“, the capital work of 30 volumes, and the city commission announced that Novi Sad is one of the very few cities that has it`s own Encyclopedia.

Ćosić was born as Borisav Ž. Ćosić in 1921 in the village of Velika Drenova near Trstenik, Kingdom of Yugoslavia. Some sources have incorrectly stated his birthdate as January 4, 1922. Before the Second World War he was able to attend vocational agriculture school in Aleksandrovac. He joined the communist youth organization in Negotin in 1939. When the Second World War reached Yugoslavia in 1941, he joined the communist partisans. After the liberation of Belgrade in October 1944, he remained active in communist leadership positions, including work in the Serbian republican Agitation and Propaganda commission and then as a people's representative from his home region. In the early 1950s, he visited the Goli otok concentration camp, where the Yugoslav authorities imprisoned political opponents of the Communist Party. Ćosić maintains that he did so in order to better understand the Stalinist mind. In 1961, he joined Marshal Tito on a 72-day tour by presidential yacht (the Galeb) to visit eight African non-aligned countries. The trip aboard the Galeb highlighted the close, affirmative relationship that Ćosić had with the administration until the early 1960s. Dobrica Ćosić died on 18 May 2014 in his home near Belgrade. He was 92 years old.

Maksimović was born on May 16, 1898 in Rabrovica, near Valjevo, the oldest child of father Mihailo, a teacher, and mother Draginja. Right after her birth, her father was transferred, and they moved to Brankovina, where Desanka spent her childhood. She graduated from the gymnasium in Valjevo and the University of Belgrade Faculty of Philosophy. In August 1933 she married Sergij Slastikov, but they had no children of their own. Maksimović was a professor of Serbian language from 1923 until 1953 in several schools. First, she was a teacher at the Obrenovac gymnasium, then she moved to the Third Female Gymnasium in Belgrade. Eventually, she was transferred to the teachers' school in Dubrovnik, where she spent one year. After that, she worked in First female gymnasium in Belgrade. One of her best students was Mira Alečković, who also became a poet and a close friend of Desanka Maksimović.

Her statue in Valjevo
When she heard of German soldiers shooting primary school children in Kragujevac, she wrote "Krvava Bajka" (trans. "The Legend of Blood" or, more literally "A Bloody Fairy Tale"), a poem that speaks of the terror practiced by German army in World War II. The poem was not published until after the war had ended. She traveled across Yugoslavia, and befriended writers and poets such as Miloš Crnjanski, Ivo Andrić, Gustav Krklec, Isidora Sekulić, and Branko Ćopić. Her poetry spoke about love and patriotism; it was enthusiastic and youthful, yet serious and sensitive. It is said[who?] that the Serbian language is best sung in the poems of Desanka Maksimović. Some of her best poems include: "Anticipation" ("Предосећање"), "Tremble" ("Стрепња"), "Spring poem" ("Пролећна песма"), "Warning" ("Опомена"), "In storm" ("На бури"), "I seek amnesty" ("Тражим помиловање"), "Sheared meadow" ("Покошена ливада") etc. Maksimović won a number of literature awards among them Vuk Award, Njegoš Award (1984) and AVNOJ Award. She was elected as honorary citizen of Valjevo. In 1985, the primary school in Brankovina, where she began her education, was reconstructed. It was in this school that her father worked as teacher. Local people called it "Desanka's school", and that is now its official name. While she was still alive, a statue of her was built in Valjevo, although she objected to it. Because of the undying value of her poetry, Desanka Maksimović was elected on December 17, 1959 as an associate member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts (SANU), and on December 16, 1965 she became a regular member.

Desanka Maksimović died on February 11, 1993, in Belgrade, at the age of 95. She was buried in Brankovina, where she grew up. After her death, the Desanka Maksimović Foundation was founded. This foundation organizes Desanka Maksimović award.

Aleksa Šantić was born into an ethnic Serb family from Herzegovina in 1868 in Mostar, Bosnia Vilayet, Ottoman Empire. His father Risto was a merchant, and his mother Mara was a housewife. He had three siblings: brothers Jeftan and Jakov and sister Radojka known as Persa; another sister Zorica died in infancy. The family didn't demonstrate much understanding for Aleksa's lyrical talents.

Just as young Aleksa turned 10 years of age, Bosnia Vilayet (including Mostar) was occupied by Austria-Hungary as per decision made by European Great Powers at the Congress of Berlin during summer of 1878. Though the occupied province remained a de jure part of the increasingly weakening Ottoman Empire, the dual monarchy of Austria-Hungary reconfigured it as a condominium, which in theoretical terms of international law implied equal sharing of the territory, however, in reality Austria-Hungary ruled and administered it as part of its territory.

Aleksa's father Risto died, which is when his brother Miho known as Adža (Aleksa's uncle) got the custody of Aleksa and his siblings. After attending business schools in Trieste and Ljubljana, Aleksa came back to his native Mostar where he became the editor-in-chief of the review "Zora" (Dawn; 1896–1901). He also presided over the Bosnian music association called "Gusle". In this capacity he came into the focus of the life of this region which, by its cultural and national consciousness, showed a stubborn opposition to the German Kulturtrager. The product of his patriotic inspiration during the liberating Balkan Wars of 1912–1913 is the book "Na starim ognjištima" (On the Old Hearths; 1913). During the Great War he was taken by the Austrians as hostage, but he, unlike Svetozar Ćorović, his brother-in-law, survived the war and saw the realization of his dream—the union of the South Slavs.

Šantić was a prolific poet and writer. He wrote almost 800 poems, seven theatrical plays and some prose. Many of the writings were of high quality and aimed to criticize the Establishment or advocate diverse social and cultural issues. He was strongly influenced by Heinrich Heine, whose works he translated.

His friends and peers in the field of culture were Svetozar Ćorović, Jovan Dučić and Milan Rakić. One of his sisters, Radojka (Persa) married Svetozar Ćorović

Zmaj was born in Novi Sad, Serbia, on 24 November 1833. He finished elementary school in the town, and secondary school in Preßburg (today Bratislava), later studying in Ofenpesth (Budapest), Prague and Vienna. In 1870, he returned to Novi Sad to work as a doctor, motivated by the fact that his wife and children were suffering from tuberculosis. His family was an old and noble family. In his earliest childhood he showed a great desire to learn by heart the Serbian national songs which were recited to him, and even as a child he began to compose poems.

His father, who was a highly cultivated and wealthy man, gave him his first education in his native city. After this he went to Ofenpesth, Prague, and Vienna, and in these cities he finished his studies in law. This was the wish of his father, but his own inclinations prompted him to take up the study of medicine. He then returned to his native city, where a prominent official position was offered him, which he accepted; but so strong were his poetical instincts that a year later he abandoned the post to devote himself entirely to literary work.

His literary career began in 1849, his first poem being printed in 1852, in a journal called Srbski Letopis ("Serbian Annual Review"); to this and to other journals, notably Neven and Sedmica, he contributed his early productions. From that period until 1870, besides his original poems, he made many translations to Serbian from Hungarian of works by Sándor Petőfi and János Arany, two of the greatest Hungarian poets, from Russian of the works of Lermontov, as well as from German of several German and Austrian poets. In 1861 he edited the comic journal, Komarac ("The Mosquito"), with Đorđe Rajković, and in the same year he started the literary journal, Javor, and to these papers he contributed many poems.

In 1861, he married, and during the happy years that followed he produced his admirable series of lyrical poems called Đulići, which probably remain his masterpiece. In 1862, greatly to his regret, he discontinued his beloved journal, Javor, a sacrifice which was asked of him by Svetozar Miletić, who was then active on a political journal, in order to insure the success of the latter. Politically engaged, he sympathized with the ideas of the United Serbian Youth, a movement which attracted a number of influential figures in Serbian public life in the period of the 1860s to 1870s. These include the politicians and writers Jevrem Grujić (1826–1895), Jovan Ilić (1823–1901), Svetozar Marković, Sava Grujić, the historians Stojan Novaković, Milovan Janković (1828–1899), Vasa Pelagić (1833–1899), and the political writer Vladimir Jovanović.

In 1863, he was elected director of the Tekelianum, at Ofenpesth (Budapest). He now renewed the study of medicine at the university, and took the degree of doctor of medicine. Meanwhile he did not relax his literary labors. He also devoted himself greatly to education of Serbian youth. During his stay in Ofenpesth he founded the literary society, Preodnica, of which he was president, and to which he devoted a large portion of his energies. In 1864 he started his famous satirical journal, "Zmaj" ("The Dragon"), which was so popular that the name became a part of his own. In 1866, his comic play "Šaran" was given with great success. Since 1870, Zmaj has pursued his profession as a physician. He was an earnest advocate of cremation, and has devoted much time to the furtherance of that cause.

The end of the poet's long life was saddened by domestic sorrows. The loss of his wife in 1872 was followed by another great pain of losing the only child who outlived her mother, out of his five children. How much these misfortunes affected him is plainly perceptible from the deeply sad tone of the poems which immediately followed. In 1873 he started another comic journal, the Žiža. During the year 1877 he began an illustrated chronicle of the Russo-Turkish War, and in 1878 appeared his popular comic journal, Starmali. During all this period he wrote not only poems, but much prose, including short novels, often under an assumed name. The best of these is probably Vidosava Brankovićeva. In that period he published a great many charming little poems for children. He died on 1 June 1904.

His country mourned him with almost royal pomp, and his remains, after lying in state followed to the ceremony of Sremska Kamenica by a vast cortège, including the royal princes and all the great officers of the state.

Jakšić was born in Srpska Crnja in  Serbia. His house has been transformed into a Memorial Museum in his honour. His early education was in Temeschwar (today Romania) and Szeged (today Republic of Hungary). Jakšić lived for a time in  Veliki Bečkerek, now Zrenjanin, where he began studying painting under Konstantin Danil. Jakšić, a son of a Serbian Orthodox priest, then went on to study fine arts in Vienna and Munich, but the revolution of 1848 interrupted his education, which he was never able to finish. In the 1848 Revolution he was wounded while fighting in Srbobran. After the revolution, deceived by the Austrians after the May Assembly, he came to live in Belgrade, Principality of Serbia, where he served as a schoolteacher and in various other capacities, although he was often unemployed. Jakšić's address was in Skadarska Street, the focus of the city's bohemian life and haunt of Belgrade's artists, writers, musicians and actors. He lived there and his former home is still used as a poetry venue for occasional 'Skadarlija nights'. A political liberal, he was persecuted by authorities. He died in despair and ravaged by illness in 1878, after he had taken part in the uprising against the Turks in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Jakšić abhorred the rationalism and materialism of his time. What he saw and painted were human beings beset with evil, yet shining for the divine within them: He remains one of the most beloved poets of the Serbs and the symbol of their national spirit.

Jakšić is one of the most expressive representatives of Serbian Romanticism. Passionate, impetuously imaginative, emotional, rebellious and imbued with romantic nationalist sentiment, his poems about freedom, his invectives against tyranny and his verses of lyric confession resonate with romantic pathos. He saw and painted Kosovo, Battle of Montenegris, and Night Watch. Visions which will resurface in his verse little by little, here and there. Both in his poetry and paintings, the purpose of Jakšić's art was primarily moral. By showing men his vision of the possibility of true freedom of the spirit, he hoped to free them from the shackles of convention and tradition, to help them realize their potentialities by trusting their intuition. His visions were also social and political. According to Serbian literary critic Jovan Skerlić, Jakšiċ was influenced mainly by Alexander Petőfy, the great Hungarian poet of the 1848 Revolution, and Lord Byron's poetry depicting the Greek War of Independence. Jakšiċ, Skerliċ felt, was perhaps too much an artist, and would see nothing but art in anything he loved .... Here Skerliċ reveals the limitations of his disillusioned middle age (shortly before his death). Jakšiċ cannot be judged, either as an artist who meddled in mysticism, or as a mystic who employed the imagery of art. His character was entirely homogeneous; each of his pursuits was closely linked up with all his other occupations, whether he were writings lyrics, epic poems, dramatic plays, novels, publishing, making a pencil sketch of the vision that floated before his eyes, or simply painting upon canvas his magnificent portraits. It is typical of him that, besides painting and colouring his songs, he should have sung them to music. During his lifetime and after, though Jakšiċ had many admirers—they included Konstantin Danil, his former art teacher, portrait painter Katarina Ivanović, Uroš Knežević, painters Pavle Čorbanović, Jovan Popović, and Đorđe Krstić, and, among the poets and writers, Laza Kostić, Simo Matavulj, Kosta Trifković, Svetozar Miletić, Jovan Jovanović Zmaj, and Vojislav Ilić.

Jakšić is one of the leaders of Serbian romanticism and one of Serbia's greatest painters in his day. Although he wrote a number of loosely organized romantic plays, his reputation rests largely on his paintings and poetry, which ranges from sonnets, lyrics, and patriotic songs to full scale epics, or, as they are sometimes called, novels in verse. His favourite theme of nature and the national cause show a clear Byronic influence.