Žitkovac (

Serbian Cyrillic The Serbian Cyrillic alphabet ( sr, / , ) is a variation of the Cyrillic script used to write the Serbian language, updated in 1818 by Serbian linguist Vuk Karadžić. It is one of the two alphabets used to write standard modern Serbian, t ...

: Житковац) is a village in central

Serbia Serbia (, ; Serbian: , , ), officially the Republic of Serbia (Serbian: , , ), is a landlocked country in Southeastern and Central Europe, situated at the crossroads of the Pannonian Basin and the Balkans. It shares land borders with Hungar ...

situated in the municipality of

Aleksinac Aleksinac ( sr-Cyrl, Алексинац) is a town and municipality located in the Nišava District of southern Serbia. According to 2011 census, the town has a population of 17,978 inhabitants, while the municipality has 51,863 inhabitants. Hi ...

, in the

Nišava District The Nišava District ( sr, Нишавски округ, Nišavski okrug, ) is one of nine administrative districts of Southern and Eastern Serbia. It expands to the south-eastern parts of Serbia. According to the 2011 census results, it has a ...

. Žitkovac has a population of 2,680 as recorded in the 2002 census. The name ''Žitkovac'' stems .

Education

Žitkovac has a school named after

Vuk Karadžić Vuk Stefanović Karadžić ( sr-Cyrl, Вук Стефановић Караџић, ; 6 November 1787 (26 October OS)7 February 1864) was a Serbian philologist, anthropologist and linguist. He was one of the most important reformers of the moder ...

which provides

preschool A preschool, also known as nursery school, pre-primary school, or play school or creche, is an educational establishment or learning space offering early childhood education to children before they begin compulsory education at primary sch ...

, primary and secondary education.

Geography

Žitkovac is located in the Aleksinac valley surrounded by mountains of

Jastrebac Jastrebac (Serbian Cyrillic: Јастребац) is a mountain in central Serbia, between cities of Niš, Kruševac and Prokuplje. It consists of two massifs, Great (''Veliki'') and Small (''Mali'') Jastrebac. Its highest peak ''Velika Đulica'' ...

and Ozren. The river which flows through the valley is

South Morava The South Morava (Macedonian and Serbian: Јужна Морава, ''Južna Morava'', ; sq, Lumi Morava) is a river in eastern Kosovo and in southern Serbia, which represents the shorter headwater of Great Morava. Today, it is 295 km long, ...

. The nearest town is

(3 km), which is the centre of municipality, located in the

of Serbia. Žitkovac is geographically joined with two other villages Moravac and Prćilovica creating one of the most populated locality of the municipality of Aleksinac, with approximately 7 000 citizens. Thanks to its location, Žitkovac has become an economical and cultural center of the Aleksinac municipality on the left side of the South Morava river. It is connected with other Serbian cities by a railway station in the village.

History

Early period

In Žitkovac and its neighbour-village Moravac, there are numerous archaeological findings from the middle

Neolithic The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several p ...

period (between 5300 and 4500 BC). According to Tihomir Đorđević, Serbian

ethnologist Ethnology (from the grc-gre, ἔθνος, meaning 'nation') is an academic field that compares and analyzes the characteristics of different peoples and the relationships between them (compare cultural, social, or sociocultural anthropology) ...

and historian from the late 19th century, who was exploring the history of the Aleksinac valley, all villages of the actual municipality of Aleksinac located on the left side of the

river, have been inhabited since middle neolithic. Most of its settlements belong to the

Starčevo culture The Starčevo culture is an archaeological culture of Southeastern Europe, dating to the Neolithic period between ''c.'' 6200 and 4500 BCE. It originates in the spread of the Neolithic package of peoples and technological innovations including fa ...

In 1985 several urns were found in Žitkovac, today stored in the homeland museum in Aleksinac. In 1994, the archeologists discovered a necropolis arie of 80 ha. Near the necropolis, numerous Neolithic ceramics and bronze artefacts were found 2002 in Moravac. Neolithic ceramics traces are scattered across the entire village. The Neolithic stone found in part of village Moravac called “Konjarnik” is displayed in the homeland museum in Aleksinac.

Modern period

From 1929 to 1941, Žitkovac was part of the

Morava Banovina The Morava Banovina or Morava Banate ( sh-Cyrl-Latn, separator=" / ", Моравска бановина, Moravska banovina), was a province ( banovina) of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia between 1929 and 1941. This province consisted of parts of prese ...

of the

Kingdom of Yugoslavia The Kingdom of Yugoslavia ( sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Kraljevina Jugoslavija, Краљевина Југославија; sl, Kraljevina Jugoslavija) was a state in Southeast and Central Europe that existed from 1918 until 1941. From 1918 ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Zitkovac Populated places in Nišava District Starčevo–Körös–Criș culture