Culture
In the 19th century, the city was the capital of Serbian culture, earning the nickname Serbian Athens. In that time, almost every Serbian novelist, poet, jurist, and publicist at the end of 19th century and at the beginning of 20th century had lived or worked in Novi Sad some time of his or her career. Among others, these cultural workers include Vuk Stefanović Karadžić, Mika Antić, Đura Jakšić, etc. Matica srpska, the oldest cultural-scientific institution of Serbia, was moved from Budapest to Novi Sad in 1864, and contains a library (the Library of Matica srpska) with over 800,000 books. The Serbian National Theatre, the oldest professional theatre among the South Slavs, was founded in Novi Sad in 1861.
Today, Novi Sad is the second cultural centre in Serbia (besides Belgrade) and city's officials try to make the city more attractive to numerous cultural events and music concerts. Since 2000, Novi Sad is home to the EXIT festival, the biggest music summer festival in Serbia and the region; and also the only festival of alternative and new theatre in Serbia. Other important cultural events are Zmaj Children Games, Days of Brazil - Novi Sad Samba Carnival, International Novi Sad Literature Festival, Sterijino pozorje, Novi Sad Jazz Festival, and many others. Besides Serbian National Theatre, the most prominent theatres are also Youth Theatre, Cultural centre of Novi Sad and Novi Sad Theatre. Novi Sad Synagogue also houses many cultural events in the City. Other city's cultural institutions include Offset of the Serbian Academy of Science and Art, Library of Matica Srpska, Novi Sad City Library and Azbukum. City is also home to cultural institutions of Vojvodina: Vojvodina Academy of Sciences and Arts and Archive of Vojvodina, which collect many documents from Vojvodina dating from 1565.
Novi Sad has several folk song societies, which are known as kulturno-umetničko društvo or KUD. The most well known societies in the city are: KUD Svetozar Marković, AKUD Sonja Marinković, SKUD Željezničar, FA Vila and the oldest SZPD Neven, established in 1892.
National minorities expose their own tradition, folklore and songs in Hungarian MKUD Petőfi Sándor, Slovak SKUD Pavel Jozef Šafárik, Ruthenian RKC Novi Sad, and other societies.
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