Sava Bjelanović (15 October 1850, Đevrske - 1897, Zadar) (Serbian Cyrillic: Сава Бјелановић) was an Adriatic Serbian writer and politician, the leader of the coastal Serb Party and the most prominent Dalmatian Serb of the 19th century.
He was a contemporary of well-known Dalmatian politicians and writers such as Đorđe Vojnović, Konstantin Vojnović, Dušan Baljak, Robert Ghiglianovich, Niccolò Trigari, and Luigi Ziliotto.
Sava Bjelanović was born at Đevrske near Knin in Dalmatia on the 15th of October 1850, and has retained a two-fold fame as a writer and politician. He represents a classical reaction against decadent romanticism in literature and an anticlerical rationalism in general thought. As a politician he represented Serbs of both Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic denominations in the Diet of Dalmatia. He also wrote a book which exposed the excesses of the Habsburg Monarchy in the later half of the nineteenth century. In his editorials and speeches he gave a tremendous impetus to learning by his dedicated search for truth and by his exposition of a critical method.
Although trained in law at the University of Vienna, Bjelanović decided to make a career in literary journalism and politics. He was remarkably active and effective as a newspaper publisher and writer, having founded the Srpski list (Serbian News) and Srpski glas (Serbian Voice). His editorials were widely read for his fearless attacks on the unwisdom of Austrian policy and the injustices done by the Austrian authorities to the Dalmatians (Croats, Serbs and Italians, all equal citizens of the province).
Bjelanović completed his elementary and high school education in Italian in Zadar, the then capital of Dalmatia. He studied law in Vienna, and returned home in 1880 to open his practice in Zadar. There he spent the next seventeen years battling injustices and championing human rights among his people. Sava Bjelanović had a distinct political objective when in 1880 he established the newspaper called Srpski list (Serbian News). And it is equally well-known that his Srpski glas (Serbian Voice) was, under a different form, a continuation of Srpski list, which was supressed in 1888. Both newspapers were very popular and influential, especially the Glas which continued eight years after Beljanović's death, before it became a victim of political power play. In 1883 Bjelanović was elected in the Dalmatian parliament. The greatest success of his political party was the 1890 elections in Dubrovnik, where his party won a decisive victory. He was one of the co-founders of the Dalmatian Lazarica Serbian Orthodox Church and headed regularly its Vidovdan (Saint Vitus's Day) councils. He died in the city where he spent most of his life -- Zadar -- in 1897. He was buried in his birth village of Đevrse near Knin.