Hristofor Žefarović

[1][2] Born at the end of the 17th century, Hristofor Žefarović (Old Cyrillic: Христофоръ Жефаровичъ) descended from a priestly family from Dojran in Ottoman Empire, (present-day North Macedonia) and became a monk himself.

Žefarović was the author of two religious works, an instruction to newly appointed priests (Поучение святителское к новопоставленному йерею, Pouchenie svyatitelskoe k novopostavlennomu yereyu) from 1742 and a description of Jerusalem from 1748 (Описание светаго божия града Йерусалима, Opisanie svetago bozhiya grada Ierusalima), the travel book was published by Jerusalem Archimandrite Simeon Simonović at his own expense.

Žefarović's name is also associated with two textbooks — a primer and a grammar book, as well as numerous copper gravures of renowned personalities from modern-day Vojvodina.

[5] Stemmatographia also contains 56 coats of arms of South Slavic and other Balkan countries with descriptive quatrains under them, regarded as the first example of modern secular Bulgarian and Serbian poetry.

Pavle Nenadović, exarch of the Serbian Patriarch, had called him "Illyro-Rascian universal painter, zealot of the Bulgarian homeland and kinlover of the Illyrian Empire" ("иллирïко рассïанскому общему зографу, ревнителю отчества Болгарскагѡ и любителю царства Иллѵрïческагѡ").

Žefarović noted "our Serbian motherland" ("отечество сербско наше", otechestvo serbsko nashe) and signed as a "Illyro-Rascian universal painter" ("иллирïко рассïанскïи общïй зографъ", illirïko rassïanskïy obshtïy zograf).