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Dositej Obradović (Serbian Cyrillic: Доситеј Обрадовић; 17 February 1739 – 7 April 1811) was a Serbian writer, biographer, diarist, philosopher, pedagogue, educational reformer, linguist, polyglot and the first minister of education of Serbia.[1] An influential protagonist of the Serbian national and cultural renaissance, he advocated Enlightenment and rationalist ideas, while remaining a Serbian patriot and an adherent of the Serbian Orthodox Church.

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Dositej Obradović Доситеј Обрадовић
Minister of Education of Serbia
In office 1807–1811
Prime Minister	Mateja Nenadović
Preceded by	Post established
Succeeded by	Ivan Jugović
Personal details
Born	Dimitrije Obradović 17 February 1739 (1739-02-17) Tschakowa, Kingdom of Hungary, Habsburg monarchy (now Ciacova, Romania)
Died	7 April 1811 (1811-04-08) (aged 72) Belgrade, Rumelia Eyalet, Ottoman Empire (now Belgrade, Serbia)
Nationality	Serbian
Signature

Life

Dositej Obradović was born Dimitrije Obradović, probably in 1739, in the Banat village of Čakovo, at the time in the Habsburg monarchy, now Ciacova, Timiş County, Romania. From an early age, he was possessed with a passion for study. Obradović grew up bilingual (in Serbian and Romanian) and learned classical Greek, Latin, modern Greek, German, English, French, Russian, Albanian and Italian.[2]

On 17 February 1757 he became a monk in the Serb Orthodox monastery of Hopovo, in the Srem region, and acquired the name Dositej (Dositheus). He translated into Serbian many European classics, including Aesop's Fables.

Having devoured the contents of the monastery library, he hungered for further learning. On 2 November 1760 he left the monastery of Hopovo, bound for Hilandar, Mount Athos.

For forty years, he traveled Europe and Asia Minor: Albania, Dalmatia, Corfu, Greece, Hungary, Turkey, Germany, Romania, France, Russia, England, Italy, Poland. Finally he went to Belgrade, at the invitation of Karađorđe Petrović, to become, in the newly organized government, Serbia's first minister of education. Wherever he went during the early years, he attended lectures at the best schools in these locations. At University of Halle, he was a student of Johann Eberhard who himself was a disciple of Christian Wolf.

From Dositej's recollections of his early years spent in the monastery we also learn about the enlightened bishop of Temišvar, Georgije Popović, and amongst his castigation of monastics we find words of praise for Dositej's rationalist hegumen at Hopovo monastery. Other less known Enlightenment figures among the Serbs who were Dositej's precursors such as Dionisije Novaković, Visarion Pavlović, Dimitrie Eustatievici, Simeon Končarević, Vasilije Jovanović-Brkić or contemporaries, such as Zaharije Orfelin, Jovan Rajić, Simeon Piščević, Teodor Janković-Mirijevski all evolved from scholastic, ecclesiastical or military milieus.

Both Dositej Obradović and Teodor Janković-Mirijevski viewed teaching as a subject most worthy of study and they are therefore known, each in his own right, as the fathers of pedagogy in Serbia, Austria and Russia. In fact, they were instrumental in making education a separate branch of knowledge, particularly with the advent of the first teachers' colleges in the 18th century.

Obradović wrote first individual biographies and quickly the genre expanded to the form of biographical collection modelled on examples of Nepos, Suetonius, Plutarch, or Diogenes Laertius.

Obradović helped introduce to the Serbs the literature of certain western European countries.[3] He and Vuk Karadžić, whom Obradović influenced,[4] are recognized as the fathers of modern Serbian literature. Because the Serbian populace often suffered famine, Obradović also introduced potato cultivation to Serbia.

Dositej Obradović died in Belgrade, Serbia, in 1811.

Works

• Slovo poučiteljno Gosp. Georg. Joakima Colikofera, Leipzig, 1774, 31 pp.
• Pismo Haralampiju, 1783.
• Život i priključenija D.O., Leipzig, 1783.
• Sovjeti zdravago razuma, Leipzig, 1784, 119 pp.
• Ezopove i pročih raznih basnotvorcev basne, Leipzig, 1788, 451 pp.
• Pesme o izbavleniju Serbije, Vienna, 1789, 4 pp.
• Sobranije raznih naravoučitelnih veščej, Pécs, 1793, 2 + 316 pp.
• Etika ili filozofija naravnoučitelna, Venice, 1803, 160 pp.
• Vostani Serbije, 1804.
• Mezimac, Budim 1818, 230 + 11 pp.
• Ižica, 1830
• Pisma, Budapest, 1829, 126 pp.
• Prvenac, Karlštat 1930, 17 + 168 pp.
• Jastuk roda moga (lost), 1813

Translations

• Slovo poučitelno, 1784.
• Istina i prelest, (short story), 1788.
• Put u jedan dan, (short story), 1788.
• Aesop's Fables
• Hristoitija
• Bukvica
• Etika
• Venac
• Damon
• Ingleska izrečenija

In popular culture

• Pillow of my grave [sr], a television miniseries based on the biography of Dositej Obradović and directed by Sava Mrmak, was produced in 1990 by the Serbian broadcasting service RTS.[5][6][7]

See also

• Fables
• Vostani Serbije
• Avram Mrazović

References

Sources

• Skerlić, Jovan (1914). Istorija nove srpske književnosti (PDF) (in Serbian). Belgrade. pp. 58–62.

Further reading

• Cassell's Encyclopaedia of World Literature, Volume 2, Funk & Wagnalls, 1954.
• Chambers Biographical Dictionary, Chambers Harrap, 1997.
• Ćurčić, N. M. J. The Ethics of Reason in the Philosophical System of Dositej Obradovic A Study of His Contribution in This Field to the Age of Reason. London: Unwin Bros. Ltd, 1976.
• Fischer, Wladimir, "The Role of Dositej Obradovic in the Construction of Serbian Identities During the 19th Century," Spaces of Identity (1.3, 2001), 67–87.
• Fischer, Wladimir: Creating a National Hero: The Changing Symbolics of Dositej Obradović. In: Identität – Kultur – Raum. Turia + Kant, Wien 2001, ISBN 3-85132-301-7.
• Fischer, Wladimir, "Dositej Obradović and the Ambivalence of Enlightenment". Heppner/Posch (eds.), Encounters in Europe's Southeast, Bochum: Winkler, 2012, ISBN 978-3-89911-190-3, ISBN 978-3-89911-205-4.
• Javarek, Vera (April 1947). "Dositej Obradović and the English rationalists". The Slavonic and East European Review. 25 (65).
• Merriam-Webster's Biographical Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, 1995.
• Obradović, Dositej. The Life and Adventures of Dimitrije Obradović. University of California Publications in Modern Philology 39. Berkeley; Los Angeles, 1953.
• Pijanović, Petar: Život i delo Dositeja Obradovića. Zavod za udžbenike i nastavna sredstva, Beograd 2000.
• "South Slavic Writers Before World War II". Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 147, Gale Research, 1995.
• Skerlić, Jovan, Istorija Nove Srpske Književnosti (Belgrade, 1914, 1921).

Government offices
Preceded by Post established	Minister of Education of Serbia 1807–1811	Succeeded by Ivan Jugović

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