Milovan Vidaković (; 1780–1841) was a Serbian novelist. He is referred to as the father of the modern Serbian novel. Today, his novels are mostly forgotten, and he is best remembered as a strong opponent of
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 ...
's language reform and a proponent of the
Slavonic-Serbian language as a
literary language
Literary language is the Register (sociolinguistics), register of a language used when writing in a formal, academic writing, academic, or particularly polite tone; when speaking or writing in such a tone, it can also be known as formal language. ...
of
Serbs
The Serbs ( sr-Cyr, Срби, Srbi, ) are a South Slavs, South Slavic ethnic group native to Southeastern Europe who share a common Serbian Cultural heritage, ancestry, Culture of Serbia, culture, History of Serbia, history, and Serbian lan ...
.
Biography
Early life
Milovan Vidaković was born in May 1780 in the village of
Nemenikuće
Nemenikuće ( sr-cyrl, Неменикуће) is a village in the Sopot, Serbia, Sopot City Municipality, City municipality, in the suburban area of Belgrade, Serbia. It had a population of 1833 by the 2022 census. It is located on the slopes of ...
, in the
Kosmaj
Kosmaj (Serbian Cyrillic: Космај, ) is a mountain south of Belgrade. With an elevation of 626 meters, it is the highest point of the entire Belgrade City area and is nicknamed one of two "Belgrade mountains" (the other being the mountain o ...
area of
Serbia
, image_flag = Flag of Serbia.svg
, national_motto =
, image_coat = Coat of arms of Serbia.svg
, national_anthem = ()
, image_map =
, map_caption = Location of Serbia (gree ...
.
For generations the ancestors of Vidaković had been
haiduks, and he himself would have joined the armed freedom-fighters had his father not entrusted him to the care of Momir Vidaković, an uncle, in
Irig. When he was nine, his father took Milovan to Irig in the
Srem region of the
Vojvodina
Vojvodina ( ; sr-Cyrl, Војводина, ), officially the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina, is an Autonomous administrative division, autonomous province that occupies the northernmost part of Serbia, located in Central Europe. It lies withi ...
, because of the outbreak of hostilities between the
Austro-Russian alliance and the
Ottoman Turks
The Ottoman Turks () were a Turkic peoples, Turkic ethnic group in Anatolia. Originally from Central Asia, they migrated to Anatolia in the 13th century and founded the Ottoman Empire, in which they remained socio-politically dominant for the e ...
in the
War of 1787–91.
Vidaković started school in Irig and then continued to further his education at
Temesvár,
Novi Sad
Novi Sad ( sr-Cyrl, Нови Сад, ; #Name, see below for other names) is the List of cities in Serbia, second largest city in Serbia and the capital of the autonomous province of Vojvodina. It is located in the southern portion of the Pannoni ...
,
Szeged
Szeged ( , ; see also #Etymology, other alternative names) is List of cities and towns of Hungary#Largest cities in Hungary, the third largest city of Hungary, the largest city and regional centre of the Southern Great Plain and the county seat ...
, and
Késmárk.
He studied at the Piarists'
Gymnasium in Szeged, the capital of the county of
Csongrád in Hungary. His education involved the traditional study of
Church Slavonic
Church Slavonic is the conservative Slavic liturgical language used by the Eastern Orthodox Church in Belarus, Bulgaria, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Poland, Russia, Ukraine, Serbia, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, Slovenia and Croatia. The ...
,
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...
and
Latin
Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...
classics together with philosophy and philology in a modern atmosphere of rationalism. Later, at the Piarist College in Késmárk, Hungary, he made rapid progress, especially in
jurisprudence
Jurisprudence, also known as theory of law or philosophy of law, is the examination in a general perspective of what law is and what it ought to be. It investigates issues such as the definition of law; legal validity; legal norms and values ...
, though preferring the study of languages (Latin, German, French), history, literature, judicial science and philosophy. Public education was the career which seemed to lie open to Vidaković after he graduated from the Evangelical Lyceum in Késmárk.
Career
In 1814 in
Budapest
Budapest is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns of Hungary, most populous city of Hungary. It is the List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, tenth-largest city in the European Union by popul ...
, Vidaković published the first volume of ''"Ljubomir u Jelisijumu" (''Ljubomir in Elisium''), inspired by
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (, ; ; 28 June 1712 – 2 July 1778) was a Republic of Geneva, Genevan philosopher (''philosophes, philosophe''), writer, and composer. His political philosophy influenced the progress of the Age of Enlightenment through ...
's ''
Emile, or On Education
''Emile, or On Education'' () is a treatise on the nature of education and on the nature of man written by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who considered it to be the "best and most important" of all his writings. Due to a section of the book entitled "Pr ...
''. Like his previous novels, this was an adventure story, with the usual sentimental, moral-didactic digressions. The volume is remarkable, however, for the twenty-page introductory essay, "Observation on the Serbian Language," dated October 1813. The opening statement suggests that the author was aware of the articles on the Serbian literary language published by
Jernej Kopitar
Jernej Kopitar, also known as Bartholomeus Kopitar (21 August 1780 – 11 August 1844), was a Slovene linguist and philologist working in Vienna. He also worked as the Imperial censor for Slovene literature in Vienna. He is perhaps best known ...
in the German press. "Now we who begin to write a little for our people find ourselves in rather unpleasant times; they criticize us more for our language than for our work, but they are right too; it is the duty of the translator, as well as the writer himself, to pay as much attention to his language as to the thing he is expressing in it."''
Vidaković has been generally described by critics of his opus as a solitary figure, out of harmony with the spirit of his time and often directly opposed to it. Yet in the context of social conditions of his time, and of the studies then flourishing, he appears as having been thoroughly in touch with them. The new spirit among the Serbs of
Vojvodina
Vojvodina ( ; sr-Cyrl, Војводина, ), officially the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina, is an Autonomous administrative division, autonomous province that occupies the northernmost part of Serbia, located in Central Europe. It lies withi ...
that took hold then was known as ''Dositejism,'' coined after
Dositej Obradović
Dositej Obradović ( sr-Cyrl, Доситеј Обрадовић, ; 17 February 1739 – 7 April 1811) was a Serbian writer, biographer, diarist, philosopher, pedagogue, educational reformer, linguist and the first minister of education of Se ...
, who became popular among his people for criticizing the
Serbian Orthodox Church
The Serbian Orthodox Church ( sr-Cyrl-Latn, Српска православна црква, Srpska pravoslavna crkva) is one of the autocephalous (ecclesiastically independent) Eastern Orthodoxy, Eastern Orthodox Eastern Orthodox Church#Constit ...
hierarchy
A hierarchy (from Ancient Greek, Greek: , from , 'president of sacred rites') is an arrangement of items (objects, names, values, categories, etc.) that are represented as being "above", "below", or "at the same level as" one another. Hierarchy ...
for their old-fashioned ways. His views had been espoused by most intellectuals but were bitterly opposed by the Orthodox hierarchy, especially after the accession of
Stefan Stratimirović as
Metropolitan Bishop of Karlovci in 1790. Serbian literary critic
Pavle Popović outlines Dositejism thus:
The desire to help the Serbian people was the motive that Vidaković gave for writing his first work, a biblical adaptation called "Istorija o prekrasnom Josifu" (''The Story of Beautiful Joseph''). In the deduction to this novel in verse, first published in 1805, Vidaković wrote: "It is that common sense demands from us that each one, as much as his God-given strength and talent permit, should be of use, in some way to his fellow-man, and especially to his race, from such an obligation I, loving my Serbian race, compose for the youth this 'Story About Beautiful Joseph' in verse."
Vidaković, though always as a kind of outsider, attached himself more or less to the
Romantic movement
Romanticism (also known as the Romantic movement or Romantic era) was an artistic and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century. The purpose of the movement was to advocate for the importance of subjec ...
during that transitional period of
Rationalism
In philosophy, rationalism is the Epistemology, epistemological view that "regards reason as the chief source and test of knowledge" or "the position that reason has precedence over other ways of acquiring knowledge", often in contrast to ot ...
towards Romanticism and the years immediately preceding and following it, and was stimulated by this movement both to drama and to novel-writing.
Even
Atanasije Stojković
Atanasije Stojković ( sr-Cyrl, Атанасије Стојковић, ; 20 September 1773 – 25 September 1832) was a Serbian, Austrian and Russian writer, pedagogue, scholar, physicist, mathematician and astronomer. He is considered the founde ...
, who was seven years Vidaković's senior, and his predecessor in novel writing, seems to have been guided by Vidaković, rather than Vidaković by him. Vidaković's eight novels, which at least equaled the poems of
Lukijan Mušicki
Lukijan Mušicki ( sr-cyr, Лукијан Мушицки, ; 27 January 1777 – 15 March 1837) was a Serbian Orthodox bishop, writer and poet. From 1828 he was bishop of Karlovac, now in Croatia.
References
Further reading
*
*
* Jovan Sk ...
in popularity, will hardly stand the judgment of posterity so well. It had in its favor the support of the Serbian reading public, the immense vogue of the novels of
Walter Scott
Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet (15 August 1771 – 21 September 1832), was a Scottish novelist, poet and historian. Many of his works remain classics of European literature, European and Scottish literature, notably the novels ''Ivanhoe'' (18 ...
, on which it was evidently modeled, the advantages of an exquisite style, and the taste of the day for the romance as opposed to the novel of analyses. It, therefore, gained a great name both in Serbia and among the Slavic reading public abroad. No one can read ''"Usamljeni junoša"'' or ''"Ljubomir"'' without seeing that the author had little to learn from any of his Serbian contemporaries and much to teach them.
In 1836, Vidaković published his translation from German of "Djevica iz Marijenburga" (Das Madchen von Marienburg), a drama in five acts by
Franz Kratter (1758–1830), dedicated to Marko Karamata, one of the students he was tutoring. The main character Chatinka, the maid of
Marienburg, came originally from
Poland
Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...
, but she had been abducted by
Russia
Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...
n troops and now found herself at the summer palace of
Peter the Great
Peter I (, ;
– ), better known as Peter the Great, was the Sovereign, Tsar and Grand Prince of all Russia, Tsar of all Russia from 1682 and the first Emperor of Russia, Emperor of all Russia from 1721 until his death in 1725. He reigned j ...
, the
Peterhof, outside of
St. Petersburg. Kratter himself had been one of the most ardent advocates of
Josephinism, like Dositej Obradović among the Serbs in Vojvodina. And it would have been obvious to the readers in 1836, that the drama's reflections on Peter the Great were also relevant to the people under the Habsburgs. Vidaković's translation of Kratter's drama suggests how dear Vidaković held his tenets of freedom for all people, not only the Serbs. Vidaković often read Kratter's well-publicized quotation: "Absolute monarchies are but one step away from
despotism
In political science, despotism () is a government, form of government in which a single entity rules with absolute Power (social and political), power. Normally, that entity is an individual, the despot (as in an autocracy), but societies whi ...
. Despotism and Enlightenment: let anyone who can try to reconcile these two. I can't."
Vidaković's fame rests on the first Serbian novel, "Usamljeni junoša" (''A Forlorn Youth''), which he modeled after German romances and the philosophic-pedagogical novels then extremely popular throughout the
Austrian Empire
The Austrian Empire, officially known as the Empire of Austria, was a Multinational state, multinational European Great Powers, great power from 1804 to 1867, created by proclamation out of the Habsburg monarchy, realms of the Habsburgs. Duri ...
and Germany. Coming under the influence of
Romanticism
Romanticism (also known as the Romantic movement or Romantic era) was an artistic and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century. The purpose of the movement was to advocate for the importance of subjec ...
, Vidaković took an interest in the history of his people whose lands were then occupied by two empires (Habsburg Germans and the
Ottoman Turks
The Ottoman Turks () were a Turkic peoples, Turkic ethnic group in Anatolia. Originally from Central Asia, they migrated to Anatolia in the 13th century and founded the Ottoman Empire, in which they remained socio-politically dominant for the e ...
) and by so doing gave a historical framework to all his subsequent works. Literary critic Jovan Skerlić wrote: "All his novels have many historical elements, and his contemporaries called him 'the Serbian Walter Scott.'"
Vidaković and the language reform
At the beginning of the nineteenth century the Serbian people, like the rest of the Slavs, Hungarians, Italians, Romanians living under the
Habsburg
The House of Habsburg (; ), also known as the House of Austria, was one of the most powerful dynasties in the history of Europe and Western civilization. They were best known for their inbreeding and for ruling vast realms throughout Europe d ...
rule, became engaged in a dual struggle for political and cultural independence. Chief Serbian cultural revolutionary was
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 ...
, a minor government official in the
Karadjordje administration who had fled to
Vienna
Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...
in 1813 after the breakup of the
First Serbian Uprising
The First Serbian Uprising (; sr-Cyrl, Први српски устанак; ) was an uprising of Serbs in Orašac (Aranđelovac), Orašac against the Ottoman Empire from 14 February 1804 to 7 October 1813. The uprising began as a local revolt ...
. Vuk argued a campaign to free Serbian literature from its thralldom to
Russo-Slavonic, based on
Church Slavonic
Church Slavonic is the conservative Slavic liturgical language used by the Eastern Orthodox Church in Belarus, Bulgaria, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Poland, Russia, Ukraine, Serbia, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, Slovenia and Croatia. The ...
, an important idiom that Serbs had been using in their secular and religious works for a century. There were few extremists at both sides such as Karadžić himself advocating a purely spoken language and
Pavle Kengelac favoring a completely acceptance of Russo-Slavonic, but most writers seem to have been moderate, who sought to improve and standardize their spoken language by retaining the particular features of Russo-Slavonic that they individually espoused. Their mixed but predominantly vernacular language was called
Slavonic-Serbian. Vidaković was a proponent of the Slavonic-Serbian as a literary language,
[Selimović (1990), p. 60-73] unlike Karadžić who proposed a simplified alphabet and a new literary language based exclusively on spoken Serbian. Karadžić's program was first derided and then bitterly opposed by Church-led conservatives and others who wished to preserve some bond between the new Serbian literary language and Slavo-Serbian. The ensuing struggle became so fierce that
Đuro Daničić
Đuro Daničić ( sr-Cyrl, Ђуро Даничић, ; 4 April 1825 – 17 November 1882), born Đorđe Popović ( sr-cyr, links=no, Ђорђе Поповић) and also known as Đura Daničić ( sr-Cyrl, links=no, Ђура Даничић), was a ...
named it "The War for a Serbian Language and Orthography." In the midst of it all were writers like Vidaković who had the misfortune to put their theories on language into print at about the same time that Karadžić and Daničić were beginning their reforms.
Works
* ''Istorija o prekrasnom Josifu'' (epic, 1805)
* ''Usamljeni junoša'' ("A Forlorn Youth", novel, 1810)
* ''Velimir i Bosiljka'' (novel, 1811)
* ''Ljubomir u Jelisijumu'' ("Ljubomir in Jelisium", novel in three volumes, 1814, 1817, 1823)
* ''Mladi Tovija'' ("Young Tobias", story in verses, 1825)
* ''Kasija Carica'' ("Casia the Empress", novel, 1827)
* ''Siloan i Milena Srpkinja u Engleskoj'' ("Siloan and Milena the Serb in England", novel, 1829)
* ''Ljubezna scena u veselom dvoru Ive Zagorice'', (historic story, 1834)
* ''Putešestvije u Jerusalim'' ("Voyage to Jerusalem", epic, 1834)
* ''Gramatika srpska'' ("Serbian Grammatic", 1838)
* ''Pesan istoričeska o Sv. Đorđu'' ("Historic Poem on St. George", 1839)
* ''Selim i Merima'' (unfinished novel, 1839)
References
Sources
*
*
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Vidakovic, Milovan
1780 births
1841 deaths
Writers from the Ottoman Empire
Serbian novelists