Joakim Vujic
Encyclopedia
Joakim Vujić was a Serbia
n writer, dramatist, actor, traveler and polygot. He was one of the most accomplished Serbia
n dramatists and writers of the 18th century, director of Knjaževsko-Srpski Teatar
(The Royal Serbian Theatre) in Kragujevac 1835/36. He is known as the Father of Serbian Theatre.
, a small place on the bank of the Danube
which had been granted, as early as 1696, special privileges by Emperor Leopold I as a "Serbian town" (though it had always been from time immemorial). His ancestors (then living in Ottoman
-occupied South Serbia
) had returned to this region (Rascia
or Rászság of the southern Pannonian Plain) seeking refuge from the Ottoman Turks.
Vujić went to school in Baja. First he attended a Slav-Serbian school and then he proceeded to Latin, German and Hungarian schools. He was further educated in Novi Sad
, Kalocsa
and Bratislava
(the Evangelical Licaeum and the Roman Catholic Academy). He became a teacher and earned his living chiefly as a teacher of foreign languages. He was an ardent supporter of Enlightenment and his model was Dositej Obradović
, whom he met personally in Trieste
's Serbian community before Dositej left for Karađorđe's Serbia. Joakim Vujić was a polyglot and knew Italian, German, French, English, Hungarian and, of course, Greek and Latin. He also learnt some Hebrew.
His career as a dramatic author began with the exhibition of a drama in or about the year 1813, and continued for almost thirty years. Prior to 1813 he incurred the hostility of the Austrian authorities, especially, it is said, of the Habsburgs, by the attacks which he made upon them on the stage in Zemun
, and at their instance he was imprisoned for a while. After writing a play during his imprisonment, in which he is said to have recanted, he was freed. His many travels and literary accomplishments established his influence in the new Serbian capital -- Kragujevac -- once and for all and at the same time knitted him closely to Prince Miloš, who recognized in him a man after his own heart, and made him the knaževsko-srbskog teatra direktor, the director of the Royal Serbian Theatre.
He made several voyages to the Black Sea and to different places in southern Russia before returning in 1842 back in Serbia, where he died on the 8th of November 1847.
Vujić lived and wrote in the time of the French Revolution
(1789). He was a witness of the Napoleonic Wars, the Serbian Revolution
s, the actions of the Holy Alliance
, and other great events in Europe in the period between the two revolutions (1789–1848): He wrote at the time of the awakening of the nations in the Balkans and South-East Europe. In his writings and theatrical work he propagated progressive views, liberty, human rights, ethical ideas, and international co-operation. Although he belonged by birth to a distant and alienated branch of the Serbian people, he was determined to get to know his mother country well, to return to it and to serve it as an intellectual and patriot.
Vujić is best known and most esteemed for his work for the theatre. He organised the first theatrical performance in Serbian, which took place in the Hungarian theatre "Rondella" in Budapest on the 24th of August 1813. From 1813, if not earlier, to 1839 he organised, with the help of secondary school pupils and adult amateurs, performances in the Serbian language in many towns of the Austrian Empire and Hungarian Kingdom -- Sent Andreja
(1810–1813), Budapest
(1813), Baja (1815), Szeged
(1815), Novi Sad (1815, 1838), Pančevo
(1824, 1833, 1835, 1837, 1839), Zemun
(1824), Temesvar
(1824), Arad (1832) and Karlovac (1833). He founded the Serbian Theatre
in Kragujevac
, the capital of the restored Serbian state, and became its first director (1834–1836). This was the first state and court theatre in the Serbia of Miloš Obrenović I, Prince of Serbia
; J. Vujić was the only professional in it and he had the entire capital at his disposal when he prepared performances for the Prince and the representatives of the people.
He advocated the presentation of plays in the Serbian language in Novi Sad (1833), where he collaborated with the so-called Flying Dilettante Theatre, which gave the first performance in Serbo-Croat in Zagreb at the invitation of the Illyrian Library and which became the first professional theatrical company in the Balkans (1840–1842). A considerable number of the members of this company came later to Belgrade, where they took part in the work of the "Theatre at Djumruk" and helped establish the first professional theatre in Belgrade in 1842.
Vujić has been justly called the "Serbian Thespis" and "the father of the Serbian theatre", for he was the first Serb to engage in practical theatrical work and to organise theatrical performances. In this activity he profited much by the experience of Italian, German and Hungarian theatres.
Joakim Vujić translated or adapted 28 dramatic works. He was chiefly interested in German drama and August von Kotzebue
seems to have been his favourite playwright, for he translated eight of Kotzebue's plays. He began his "studies of theatre arts" in Bratislava during his regular studies; he continued them in Trieste
in Italy, and completed them in Budapest (1810–1815). The crucial event in his theatrical career was the performance of I. Balog's heroic play about Karađorđe and the liberation of Belgrade, presented in the Hungarian Theatre in Budapest in 1812. Later Vujić translated this play into Serbian, but he was not permitted to publish it. Nevertheless, he used his manuscript in preparing the play. The translation was only published 40 years later (Novi Sad, 1843).
Vujić was one of the rare writers and cultural workers of his time who made his living by writing. His autobiography was a remarkable achievement of the printing craft: the work is written in Serbian (or rather Slav-Serbian), but is contains a number of passages, letters, documents and fragments quoted in several modern and classical languages, and each of them is printed in the corresponding type. Thus the book contains Serbian, Latin, Italian, French, Hungarian, English, German, Hebrew and Greek texts, all printed in the appropriate alphabet.
For a long time, Vujić was a solitary theatrical enthusiast among the Serbs. He himself was a veritable theatrical laboratory - he was not only the translator and adapter of the plays he produced, but also the director, chief organiser, actor, scenographer, costume designer, prompter and technical manager. He advocated the establishment of a national theatre for the people, but he also carried in his luggage neatly transcribed roles and cords for stage curtains. In short, he himself represented an entire small theatrical system. He gave successful performances, in each town he visited, relying on the support of Serbian schools and churches. He left behind him groups of inspired young people who continued his work, establishing theatres in their own language. He worked in the time of the monstrous censorship of Metternich's police regime and he was fully aware of the rigidity of the official measures, for his work was under constant police surveillance.
His productions of "Black George or The Liberation of Belgrade from the Turks" in Szeged (1815) and Novi Sad (1815) set into motion the complex machinery of the Imperial military and civilian censorship, which put a stop to the further presentation of the play and other similar productions.
He produced about 25-30 plays in all, each of which represented a specific national and cultural achievement. He usually staged his own translations and adaptations, and he ended his theatrical career with a production of Jovan Sterija Popović
's popular comedy "Kir Janja" (Pančevo, 1839).
His theatre was a theatre of Enlightenment, and its aim was to edify the people and to heighten their national consciousness. Although he cherished the idea of a national theatre as a permanent professional system, he did not succeed in creating a lasting national theatre in the Slav-Serbian language. Nevertheless, he constantly insisted upon it as an aim to be aspired to. He believed that such a theatre would provide an important link with the cultures of the other European countries. The permanent national theatre was to come into being a little later, after the triumph of Vuk's linguistic and cultural reform, when the Serbian National Theatre in Novi Sad (1861) and the National Theatre in Belgrade (1868) were established.
The versatile activity of Joakim Vujić belongs to many cultural spheres and disciplines. His work is of interest to various students of the Serbian cultural heritage - to ethnologists, philologists, philosophers, historians, culturologists, historians of art, historians of education and andragogy, experts on theatrical organisation, folklorists, theatrologists, costume designers, psychologists, sociologists, aestheticians, and, in a broader sense, Balcanologists and all those involved in the study of the general position of cultural workers and intelligentsia in repressive societies.
Towards the end of his life Vujić applied to the court of Karađorđe Petrović for a pension in recognition of his edificatory, cultural, literary and theatrical work. He did not get it, but he was one of the first cultural workers and authors in Serbia to claim social recognition and material reward for his service to the people.
Vujić was a mediator between the Serbian and Yugoslav culture and the cultures in the Italian, German, Hungarian, French and English languages. He was also interested in the life, customs, laws, language and religion of the Mohammedans. In fact, he was one of the rare mediators between the Western Christian and the Eastern Islamic cultures. His activity was of great value to the Serbs, because it helped them to become integrated, at least partly, into the European cultural system.
The earliest and least polished stone in the foundations of the Serbian and Yugoslav theatre was laid by Joakim Vujic as far back as 1813, when he produced the first secular play in the Serbian language. It is the 175th anniversary of that event that we are celebrating today. His work was almost completely forgotten for a long time, and the first to draw attention to him was the great Serbian comediographer Branislav Nusic, who proposed in 1900 to publish Vujić's plays in his projected Serbian Dramatic Miscellany. Unfortunately, the Miscellany was never published. Only the Royal National Theatre in Belgrade produced two of Vujić's works on the occasion of its 30th anniversary, thus playing homage to the "father of the Serbian theatre". Between the two world wars his works were not staged in Serbian professional theatres.
Serbia
Serbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans...
n writer, dramatist, actor, traveler and polygot. He was one of the most accomplished Serbia
Serbia
Serbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans...
n dramatists and writers of the 18th century, director of Knjaževsko-Srpski Teatar
Knjaževsko-srpski teatar
Knjaževsko-srpski teatar is the oldest theatre in Central Serbia.It is based in City of Kragujevac, the fourth largest city of Serbia.The theatre was founded in 1835 by Miloš Obrenović, Prince of Serbia....
(The Royal Serbian Theatre) in Kragujevac 1835/36. He is known as the Father of Serbian Theatre.
Biography
Vujić was born on the 9th of September 1772 in the village of BajaBaja, Hungary
Baja is a city in , southern Hungary. It is the second largest city in the county, after the county seat at Kecskemét, and is home to around 37,000 people....
, a small place on the bank of the Danube
Danube
The Danube is a river in the Central Europe and the Europe's second longest river after the Volga. It is classified as an international waterway....
which had been granted, as early as 1696, special privileges by Emperor Leopold I as a "Serbian town" (though it had always been from time immemorial). His ancestors (then living in Ottoman
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
-occupied South Serbia
Serbia
Serbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans...
) had returned to this region (Rascia
Rascia
Rascia was a medieval region that served as the principal province of the Serbian realm. It was an administrative division under the direct rule of the monarch and sometimes as an appanage. The term has been used to refer to various Serbian states throughout the Middle Ages...
or Rászság of the southern Pannonian Plain) seeking refuge from the Ottoman Turks.
Vujić went to school in Baja. First he attended a Slav-Serbian school and then he proceeded to Latin, German and Hungarian schools. He was further educated in Novi Sad
Novi Sad
Novi Sad is the capital of the northern Serbian province of Vojvodina, and the administrative centre of the South Bačka District. The city is located in the southern part of Pannonian Plain on the Danube river....
, Kalocsa
Kalocsa
Kalocsa is a town in Bács-Kiskun county, Hungary. It lies 88 miles south of Budapest. It is situated in a marshy but highly productive district, near the left bank of the Danube River. Historically it had greater political and economic importance than at present.Kalocsa is the Episcopal see...
and Bratislava
Bratislava
Bratislava is the capital of Slovakia and, with a population of about 431,000, also the country's largest city. Bratislava is in southwestern Slovakia on both banks of the Danube River. Bordering Austria and Hungary, it is the only national capital that borders two independent countries.Bratislava...
(the Evangelical Licaeum and the Roman Catholic Academy). He became a teacher and earned his living chiefly as a teacher of foreign languages. He was an ardent supporter of Enlightenment and his model was Dositej Obradović
Dositej Obradovic
Dositej Dimitrije Obradović was a Serbian author, philosopher, linguist, polyglot and the first minister of education of Serbia...
, whom he met personally in Trieste
Trieste
Trieste is a city and seaport in northeastern Italy. It is situated towards the end of a narrow strip of land lying between the Adriatic Sea and Italy's border with Slovenia, which lies almost immediately south and east of the city...
's Serbian community before Dositej left for Karađorđe's Serbia. Joakim Vujić was a polyglot and knew Italian, German, French, English, Hungarian and, of course, Greek and Latin. He also learnt some Hebrew.
His career as a dramatic author began with the exhibition of a drama in or about the year 1813, and continued for almost thirty years. Prior to 1813 he incurred the hostility of the Austrian authorities, especially, it is said, of the Habsburgs, by the attacks which he made upon them on the stage in Zemun
Zemun
Zemun is a historical town and one of the 17 municipalities which constitute the City of Belgrade, the capital of Serbia...
, and at their instance he was imprisoned for a while. After writing a play during his imprisonment, in which he is said to have recanted, he was freed. His many travels and literary accomplishments established his influence in the new Serbian capital -- Kragujevac -- once and for all and at the same time knitted him closely to Prince Miloš, who recognized in him a man after his own heart, and made him the knaževsko-srbskog teatra direktor, the director of the Royal Serbian Theatre.
He made several voyages to the Black Sea and to different places in southern Russia before returning in 1842 back in Serbia, where he died on the 8th of November 1847.
Work and importance
He was one of the most productive Serbian writers of his time and left about fifty works. He published slightly more than a half of them. Some are still in manuscript, and one was destroyed in World War II, when the National Library in Belgrade, in which his manuscripts were kept, was demolished in an air raid. He translated and adapted dramatic works (from German and Hungarian), wrote travel books, geographical text-books and translated novels. He compiled the first French grammar in the Serbian language (1805). He wrote in the so-called Slavo-Serbian language, a variant very close to the language of the people. Many Serbs subscribed to his publications, and he was, together with novelist Milovan Vidaković, one of the most widely read Serbian authors of his time. As such, he exercised a considerable influence on the broadening of the reading public among the Serbs. He seems to have also been among the first Serbian writers of travel books, for he began to write his first travel account as early as 1803, while touring Italy. His more important books of this kind are Travels in Serbia (1828) and Travels in Hungary, Wallachia, and Russia (1845). His famous autobiography -- My Life -- was also written in the form of a travel book.Vujić lived and wrote in the time of the French Revolution
French Revolution
The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...
(1789). He was a witness of the Napoleonic Wars, the Serbian Revolution
Serbian revolution
Serbian revolution or Revolutionary Serbia refers to the national and social revolution of the Serbian people taking place between 1804 and 1835, during which this territory evolved from an Ottoman province into a constitutional monarchy and a modern nation-state...
s, the actions of the Holy Alliance
Holy Alliance
The Holy Alliance was a coalition of Russia, Austria and Prussia created in 1815 at the behest of Czar Alexander I of Russia, signed by the three powers in Paris on September 26, 1815, in the Congress of Vienna after the defeat of Napoleon.Ostensibly it was to instill the Christian values of...
, and other great events in Europe in the period between the two revolutions (1789–1848): He wrote at the time of the awakening of the nations in the Balkans and South-East Europe. In his writings and theatrical work he propagated progressive views, liberty, human rights, ethical ideas, and international co-operation. Although he belonged by birth to a distant and alienated branch of the Serbian people, he was determined to get to know his mother country well, to return to it and to serve it as an intellectual and patriot.
Vujić is best known and most esteemed for his work for the theatre. He organised the first theatrical performance in Serbian, which took place in the Hungarian theatre "Rondella" in Budapest on the 24th of August 1813. From 1813, if not earlier, to 1839 he organised, with the help of secondary school pupils and adult amateurs, performances in the Serbian language in many towns of the Austrian Empire and Hungarian Kingdom -- Sent Andreja
Szentendre
Szentendre is a riverside town in Pest county, Hungary, near the capital city Budapest. It is known for its museums , galleries, and artists. Due to its picturesque appearance and easy rail and river access, it has become a popular destination for tourists staying in Budapest...
(1810–1813), Budapest
Budapest
Budapest is the capital of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary, it is the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation centre. In 2011, Budapest had 1,733,685 inhabitants, down from its 1989 peak of 2,113,645 due to suburbanization. The Budapest Commuter...
(1813), Baja (1815), Szeged
Szeged
' is the third largest city of Hungary, the largest city and regional centre of the Southern Great Plain and the county town of Csongrád county. The University of Szeged is one of the most distinguished universities in Hungary....
(1815), Novi Sad (1815, 1838), Pančevo
Pancevo
Pančevo is a city and municipality located in the southern part of Serbian province of Vojvodina, 15 km northeast from Belgrade. In 2002, the city had a total population of 77,087, while municipality of Pančevo had 127,162 inhabitants. It is the administrative center of the South Banat...
(1824, 1833, 1835, 1837, 1839), Zemun
Zemun
Zemun is a historical town and one of the 17 municipalities which constitute the City of Belgrade, the capital of Serbia...
(1824), Temesvar
Timisoara
Timișoara is the capital city of Timiș County, in western Romania. One of the largest Romanian cities, with an estimated population of 311,586 inhabitants , and considered the informal capital city of the historical region of Banat, Timișoara is the main social, economic and cultural center in the...
(1824), Arad (1832) and Karlovac (1833). He founded the Serbian Theatre
Knjaževsko-srpski teatar
Knjaževsko-srpski teatar is the oldest theatre in Central Serbia.It is based in City of Kragujevac, the fourth largest city of Serbia.The theatre was founded in 1835 by Miloš Obrenović, Prince of Serbia....
in Kragujevac
Kragujevac
Kragujevac is the fourth largest city in Serbia, the main city of the Šumadija region and the administrative centre of Šumadija District. It is situated on the banks of the Lepenica River...
, the capital of the restored Serbian state, and became its first director (1834–1836). This was the first state and court theatre in the Serbia of Miloš Obrenović I, Prince of Serbia
Miloš Obrenovic I, Prince of Serbia
Miloš Obrenović was Prince of Serbia from 1815 to 1839, and again from 1858 to 1860. He participated in the First Serbian Uprising, led Serbs in the Second Serbian Uprising, and founded the House of Obrenović...
; J. Vujić was the only professional in it and he had the entire capital at his disposal when he prepared performances for the Prince and the representatives of the people.
He advocated the presentation of plays in the Serbian language in Novi Sad (1833), where he collaborated with the so-called Flying Dilettante Theatre, which gave the first performance in Serbo-Croat in Zagreb at the invitation of the Illyrian Library and which became the first professional theatrical company in the Balkans (1840–1842). A considerable number of the members of this company came later to Belgrade, where they took part in the work of the "Theatre at Djumruk" and helped establish the first professional theatre in Belgrade in 1842.
Vujić has been justly called the "Serbian Thespis" and "the father of the Serbian theatre", for he was the first Serb to engage in practical theatrical work and to organise theatrical performances. In this activity he profited much by the experience of Italian, German and Hungarian theatres.
Joakim Vujić translated or adapted 28 dramatic works. He was chiefly interested in German drama and August von Kotzebue
August von Kotzebue
August Friedrich Ferdinand von Kotzebue was a German dramatist.One of Kotzebue's books was burned during the Wartburg festival in 1817. He was murdered in 1819 by Karl Ludwig Sand, a militant member of the Burschenschaften...
seems to have been his favourite playwright, for he translated eight of Kotzebue's plays. He began his "studies of theatre arts" in Bratislava during his regular studies; he continued them in Trieste
Trieste
Trieste is a city and seaport in northeastern Italy. It is situated towards the end of a narrow strip of land lying between the Adriatic Sea and Italy's border with Slovenia, which lies almost immediately south and east of the city...
in Italy, and completed them in Budapest (1810–1815). The crucial event in his theatrical career was the performance of I. Balog's heroic play about Karađorđe and the liberation of Belgrade, presented in the Hungarian Theatre in Budapest in 1812. Later Vujić translated this play into Serbian, but he was not permitted to publish it. Nevertheless, he used his manuscript in preparing the play. The translation was only published 40 years later (Novi Sad, 1843).
Vujić was one of the rare writers and cultural workers of his time who made his living by writing. His autobiography was a remarkable achievement of the printing craft: the work is written in Serbian (or rather Slav-Serbian), but is contains a number of passages, letters, documents and fragments quoted in several modern and classical languages, and each of them is printed in the corresponding type. Thus the book contains Serbian, Latin, Italian, French, Hungarian, English, German, Hebrew and Greek texts, all printed in the appropriate alphabet.
For a long time, Vujić was a solitary theatrical enthusiast among the Serbs. He himself was a veritable theatrical laboratory - he was not only the translator and adapter of the plays he produced, but also the director, chief organiser, actor, scenographer, costume designer, prompter and technical manager. He advocated the establishment of a national theatre for the people, but he also carried in his luggage neatly transcribed roles and cords for stage curtains. In short, he himself represented an entire small theatrical system. He gave successful performances, in each town he visited, relying on the support of Serbian schools and churches. He left behind him groups of inspired young people who continued his work, establishing theatres in their own language. He worked in the time of the monstrous censorship of Metternich's police regime and he was fully aware of the rigidity of the official measures, for his work was under constant police surveillance.
His productions of "Black George or The Liberation of Belgrade from the Turks" in Szeged (1815) and Novi Sad (1815) set into motion the complex machinery of the Imperial military and civilian censorship, which put a stop to the further presentation of the play and other similar productions.
He produced about 25-30 plays in all, each of which represented a specific national and cultural achievement. He usually staged his own translations and adaptations, and he ended his theatrical career with a production of Jovan Sterija Popović
Jovan Sterija Popovic
Jovan Sterija Popović was a Serbian playwright, poet and pedagogue who taught at the Belgrade Higher School. Sterija was recognized by his contemporaries as the one of the leading Serbian intellectuals...
's popular comedy "Kir Janja" (Pančevo, 1839).
His theatre was a theatre of Enlightenment, and its aim was to edify the people and to heighten their national consciousness. Although he cherished the idea of a national theatre as a permanent professional system, he did not succeed in creating a lasting national theatre in the Slav-Serbian language. Nevertheless, he constantly insisted upon it as an aim to be aspired to. He believed that such a theatre would provide an important link with the cultures of the other European countries. The permanent national theatre was to come into being a little later, after the triumph of Vuk's linguistic and cultural reform, when the Serbian National Theatre in Novi Sad (1861) and the National Theatre in Belgrade (1868) were established.
The versatile activity of Joakim Vujić belongs to many cultural spheres and disciplines. His work is of interest to various students of the Serbian cultural heritage - to ethnologists, philologists, philosophers, historians, culturologists, historians of art, historians of education and andragogy, experts on theatrical organisation, folklorists, theatrologists, costume designers, psychologists, sociologists, aestheticians, and, in a broader sense, Balcanologists and all those involved in the study of the general position of cultural workers and intelligentsia in repressive societies.
Towards the end of his life Vujić applied to the court of Karađorđe Petrović for a pension in recognition of his edificatory, cultural, literary and theatrical work. He did not get it, but he was one of the first cultural workers and authors in Serbia to claim social recognition and material reward for his service to the people.
Vujić was a mediator between the Serbian and Yugoslav culture and the cultures in the Italian, German, Hungarian, French and English languages. He was also interested in the life, customs, laws, language and religion of the Mohammedans. In fact, he was one of the rare mediators between the Western Christian and the Eastern Islamic cultures. His activity was of great value to the Serbs, because it helped them to become integrated, at least partly, into the European cultural system.
The earliest and least polished stone in the foundations of the Serbian and Yugoslav theatre was laid by Joakim Vujic as far back as 1813, when he produced the first secular play in the Serbian language. It is the 175th anniversary of that event that we are celebrating today. His work was almost completely forgotten for a long time, and the first to draw attention to him was the great Serbian comediographer Branislav Nusic, who proposed in 1900 to publish Vujić's plays in his projected Serbian Dramatic Miscellany. Unfortunately, the Miscellany was never published. Only the Royal National Theatre in Belgrade produced two of Vujić's works on the occasion of its 30th anniversary, thus playing homage to the "father of the Serbian theatre". Between the two world wars his works were not staged in Serbian professional theatres.