{"id":14820,"date":"2020-11-09T22:45:36","date_gmt":"2020-11-09T21:45:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dev.p-portal.net\/?p=14820"},"modified":"2021-07-15T10:35:10","modified_gmt":"2021-07-15T08:35:10","slug":"dositej-obradovic-the-man-who-skipped-centuries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/p-portal.net\/en\/dositej-obradovic-the-man-who-skipped-centuries","title":{"rendered":"Dositej Obradovi\u0107 \u2013 the Man Who Skipped Centuries"},"content":{"rendered":"

Next year will mark 210 years since the death of Dositej Obradovi\u0107<\/strong>, the greatest modern Serbian enlightener and, alongside Vuk Karad\u017ei\u0107<\/strong>, the greatest reformer of culture since Saint<\/strong> Sava<\/strong>. Moreover, two years ago it was 210 years since the founding of Velika \u0161kola <\/em>(Great School), the first institution for higher education in Serbia, which then, under Kara\u0111or\u0111e<\/strong>, was only beginning to free itself from the centuries-old reign of the conqueror who had set it back hundreds of years. Radio-television of Serbia is currently showing the documentary series \u201cDositej \u2013 voyager of enlightenment\u201d by Valentina Deli\u0107 and colleagues, an ambitious series about the life of Obradovi\u0107. All this gives us good cause to talk again about this extraordinary man and one of the key figures of national culture and history.<\/p>\n

Dositej Obradovi\u0107 is little-known and of small significance to Serbs outside Serbia, especially those in Croatia, in spite of his many travels and stays there and the mark that he left<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Interestingly, this TV series is only the first larger documentary project about Dositej (not counting the old TV series produced by RTB), which is a sign not only of the problematic status of culture, but also of the enduring, if not always visible, misunderstanding about the significance of this remarkable man, who practically single-handedly introduced and spread ideas of the Enlightenment in regions populated by Serbs and who told of the ideas, history and facts about his people wherever he travelled. And he travelled a lot, perhaps more than any other notable Serb until the twentieth century, in a time when travelling was rare and the culture mostly sedentary, with complicated obstacles for travellers crossing from country to country and empire to empire in Europe of those times.<\/p>\n

It is also interesting, sadly in a negative way, how little-known and little important Dositej is to Serbs outside Serbia, especially those in Croatia, in spite of how much he travelled and stayed there, not to mention the mark that he left there, in Dalmatia, Slavonia and Croatia.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Dositej Obradovi\u0107<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Equal to everyone he meets<\/h5>\n

There is another important reason why Dositej should be better-known to people here and why the knowledge about him \u2013 the man who dedicated his life to spreading knowledge among his people \u2013 should be taught to new generations.<\/p>\n

He is the first who showed the way to future generations of national intellectuals, who will find themselves scattered widely in the periods to come. There were many of them in almost every generation until today. Dositej was the first to walk confidently through the western civilization, without a complex about his origins. Linguistic and cultural revolutionary Vuk Karad\u017ei\u0107 was undoubtedly a genius, but we from later generations, especially from western regions, did not look like Vuk with his wooden leg and Turkish fez and did not want to be seen as something exotic and different. We have tried to escape from this for generations, and this is the point of separation of Serbs outside Serbia from those within, who suffered under foreign, oriental domination. This point is crucial for our affinity with Dositej: he walked the west, here where our ancestors after the Great Migration guarded that very border of civilizations, as an equal to all that he met and all the time learning from everyone he could. It is difficult even to imagine what kind of resolve it took for him, a lone man from the edge of Europe, a wanderer from provincial Hopovo in Vojvodina and from Banat near the border of Asia, to behave confidently and autonomously, speaking for himself and his national culture and heritage that were still completely unknown to the world. He was their ambassador everywhere he went, just like he spread goodness everywhere: friendship, love, the spirit of reconciliation, dialogue, peacemaking, knowledge and enlightenment, freeing those words of the clerical echo and making them universal, secular and for all people. Simply put, Dositej was the pride of his people in the world.<\/p>\n

What is more, he left an autobiography unlike any other in this culture, written in a wondrous language at the border of language epochs, in a style mixed, but most of all his own, recognizable from the first line on every page. Fully titled The Life and Adventures of Dimitrije Obradovi\u010d, Named Dositej as a Monk \u2013 Written and Published by Him<\/em>, it is a book permeated by a sense goodness, exceptional clarity, enormous erudition and literary, but also emotional, intelligence and brightness. In the context of the national culture, he skipped centuries in every regard.<\/p>\n

That brings him closer to the part of his people who lived and still live in Croatia.<\/p>\n

It is worth reminding ourselves how these travels were described, especially the parts where the future giant of Serbian, South Slavic and European culture crosses into these parts for the first time with a friend from Hopovo.<\/p>\n

Journey through Slavonia<\/h5>\n

The first new geography he travels to is almost the same as the one he left \u2013 he enters Slavonia. The meeting with the people there is almost like from a novel and begins with familiarity, goodness and hospitality between people:<\/p>\n

\u201cWe took the Osijek route, crossed into Slavonia and, while on our way to Pakrac, something unexpected happened in a village. We heard songs and the talk of many people in a yard. \u2018Do you know what it is?\u2019 asked Atanasije. \u2018I am thirsty anyway; let us enter and ask for water and see what goes on here.\u2019 We entered. And there \u2013 a wedding and celebrations. When we asked for water the bridegroom\u2019s mother told us: \u2018Dear travellers, today we don\u2019t drink water here, but wine, and if you want, come in.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

The speech of the woman, with its length and intonation, is still characteristic of Slavonia and Vojvodina today.<\/p>\n

Dositej continues:<\/p>\n

\u201cWe entered. And when we told the wedding guests that we came from quite afar, the best man exclaimed: \u2018Ha, it is lucky when guests from afar come to such a celebration!\u2019 He told us to sit, eat, drink and be merry. They asked us about the wheat harvest, the vineyards and other matters in Srem (…)\u201d<\/p>\n

Dositej notes the use of \u201cikavian\u201d forms characteristic of \u0160okci in the host\u2019s speech, signifying that it is a Catholic, Croatian family. The hosts find out that the travellers came from Srem and, in line with what we said earlier about the rarity of travel and the notion of distances in those times, call that \u201cfrom quite afar\u201d.<\/p>\n

Dositej writes about the hospitality of these people: \u201cWe stayed the night there and the next day were treated as if we were their kin; with kisses and embraces we parted from them. We found such warm reception not only at weddings or in this one place, but everywhere as we crossed Slavonia and Croatia.\u201d<\/p>\n

Man from a distant future<\/h5>\n

He makes an important point in the next sentence, one that is often believed today as well: \u201cEverywhere good people rejoice to meet those from afar who speak the same language as they.\u201d<\/p>\n

He then adds a point that will be the source of greatest trouble for us for the next two centuries: \u201cLove for other people is natural for them and nothing divides and estranges them more than the churches, both Greek and Latin!\u201d<\/p>\n

Decades later, remembering this first meeting with these people who are most like his own, his experience of monastic life still fresh in him, Dositej said: \u201cThe Church\u2019s duty is to accept people and unite them in love and kindness!\u201d He finishes truthfully, but with seriousness and a warning: \u201cWould it not then be of the greatest benefit for good people to see this clearly? To be told that they can belong to any Church and still be joined in friendship, respect and love?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI am not a schismatic\u201d<\/h5>\n

Publishing these lines in Leipzig, Germany in 1783, this is a man who clearly comes from a distant future, a future with its good, bad and worst periods when his teaching will be alternately accepted and abandoned. For Dositej is neither a blind idealist nor naive. Writing about this same wedding, where he was accepted warmly and as a brother, he adds something a little darker, a little more admonishing:<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd so we talked pleasantly and openly, listening to music and watching the merry youth dance. Then a large student appears and sits across from me, listens to our talk for a while and turns to me, saying: \u2018By your way of talk I would say you are a schismatic.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

This is a sentence with that familiar tone, where the word \u201cschismatic\u201d will be replaced with other nouns that signify religious and, most frequently, national-ethnic identity, or with pejoratives like this one, but a hundred times worse.<\/p>\n

However, Dositej, although kind and conciliatory, answers resolutely: \u201c\u2019I am not a schismatic,\u2019 I answered him openly, \u201cbut an Orthodox Christian.\u2019\u201d Dositej knows who he is and does not hesitate to add: \u201cand better than him, if he wants to know\u201d.<\/p>\n

Of course, a dispute about the authority and the \u201cprimacy of the Pope and of the Greek and Latin churches\u201d begins. Dositej, well-read in the sphere of Orthodox thought, is ready for the discussion and could \u201cargue about this so that the ground beneath me trembles\u201d. His opponent starts using Latin (which Dositej still does not know), but Dositej tells us that the other guests and the hosts, \u201call sons of the Roman church\u201d, praise Dositej because, in a brilliant rhetorical moment, \u201cwhatever I say, they understand\u201d. In other words, they understand the South Slavic language, unlike Latin. The combative student threatens with jail, but, according to Dositej, the hosts again defend their guest and show the attacker the door. We will never know whether this is an idealized version, but honourable Dositej\u2019s account is worth the trust. Either way, it did not help in the distant future.<\/p>\n

.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy book will be for anyone who understands our language and who, with a pure and true heart, wants to enlighten their mind and improve their character. I will not care in the least who follows which faith and law, for that is not important in today\u2019s enlightened age. Following faith and law, all men could be good. All religions are based on the law of nature; no religion in the world says: do evil and be unjust.\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n

Letter to Haralampije, 1783<\/em>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Stay in Zagreb<\/h5>\n

After Slavonia, Dositej spent some time in Zagreb, learning Latin in the Jesuit gymnasium, the same one that exists today. It is unusual to think that Dimitrije Obradovi\u010d, named Dositej, was for a time our fellow citizen, but that is just another part of the insufficiently explored and recognized local history. We can only hope that one day our culture will turn to this part of its heritage, for it is its heritage, whether one likes it or not.<\/p>\n

Dositej\u2019s path was again changed by a man from our area. Although he intended to go to Russia, like many young Serbs of that age (a tendency that will already change in the next generation) and in that stage of development and education, which was formed according to the eastern canon, one meeting was crucial for him. Asking him where he intended to go, Danilo Jak\u0161i\u0107<\/strong>, eparch of the Karlovac area from Pla\u0161ki, advised him to cross into Dalmatia, where he could earn enough for his trip to the east (which would later not happen, luckily for us) by teaching pupils. Dositej headed towards the Adriatic and came to the Dalmatian hinterland, where he would stay the longest. This region is the birthplace of Dositej as a teacher and enlightener.<\/p>\n

Dalmatian Hinterland \u2013 one of the birthplaces of the modern written language<\/h5>\n

He arrives in Plavno on the recommendation of Krupa Monastery, goes to the \u201cfurthest serdaria<\/em>\u201d of the Knin borderland, at the very border between Turkey and Venice, to a stony, poor and harsh region.<\/p>\n