Vuk Stefanović Karadžić | Origin of Street Names

Vuk Stefanović Karadžić (1787 - 1864) was born in Tršić, near Loznica, as one of the many but rarely surviving children of Stefan and Jegda Karadžić. In this sad fact, which determined the fate of many families in those difficult times for Serbia, lies the origin of his name - believing that their children were dying under the influence of witches and demons, his parents gave him the name Vuk to protect him from evil forces.

At that time, education in Serbia was a kind of privilege, and literacy was extremely rare. However, Vuk learned to read and write as a child, from his relative Jevta Savić, the only literate person in the entire region. This enabled him to work as a scribe for Serbian hajduks and voivodes, and to become familiar with people and circumstances beyond his village. The further course of his education led him from Tronoša Monastery to Karlovac Seminary, and eventually to the Higher School of Dositej Obradović, of which Vuk was one of the first students.

After the defeat of the First Serbian Uprising in 1813, Vuk went to Austria-Hungary, first to Zemun and then to Vienna, where he began his fruitful work on the reform of the Serbian language and the establishment of the vernacular language in literature (until then, literature was based on Church Slavonic). The greatest achievement of this work is precisely the introduction of the vernacular language into books, based on the principle of "write as you speak, read as it is written." In the context of language reform, he also proposed a change in the script by introducing new letters into the alphabet (Lj, Nj, Ć, Đ, Dž), eliminating old and unnecessary syllables characteristic of Church Slavonic dialect. In addition, Vuk Karadžić is the creator of the First Serbian Dictionary, which contained over 26,000 words rooted in the speech of the Serbian people in Serbia and Vojvodina. He is the greatest collector of folk songs, tales, and folklore, as well as a collector of historical material and chronicler of turbulent historical events during the time of the Serbian uprisings. A friend of the great Goethe and the Grimm brothers, a member of the Austrian, German, and Russian academies of sciences, and a recipient of decorations from the Russian and Habsburg emperors, Vuk belongs to the group of the most significant figures in modern Serbian history.

Vuk Stefanović Karadžić passed away in Vienna in 1864, and "his" language was declared the official Serbian language four years later. After 33 years, his remains were transferred to Serbia and buried in the courtyard of the Saborna Church in Belgrade, right next to the burial site of Dositej Obradović.

In addition to 451 streets in Serbia and Montenegro, the name of the great Vuk Karadžić is now carried by a large number of educational institutions in the country, while his busts and monuments can be found in almost every city in Serbia.