[1] In his youth Rakovac wrote, translated and adapted works in the Kajkavian dialect (Theodor Körner and others).
His adaptation of a monodrama by August von Kotzebue Stari mladoženja i košarice was published in 1832.
According to a Slovakian template he wrote a poem Duh slavjanski ("The Slavic Spirit"), from which three stanzas became the anthem of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Hey, Slavs).
Together with Ljudevit Vukotinović he published the first Croatian anthology of patriotic poetry: Pjesmarica: pjesme domorodne in 1842.
His memoirs Dnevnik (1922) were published posthumously, and represent an important historical account of the Illyrian movement.