His ancestors (then living in Ottoman-occupied South Serbia) arrived at this region (Rascia or Rászság of the southern Pannonian Plain) seeking refuge from the Ottoman Turks.

Before 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.

[3] He made several voyages to the Black Sea and different places in southern Russia before returning in 1842 back in Serbia, where he died on 8 November 1847.

In his writings and theatrical work, he propagated progressive views, liberty, human rights, ethical ideas, and international cooperation.

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 [5]as an intellectual and patriot.

[6] 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.

The crucial event in his theatrical career was the performance of István Balog's heroic play about Karađorđe and the liberation of Belgrade, presented in the Hungarian Theatre in Budapest in 1812.

He usually staged his translations and adaptations, and he ended his theatrical career with a production of Jovan Sterija Popović's popular comedy "Kir Janja" (Pančevo, 1839).

[5] Soon after World War II and the formation of socialist Yugoslavia, the Yugoslav dramatic heritage was made an object of study in the newly established Academies for Theatre Arts in Belgrade, Zagreb, and Ljubljana.