Marko distinguished himself in the Austrian military fighting ancestral enemies and earned a patent of nobility and a coat of arms from Emperor Leopold I.
[8] Later, Samuil's son Jovan, born in Petrovaradin in 1722, would carry the nobiliary particle proudly as he advanced through military ranks in an Austrian infantry regiment and later in Russia where his title was also recognized.
[9] In 1751, Jovan Samuilović Horvat de Kurtič, his brother Dimitrije, and Nikola and Teodor Chorba contacted Mikhail Petrovich Bestuzhev-Ryumin, the Russian Ambassador to Austria, and requested his permission to migrate to Russia.
[14][15] Led by Jovan Horvat, a convoy of officers and their families and others left Austria and arrived in Imperial Russia at the end of September 1751.
With the Empress's consent, Jovan Horvat built the foundation of the Fort of St. Elizabeth (named in honor of her Saint patroness, now located in today's Kropyvnytskyi, an administrative center of the Kirovohrad Oblast).