He was born in Novi Vinodolski and attended a German school in his native town, where he was trained to become a blacksmith.

Turks[1] are very fond of me for my prudence, they say, and rayah grows ever more trust in me, and therefrom there is no other outcome but mitre on the head or a stake in the arse".

He lived a secluded life until symptoms of mental degeneration appeared, and he eventually died in the sanatorium of renowned psychiatrist Richard von Krafft-Ebing, in Feldhof near Graz, on April 17, 1881.

During his 1839 travels to Bosnia (from Karlovac, Sisak and Kostajnica, over Belgrade, on foot and horse, to Sarajevo, Travnik, over Romanija up to Zvornik), Mažuranić wrote a piece which can be read both as an adventure and as a realistic account of his experiences.

The travelogue intermixes author's views on the relationships between the Ottoman Turks and the Bosniaks, Islam and Christianity, with accounts of the customs of everyday life, images of vizier courts of agas and pashas, but also of folk meyhanes, contemplations on everyday life, love and death.