[citation needed] In the early 1880s he designed and attempted to construct a dirigible (airship),[1] about 20 years before Ferdinand von Zeppelin.

[citation needed] Ognjeslav lived with his family in Saint Petersburg, Russia.

He celebrated the slava of Saint Nicholas every year and one of his regular guests was Dmitri Mendeleev.

One of his daughters married a Serbian officer and, during the First World War, she became, together with Nadežda Petrović, a voluntary nurse.

When he died in December 1916 in Saint Petersburg, the press reported that "a brilliant inventor and scientist has disappeared, a man who has, for many reasons, deserved that future generations remember his unusual destiny and scientific achievements".