[2] Many Serbs fled across the Danube and Sava into the Military Frontier of the Habsburg monarchy after increased Ottoman oppression.
With the outbreak of the Austro-Turkish War (1787–91), he joined the Serbian Free Corps, a Serb volunteer unit fighting the Ottomans in central Serbia, consequently occupied by the Habsburgs (1788–92).
The leader of the uprising, Karađorđe, who had fought in Petrović's volunteer unit, viewed him as his foster father.
In March 1806, Ottoman commander Suleiman Pasha defeated the Serbian rebel band of Radič Petrović near the Studenica Monastery.
In the Serbian historical drama TV series Vuk Karadžić (1987),[5] Radič Petrović was played by Milan Srdoč.