Portrait of Vuk Karadžić

Hello everyone!
Today I drew a portrait of a very important person for my people, Vuk Stefanovic Karadzic.

Vuk Stefanović Karadžić was born in 1787 in Tršić near Loznica, in a family where children died, so according to folk custom, he was named Vuk (Wolf) so that witches and ghosts would not harm him.

He learned to read and write from his cousin Jevta Savić Čotrić, who was the only literate person in the area.

Little is known from Vuk's early childhood. It is only known that he learned to read and write on his own and that he stayed for some time in the Tronoši monastery. His father sent him there to be educated by the monks, but when they gave him cattle to look after instead, his father sent him back home. Vuk acquired the most important education by listening to folk customs, stories and songs, which he also wrote down. In 1804, the Serbian uprising provided liberation and a short-lived peace.

In 1823, Vuk met Jakob Grimm, Wilhelm Green's brother-in-law, with whom he gained joint fame by publishing a collection of German fairy tales. Jakob Grimm wrote a positive review of Vuk's third collection of poems and introduced him to Goethe. Vuk maintained contact with the Grim Brothers, who knew the Serbian language and took some of the fairy tales from the Serbian.

In the years between 1828 and 1832, Vuk was in the service of Prince Miloš Obrenović. Vuk's duties included teaching French to the prince's sons, translating Napoleon's laws into Serbian, and writing a history of Serbia.

After retiring, Karadžić had time to travel, collect material and re-examine his earlier collections, which form an important part of Serbian tradition, culture and history. Vuk Karadžić died in Vienna in 1864.