Vuk Stefanović Karadžić

Born in 1787 in Tršić, Vuk Stefanović Karadžić became one of the great reformers of the Serbian language. Working in the early 19th century, he argued that writing should follow everyday speech, and his grammar, dictionary, and spelling reforms helped lay the foundation of modern literary Serbian.

He was not only a language reformer but also a passionate collector of oral tradition. Karadžić gathered Serbian folk poems, stories, songs, and proverbs, giving them a lasting place in print and introducing that rich tradition to a wider European audience.

His ideas were controversial at first, but their influence only grew over time. By the time of his death in 1864, he had become a central figure in Serbian literary and cultural history, valued both for shaping the language and for preserving the voice of the people.