Aleksije Vezilić

• Name — Aleksije Vezilić Алексије Везилић • Born — 17 March 1753 • Birthplace — Stari Ker (now Zmajevo), Habsburg monarchy (Modern-day Serbia) • Died — 12 January 1792 • Place of death — Novi Sad, Habsburg monarchy (Modern-day Serbia) • Occupation — Writer, poet • Language — Serbian Aleksije Vezilić (17 March 1753, in Stari Ker, now Zmajevo – 12 January 1792, in Novi Sad) was a Serbian lyric poet who introduced the German version of the Enlightenment to the Serbs.

Vezilić was born in a Serbian village called Stari Ker, today's Zmajevo, situated in the Vrbas municipality, in the South Bačka District, Vojvodina province, then part of the Austrian Military Frontier, on 17 July 1753. He completed his early schooling in Novi Sad and Segedin, and studied Latin and German at the universities of Buda and Pest. Upon graduation in 1780, he went to Vienna and enrolled in the newly established École Normale (which in time became the College of Pedagogy of the University of Vienna), then under the guidance of professor Stevan Vujanovski. Founded in Vienna, the École Normale trained teachers and supervisors of all the reformed schools. In 1782 he became a professor at a teacher's college in Karlovci. In 1785 he entered the University of Vienna to read law, and two years later, he taught Latin and German in Karlovci. In 1790 he was offered the post of regent of Serbian and Romanian Orthodox schools in what was then called the Velikovardar and Eger districts in Hungary. He was for the better part of his life ostensibly headed for the Church, but not until 1790. After a brief period of study, he was ordained that year at Rakovac monastery in Fruska Gora. Two years later he died on 12 January 1792 at Novi Sad. He was 39. How seriously he took himself as a poet is clear from the classical form in which he began his career. He produced in turn a book -- Kratkoje socinenije o privatnih i publicnih delah (1775) -- containing four odes, while another of his works -- Kratkoje napisenije o spokojnoj zizni (1788) -- represented the first collection of verses in modern Serbian literature. Also, he wrote a Serbian-German Dictionary entitled Rečnik malyj nemecko-serbsij, published posthumously in Vienna in 1793.