Matija Nenadović

• Name — Matija Nenadović • Native Name — Матија Ненадовић • Office — Prime Minister of Serbia • Term Start — 27 August 1805 • Term End — April 1807 • Monarch — Karađorđe • Predecessor — Position established • Successor — Mladen Milovanović • Born — 26 February 1777 • Birthplace — Brankovina, Ottoman Empire (present-day Serbia) • Died — 11 December 1854 • Place of death — Valjevo, Principality of Serbia • Party — Independent • Awards — Order of Glory

• Illustration — Matija Nenadović's monument in Valjevo At the age of sixteen he was ordained priest, and a few years later was promoted to an archpriest, colloquially prota of Valjevo. His father, Aleksa Nenadović, Knez (chief magistrate) of the district of Valjevo, was one of the most popular and respected public men among the Serbs at the beginning of the 19th century. When the four leaders of the Janissaries of the Sanjak of Smederevo (the so-called Dahias) thought that the only way to prevent a general rising of the Serbs was to intimidate them by murdering all their principal men, Aleksa Nenadović (1749–1804) was one of the first victims. The policy of the Dahias, instead of preventing, did actually and immediately provoke a general insurrection of the Serbs against the Turks. Prota Mateja became the deputy-commander of the insurgents of the Valjevo district (1804), but did not hold the post for long, as Karađorđe sent him in 1805 on a secret mission to St. Petersburg, and afterwards employed him almost constantly as Serbia's diplomatic envoy to Russia, Austria, Bucharest and Constantinople. After the fall of Karadjordje (1813), the new leader of the Serbs, Miloš Obrenović, sent Prota Mateja as representative of Serbia to the Congress of Vienna (1814–1815), where he pleaded the Serbian cause indefatigably. During that mission he often saw Lord Castlereagh, and for the first time the Serbian national interests were brought to the knowledge of British statesmen. He had a brother, Sima, a voivode. His paternal uncle, Jakov Nenadović, had an equally important role in Serbia, as the first Interior Minister. Matija Nenadović had a son, Ljubomir Nenadović. Nenadović was a Freemason.

Prota Mateja's memoirs (Memoari Prote Mateje Nenadovića) are the most valuable authority for the history of the first and Second Serbian uprising against the Turks. He also authored other memoirs and documentary literature.

Matija Nenadović is recorded as writer, historian, cleric, diplomat and politician.