The man who wanted Serbia to become Europe

“Vaš brat Jefrem ne znam je li s vladanjem Vaše Svetlosti što zadovoljniji nego ikakav drugi činovnik, ali bi on sutra za Vas poginuo…”

(Vuk Karadžić in a letter to Prince Miloš, 1832)

In the process of the emergence of modernity Serbian state in the first half of the 1790th century, in addition to the well-known and celebrated heroes of the uprising, great merit also belongs to personalities who seemed to act from the background, without heroic glory, and who made a huge contribution to the building of the state as capable officials, but also to the building of the cultural pattern of Serbian society, as patrons and people with personal example and reputation. One of such people was the youngest brother of Prince Miloš, Jevrem Obrenović (1856–XNUMX).

In the wartime (1804–1815) he was a student, the only one among his brothers to become literate, and then a Turkish prisoner in the Nebojša Tower in Belgrade, from which he came out only after the establishment of peace, as a sick and lame young man. A year later, older brother Miloš introduced him, as a literate man, among the officials of the Serbian administration, where he remained until 1842, when all the Obrenovićs were exiled from Serbia. He died in Wallachia (Romania) in 1856, never returning to the country. His grandson was King Milan Obrenović.

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During his active participation in political life (1816–1842), he was one of the most important and interesting figures of the political and cultural scene in Serbia. He served as the manager of several nahijas (mostly in Šabačka), as the mayor of Belgrade, as the commander of the Podrinj military command and as the president of the State Council. He was the duke's deputy, the first Serbian general, one of the founders of the National Library (Serbia) in Belgrade and its "top contributor" in money and books, one of the founders and an honorary member of the Society of Serbian Literature and certainly, along with Prince Miloš, the greatest patron of his era in Serbia. He is remembered as a person inclined to "recruitment and progress", but also to "independence and self-sufficiency", who dared to oppose his position to Prince Miloš, in order to eventually join his opposition and contribute to the victory of the defenders of the constitution.

He was married to the duke's daughter Tomania Bogićević and had nine children with her, all of whom were born in Šabac.

An interesting part of his biography is represented by the houses (yards) he built and lived in with his family. In his time, it was considered that the houses of Lord Jevrem were the most beautiful in all of Serbia. After moving from Šabac to Belgrade (1831), he lived with his family for five years in a house given to him by Prince Miloš, which is known to have been on the site of today's Kapetan-Misha building, in Vasina Street. He built a new family house on the then outskirts, "on the way to Tašmajdan" (1836). After Obrenović's return to Serbia, a time he did not wait for, that house was located in the closest neighborhood of the royal palace, behind Terazi, which was built in 1844 for Prince Aleksandar Karađorđević. At that time, Jevrem's house was ruled by his widow Tomania and her daughter Anka, with their children, and the name "hall of power" spoke enough of how much the house once again became a meeting place not only of cultural life, but also of political power.

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In Jevrem Obrenović's home, both in Šabac and in Belgrade, the organization of the first literary evenings, then art workshops, and finally balls for the biggest town gentlemen of Serbia at the time began. Dimitrije and Hristina Tirol, who came from Timişoara to Šabac in 1829, played a major role in organizing such festivities as teachers of Jevrem's children. Daughter Anka, the first Serbian writer, played for the guests on the first piano brought to Šabac. After moving to Belgrade, in Jevrem's home, the idea was born for the establishment of the National Library of Serbia in 1832, then for the establishment of the Serbian Learned Society (Society of Serbian Literature) in 1841, today's SANA. Also, it was in his home that the idea of ​​educating Serbian gifted youth in European university centers was first conceived, youth who a decade later, dressed in European suits, in the famous redcoats and with the almost obligatory pointed (goatee) beards, would occupy the most influential positions in the state administration.

And when later Princess Persida Karađorđević (1842–1859) organized an art business to bring the court closer to the public space and Serbian high society, dissatisfied with the status of the court and her family in the constitutional defense regime, she knew very well that such customs had started in the home of Jevrem Obrenović - who was then living in exile - so among the first guests she invited people who had already been guests in "Jevrem's court", such as Lazar Zuban, Sime Milutinović Sarajlija, Jovan Stejić, Cvetko Rajović, Radovan Damjanović and others. They helped her with the organization of work as ceremonial masters, since they had already seen it all or worked in Jevrem's home themselves. When the Karađorđevićs left for foreign service (1859), and Jevrem Obrenović's family returned to the immediate neighborhood of the palace, they continued with social customs interrupted in 1842, gatherings, balls and literary evenings, which were now organized by Jevrem's daughter Anka, a widow with two children. She transferred part of those customs, especially balls, to the royal court itself, where her cousin Prince Mihailo had an understanding of Western customs and literary evenings, accompanied by music from the piano.

Jevrem suppressed three rebellions against Prince Miloš: Abdulina and Dobrnjčeva's rebellion (1821) in Požareva nahija, Đakov's rebellion (1825) in Smederevo nahija and Čarapić's rebellion (1826) in Belgrade nahija. These were peasant revolts, but with the aim of spreading throughout Serbia and overthrowing Miloš's regime. All three were cut down while they were still within their nahiyas. In Mileta's Rebellion (1835), which in terms of composition, intentions and character was that of elders (and not peasants), with the aim of getting the prince to agree to the adoption of the constitution, Jevrem's real participation in it was not fully clarified. It is known that he mediated the prince's reconciliation with the rebels who occupied Kragujevac, but - to what extent was he himself at that time in agreement with the rebel elders, whom he would through 1836/37. year to be openly connected - it is not possible to determine.

The best years of his career and private life were connected to Šabac, which rose from the ruins of the decade-long war of liberation. He made it the first European town in Serbia. According to his idea, the two roads that passed through Šabac, from Belgrade to Bosnia and from the Turkish fortress to Mišar, were arranged in two straight streets that intersected at right angles. The other streets were "drawn" according to them with a "ruler", that is, all cross and side streets were aligned according to the four main streets. This resulted in the first town in Serbia with urbanistically regulated streets. Under the Turks, streets were not allowed to intersect at right angles because of the sign of the "cross". Jevrem dvor was located near the main intersection. He then issued an order to remove all huts, temporary houses and thatched huts from the narrow part of the bazaar, near the main streets, and to build the highest quality houses in their place, with reliable, solid walls and roofs. Masters arrived from Belgrade - potters, bricklayers and carpenters - who built shops intended to be rented out to merchants and apartments to former owners of thatched cottages and huts.

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In the fall of 1831, he was reassigned to the position of mayor of Belgrade because the Belgrade Turks resisted the sultan's order to leave Serbia, but also because of the talent for managing the town shown in Šabac. With a heavy heart, he left behind the town to which all his family memories and the best years of his life were tied. There was a big difference between the neglected and destroyed Mačva settlement, which he first came to as a sick 26-year-old young man, and now, when, after fifteen years, he was leaving it as a "European" built and arranged town. Since his arrival, everything that could be called a newspaper in Serbia, thanks to him, first came or was created in Šabac. He left behind "European" landscaped streets, landscaped and widened surrounding villages and roads, several village churches and schools, the restored Čokešina monastery, the opened church in Šabac, the most beautiful inn in Serbia, the first hospital in Serbia, the first pharmacy, the first barracks, the first musical orchestra, the first carriage ("intov") and, finally, the first bed brought to Serbia, on which his pet Anka slept. He brought with him the memory of the first piano brought to Šabac, but also of the first sound of church bells and the first official horse races in Serbia, when his son was born. In the history of that town, Jevrem's stay in it was rightly called "the age of Jevrem Obrenović in Šabac" or, simply, "Jevrem's age". "Someone makes a picture", it was said at the time, "and if he likes it, he frames it and hangs it on the wall, someone a poem, and carries it in his pocket and never part with it, someone a book or a house, a mill, and enjoys it for the rest of his life; he made a town, the most beautiful in the country, and he had to part with it".

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As a literate and relatively educated man, he tried to provide the children with the highest education. He was the first Serbian official who started bringing people from the enlightened world, outside of Serbia, to educate his children, and later sent them to further education in European educational centers (Vienna, Pest, Mainz, Berlin, Kiev, Odessa). Son Miloš graduated from the Berlin Military Academy. He financially helped other schoolchildren, other people's children, whom he didn't even get to know.

Financially, he helped Serbian writers, most often as a subscriber to new editions, painters who immortalized portraits of the whole family on canvas, the first photographers, the first Serbian journalists, printers, "men of pen and science", of all kinds. It is known that, during the first winter when he moved to Belgrade with his family and his job (1831/1832), he sent wood to Zemun for firewood and money to feed his family. And from Vuk's thank-you note (reply), it can be seen that this was not the first time he had done this to him. The first one welcomed and hosted in Šabac one Joakim Vujić or Georgi Magarašević, Dimitrije Davidović, Josif Šlezinger and others, on their way to Kragujevac. With his personal money, he educated the first Serbian doctor, Jovan Stejić, an unknown and poor young man from Arad, who after his studies became a family doctor in his home in Šabac and Belgrade.

Besides he liked to read a good book and follow the domestic and foreign press in order to be well informed, in his free time he also liked to go hunting. At home, mostly in the evening, he always had some family guests. Apart from family members, sons-in-law or grandchildren, Cvetko Rajović, Radovan-Raja Damjanović, Vule Paštrmac or their wives came to him almost every day, who were hanging out with Tomania and their daughters. The prince's doctors also came, regardless of the current relationship between Jevrem and Prince Miloš. At that time, both mentioned doctors were more often in Belgrade, to be at the service of the sick heir to the throne Milan, the princess herself, Mihail, Jevrem's family, who needed it. At the time of the most troubled relations between Jevrem and Miloš, the prince tasked doctor Pacek not to separate from the sick Simka, Jevrem's daughter, and to do his best to save her life.

Spiritually formed in a cruel and ferocious time, more a protege than a warrior, he preserved a certain thinness of spirit and a sense of outrage, which his brother and protector Miloš had to cross already at the beginning of the war. According to the opinion of contemporary, buljubaše Petr Jokić, Jevrem's behavior was more reminiscent of his older half-brother, Milan (1770-1810), Duke of Karađorđe, who "always carried himself cleanly, just dapperly and lived quite lordly". In the title and position in which he found himself ("in all respects the second man in Serbia"), encouraged by his wife, the duke's daughter, in his spirit, over time, a dimension grew that neither he nor his wife had ever spoken publicly, but that's why their daughter Anka: "I have ambitions!!!"

In the time in which he lived, for a long time he had to depend on fate, but also on the good will of his older brother. In the meantime, the line of his personal engagement on the political and cultural level turned out to be very special and rich, rounded off as a separate greatness. For that much, perhaps, the traces of his career overshadowed the role that was assigned to him, as a member of the ruling family. In the end, the reason for his political downfall and death in exile was hidden in this discrepancy.