HISTORY

POET OF OUR CHILDHOOD: Who was the great Jovan Jovanović Zmaj and why is he still so important!

by Serbian Times24. November 2025.24. November 2025.

Jovan Jovanović Zmaj was born in Novi Sad, into a distinguished bourgeois family. He attended elementary school in Novi Sad, and high school in Novi Sad, Halaš and Požun. After finishing high school, he enrolled in law studies in Pest, Prague, and Vienna. His stay in Vienna was of particular importance for his literary and political education, where he met Branko Radičević, who was his greatest poetic role model. Also, in Vienna, he met Svetozar Miletić and Đura Jakšić.

After finishing his law studies, Zmaj returned to Novi Sad in 1860 and, as one of Miletić’s closest associates, became a clerk in the Novi Sad magistrate. There he met his future wife Ruža Ličanin. This love and happy family life inspired Zmaj to write the cycle (collection) of poems “Đulići” (from the Turkish word Gül, which means rose).

However, the service in the magistrate did not suit him, so he left his job and dedicated himself to literary work. He then started the literary magazine “Javor” and the satirical paper “Komarac”. In 1838 he moved to Pest, where he worked in Matica Srpska and as the supervisor of Tekelijanum. In 1864 he launched the satirical paper “Zmaj” (it is a wordplay, since: May 3rd, according to the Julian calendar, was the day the May Assembly was held in 1848), whose name would become an integral part of his own name.

In 1870, Zmaj finished his medical studies, so he returned to Novi Sad, where he started his medical practice. Here he was soon struck by a family tragedy: his children died due to illness, and then his wife. A series of elegiac poems published under the common name “Đulići uveoci” emerged from this family tragedy.

In addition to “Đulići” and “Đulići uveoci”, Zmaj wrote a large number of humorous and children’s poems, which were published in various magazines, and later published in two editions of his collected works – “Pevanija” and “Druga pevanija”. The last printed collections by Zmaj are “Snohvatice” and “Devesilje”. As for prose, he tried his hand at it by writing the poetic legend “Vidosava Branković” and the humorous theater play “Šaran”.

In addition, he was engaged in translating the works of Alexander Petőfi, Goethe, Heine, Lermontov, and Tennyson.

Zmaj edited two more satirical papers – “Žića” and “Starmali”, and from 1880 until his death, the children’s magazine “Neven”.

He died in 1904 in Sremska Kamenica.