13 Facts About Zaharije Orfelin

Zaharije Orfelin was a Serbian polymath who lived and worked in the Habsburg monarchy and Venice.

Zaharije Orfelin was born in a Serb family in Vukovar in 1726, in the period after the Great Turkish War.

Zaharije Orfelin served under bishop Vicentije Jovanovic Vidak in Temesvar until 1764.

Zaharije Orfelin is the main character of the novel "Drugo Telo" by Milorad Pavic.

Zaharije Orfelin was successful as a painter, calligrapher and copper-engraver, he did several works in copper-engraving.

Zaharije Orfelin wrote a manuscript Against Roman Papacy as a reaction to Austria and the Roman Catholic Church's proselytism towards Habsburg Serbs.

In 1768, Zaharije Orfelin proclaimed a mixture of Church-Slavonic and vernacular into the Serbian literary language, in which there was always room for specific Russian words, thus practically establishing the Slavic Serbian language.

In 1776 Zaharije Orfelin's name appears in a lexicon of Austrian artists, Des Gelehte Osterisch by de Luca, where he is listed as both an engraver and a writer, elected as an academician in the newly established Art Academy of Engraving in Vienna, and acknowledged by its director Jacob Matthias Schmutzer.

Zaharije Orfelin is the author of the first modern Serbian spelling book from 1767, which was used by numerous generations of children.

Zaharije Orfelin is the author of the first textbooks of the Latin language.

Zaharije Orfelin wrote the first Serbian "Perpetual Calendar" in 1780, printed in Vienna in 1783.

Zaharije Orfelin noted the great importance of medicinal plants and wrote the book "The Great Serbian Herbarium" in which he described about 500 plants, giving each a Latin and folk name.

Zaharije Orfelin gave a recipe that became popular with various modifications in the Fruska gora region.