Lukijan Mušicki (Temerin

Temerin

Temerin is a town and municipality in South Bačka District of Vojvodina, Serbia...

, 1777-Sremski Karlovci

Sremski Karlovci

Sremski Karlovci is a town and municipality in Serbia, in the autonomous province of Vojvodina, situated on the bank of the river Danube, 8 km from Novi Sad...

, 1837) was a Serbian

Serbs

The Serbs are a South Slavic ethnic group of the Balkans and southern Central Europe. Serbs are located mainly in Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina, and form a sizable minority in Croatia, the Republic of Macedonia and Slovenia. Likewise, Serbs are an officially recognized minority in...

 poet, prose writer, and polyglot.

Mušicki was a monk, and later abbot of a monastery in Fruška Gora

Fruška Gora

Fruška Gora is a mountain in north Syrmia. Most part of the territory is located within Vojvodina, Serbia, but a smaller part on its western side overlaps the territory of Croatia...

, whose religious poetry in Church Slavonic, a language distant from the spoken koine, but the only literary language of his time, was recognised and valued by the Serbian Orthodox Church

Serbian Orthodox Church

The Serbian Orthodox Church is one of the autocephalous Orthodox Christian churches, ranking sixth in order of seniority after Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem, and Russia...

. His secular poetry in vernacular

Vernacular

A vernacular is the native language or native dialect of a specific population, as opposed to a language of wider communication that is not native to the population, such as a national language or lingua franca.- Etymology :The term is not a recent one...

 tongue was frowned upon, to the point that he was threatened with defrocking, unless he repented, which in the end he did and stopped writing in what will only be justified as a written language by Vuk Karadžić.

In the opinion of his contemporaries, Mušicki revived the glories of the 18th century period of pseudo-classicism, and scholars such as Pavel Jozef Šafárik

Pavel Jozef Šafárik

Pavol Jozef Šafárik Pavol Jozef Šafárik (Safáry / Schaffáry/ Schafary/ Saf(f)arik / Šafarík/ Szafarzik, Czech Pavel Josef Šafařík, German Paul Joseph Schaffarik, Serbian Павле Јосиф Шафарик, Latin Paulus Josephus Schaffarik, Hungarian Pál József Saf(f)arik) Pavol Jozef Šafárik (Safáry /...

 called Mušicki "Prince of Serbian Poetry", Petar I Petrović-Njegoš

Petar I Petrovic-Njegoš

Petar I Petrović Njegoš was the ruler of Montenegro, the Cetinje Episcop of the Serbian Orthodox Church and Exarch of the Serbian Orthodox Church throne. He was the most popular spiritual and military leader from the Petrović dynasty...

 referred to him as "a genius of our race," while Đura Daničić said Mušicki was "the father of contemporary Serbian literature;" this is friendly hyperbole. Jernej Kopitar

Jernej Kopitar

Jernej Bartol Kopitar was a Slovene linguist and philologist working in Vienna. He also worked as the Imperial censor for Slovene literature in Vienna...

 hailed him as "the Serbian Horace

Horace

Quintus Horatius Flaccus , known in the English-speaking world as Horace, was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus.-Life:...

". While such judgements are naturally somewhat exaggerated, there is no doubt that Mušicki takes a very high place among Serbian poets of his day.

Indeed, Lukijan Mušicki ranks, like some of his contemporaries, Jovan Muškatirović, Aleksije Vezilić, Emanuil Janković, Vićentije Rakić, Pavle Solarić, Atanasije Stojković among the authors who have both a historical and an intrinsic importance in Serbian literature and science (Janković and Stojković in particular). They represented for the 18th century the literature of their time, and kept alive, the torch handed on to them by their maister Dositej Obradović

Dositej Obradovic

Dositej Dimitrije Obradović was a Serbian author, philosopher, linguist, polyglot and the first minister of education of Serbia...

. What is known of Mušicki's life can be read in Jovan Skerlić

Jovan Skerlić

Jovan Skerlić was a Serbian writer and critic. He is regarded as one of the most influential Serbian literary critics of the early 20th century, after Bogdan Popović.- Biography :...

's History of New Serbian Literature (Istorija nove srpske književnosti), published in Belgrade (Second Edition, 1921) on pages 138-143.

Biography

Luka Mušicki was born in Temerin

Temerin

Temerin is a town and municipality in South Bačka District of Vojvodina, Serbia...

 on the 27th of January 1777. His early education was most carefully conducted by his parents, first he was sent to a Serbian grammar school in Temerin; a German school in Titel

Titel

Titel is a town and municipality in the South Bačka District of the Vojvodina, Serbia. The town of Titel has a population of 5,831, while the population of the municipality of Titel is 16,936...

; gymnasia (high schools) in Novi Sad

Novi Sad

Novi Sad is the capital of the northern Serbian province of Vojvodina, and the administrative centre of the South Bačka District. The city is located in the southern part of Pannonian Plain on the Danube river....

 and Segedin; and finally took up studying philosophy and law at the University of Pest

Pest

Pest may refer to:*Pest , an animal or plant detrimental to humans or human concerns*Pest, an archaic term for pestilence, originally the Black Death*Pest , an ice hockey player specialising in aggravating opponents...

, though aesthetics and poetry were always his favourite subjects. Edmund Burke

Edmund Burke

Edmund Burke PC was an Irish statesman, author, orator, political theorist and philosopher who, after moving to England, served for many years in the House of Commons of Great Britain as a member of the Whig party....

, Johann Ludwig Schedius (1787-1847), Győrgy Alajos Szerdahelyi (1740-1808), and German poets Karl Wilhelm Ramler

Karl Wilhelm Ramler

Karl Wilhelm Ramler was a German poet.Ramler was born in Kolberg. After graduating from the University of Halle, he went to Berlin, where, in 1748, he was appointed professor of logic and literature at the cadet school...

 and Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock

Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock

Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock was a German poet.-Biography:Klopstock was born at Quedlinburg, the eldest son of a lawyer.Both in his birthplace and on the estate of Friedeburg on the Saale, which his father later rented, young Klopstock passed a happy childhood; and more attention having been given...

 made a big impact on him. He was also learning Greek and English.

On leaving school with little means of support, he devoted himself to letters, and in 1800 published a collection of poems in Serbian magazines and journals. The poems encountered some adverse criticism from the Serbian ecclesiastical hierarchy, but secured for their poet the approbation and friendship of Vuk Karadžić. Henceforward Mušicki's life was steadily devoted to literary production and criticism.

Shortly afterwards he became one of the secretaries of Metropolitan Stefan Stratimirović

Stefan Stratimirović

Stefan Stratimirović was Metropolitan of the Serbian Orthodox Church in the Austrian Empire between 1790 and 1836. Having been appointed Metropolitan at the age of 33, Stratimirović maintained control over church life decisively and autonomously...

 at Karlovci where he was subjected to a rigorous ecclesiastic supervision. His superiors were suspicious of his translating ancient Latin-speaking poets, like Horace

Horace

Quintus Horatius Flaccus , known in the English-speaking world as Horace, was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus.-Life:...

, Lucian

Lucian

Lucian of Samosata was a rhetorician and satirist who wrote in the Greek language. He is noted for his witty and scoffing nature.His ethnicity is disputed and is attributed as Assyrian according to Frye and Parpola, and Syrian according to Joseph....

, Virgil

Virgil

Publius Vergilius Maro, usually called Virgil or Vergil in English , was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He is known for three major works of Latin literature, the Eclogues , the Georgics, and the epic Aeneid...

 and Ovid

Ovid

Publius Ovidius Naso , known as Ovid in the English-speaking world, was a Roman poet who is best known as the author of the three major collections of erotic poetry: Heroides, Amores, and Ars Amatoria...

, whenever he had free time, but even more so when they found out that he knew Horace's De arte poetica by heart. Here his intentions of entering upon an academic career was for a time thwarted by his collision with his superiors. In 1802, after he had taken monastic vows and a new name ("Lukijan"), he was permitted to establish himself as privatdozent, lecturing at the Theological Seminary in Karlovci. Mušicki wrote extensively on aesthetic subjects, and poetry, and as a critic he had considerable influence, but only outside of the monastic community. It was not until 1812, however, that he attained the rank of archimandrite

Archimandrite

The title Archimandrite , primarily used in the Eastern Orthodox and the Eastern Catholic churches, originally referred to a superior abbot whom a bishop appointed to supervise...

 at the Šišatovac Monastery

Šišatovac monastery

The Šišatovac Monastery is a Serb Orthodox monastery situated on the Fruška Gora mountain in the northern Serbia, in the province of Vojvodina. The foundation of the monastery is ascribed to the refugee monks from the Serbian monastery of Žiča...

.

In 1828, at the age of 51, he was finally elevated from archimandrite to bishop of the Diocese of Upper Karlovci where he spent the remainder of his life. He died on 15 March 1837, having completed his sixtieth year. Mušicki is principally remembered for his classical poetry and the many translations from the Latin of Horace. Most of his prose, in substance if not in manner, is that of a literary journalist. His lyrics, however, rank high in the context of Serbian 18th century literature, in pseudo-classicism. As a poet he was imitative: reminiscences of Dositej and Vezilić are noticeable in his patriotic songs; of Goldoni in his lyrical poems. He wrote hastily to satisfy artistic canons; but despite his faults he also had the merits of a pioneer, and in Serbia, Bosnia, Montenegro and other parts where Serbs live his name will endure. His collected poems and writings first appeared under the title Lukijana Mušickog stihodvorenia (The Works of Lukijan Mušicki) posthumously in Budapest in 1838 and 1840 (in two volumes), and the other two volumes were released in Novi Sad in 1844 and 1847.