The life of Dositej

Dimitrije Obradović was born around 1740 in Čakovo, in Banat, on the territory of today's Romania. After his parents had died at his early age, his uncle took care of him. His uncle wanted him to become a craftsman, but Dimitrije had different plans. At the age of 14 he ran away to the monastery Hopovo in Vojvodina. He became a monk and took a new name under which he became popular, Dositej. In the monastery he started to think about a solitary life as a hermit, but soon he was disappointed with monastic life. He realized that his favorite magical stories about saints were hardly true. Dositej started to read literature that was not religious and it took him to a new world that proclaimed a different kind of morality. Three years later he left the monastery and started to travel and gain more education.
Dositej attended schools in Asia Minor, Balkans, Russia, England, and several other places. He studied various languages and literature. He was also very interested in the cultural, educational and social reforms that were spreading across Europe.
Although he spent his life travelling all over the world, Dositej helped Serbian people fights the Ottoman Empire. He sent money, conducted several confidential missions and finally, he moved to Serbia. Dositej was very old when he came to Belgrade. He wanted to help due to his education, and, according to a legend, he was the first man who brought potatos to Serbia.
Dositej spent his last five years in Serbia. He worked on reforms of education and upbringing of young Serbs. Moreover, he created a new perspective on women's role in the society, demanding education for female children. He believed that women could help general educational and moral progress in Serbia.
A few months after being appointed the first Minister of Education, Dositej died on March 28th, 1811. He was buried in Belgrade's Cathedral. His remains were moved twice. Firstly, during the construction of a new Cathedral, and secondly when Vuk's remains were brought from Vienna in 1897, in order to set their graves on the same level in front of the Cathedral.