Ilic, Jovan

Born Aug. 15, 1824, in Resnik, near Belgrade; died Mar. 12, 1901, in Belgrade. Serbian poet. Studied philosophy at the University of Vienna. Participated in the Serbian national liberation movement of the 1840’s and 1850’s. His first collection of poems came out in 1854.

IliĆ championed the idea of patriotism and brotherhood of the Slavic peoples (in the poems “Moscow,” “Žižka,” and others). His lyric poetry, the narrative poem The Shepherds (1868), and the poetry collection The Tambourine (1891) are imbued with folk motifs. Some of Ilic’s poems became folk songs.