Pelagic, Vaso

Born 1838 in Gornji-Žabar; died Jan. 25, 1899, in Požarevac. A revolutionary democrat and a leader of the national liberation and socialist movement in Serbia and Bosnia-Hercegovina.

The son of a Serbian peasant, Pelagic was educated in Bosnia and Serbia and studied at Moscow University from 1863 to 1865. His world view was greatly influenced by the Russian Revolutionary Democrats. In Serbia he founded a theological seminary in Banja Luka, where he preached progressive ideas. In 1869 the Turkish authorities exiled him to Asia Minor, but he fled to Serbia in 1871. Pelagic took part in the anti-Turkish uprising of 1875–78 in Bosnia-Hercegovina and vigorously protested the occupation of these territories by Austria-Hungary in 1878. In the 1890’s he helped organize artisans’ and workers’ societies, which he believed would become the basis for a Serbian socialist party. Pelagic helped found the Belgrade newspaper Socijal-Demokrat in 1895. In his works he advocated socialism, materialist views on the development of nature, and atheism.