Gavril Stefanović Venclović

Gavrilo "Gavril" Stefanović Venclović (; fl. 1680–1749) was a priest, writer, poet, orator, philosopher, neologist, polyglot, and illuminator. He was one of the first and most notable representatives of Serbian Baroque literature.

Venclović's most important contributions as a scholar was in the development of the vernacular in what would a century later become the Serbian literary language. He is also remembered as one of the first Serbian enlighteners, student of Kiprijan Račanin.

Biography Venclović was born to a Serbian family in Srem province, then part of the Hungarian kingdom. He became a disciple of Kiprijan Račanin.

The first Rača School in Srem was in the Monastery of St. Lucas. Venclović had acquired skills as a poet and icon painter. He also wrote and collected songs, and wrote Hagiography of Serbian saints. Archival records show that Venclović attended the Kyiv Mohyla Academy (now National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy) from 1711 to 1715. He then went to Győr, a city in northwest Hungary, where he became a parish priest at the Serbian Orthodox Church of St. Nicholas.

Venclović's opus was vast, consisting of orations, biographies, church songs, poems, illuminations and illustrations of church books. His language was full of vernacular vitality yet able to express the inner, the subtle, and the transcendent. He was familiar with the works of contemporary Russian and Polish theologians. From Russian, he translated archbishop Lazar Baranovych's Mech Dukhovny (The Spiritual Sword), and from Polish, he translated Istorija Barona Cezara, kardinala rimskago.

Gavrilo Stefanović Venclović was among the first to use Serbian vernacular as a standard language for the purpose of writing sermons.

The sway of Old Church Slavonic as the medieval literary language of all the Eastern Orthodox Slavs lasted many centuries. In Russia, it was obtained until the time of Peter the Great (1672–1725), and among the Serbs until the time of Venclović. He translated the bible from Old Slavonic to Old Serbian. Thus the Old Slavonic was relegated only to liturgical purposes. From then on, theology and church oratory and administration were carried on in Slavoserbian, a mixture of Old Slavic (Old Church Slavonic) in its Russian form with a popular Serbian rendering, until Vuk Karadžić, who was the first reformer to shake off the remnants of this ancient speech and to institute a phonetic orthography.

Selected works Slova izbrana Udvorenje arhanđela Gavrila Devici Mariji Šajkaši orations The Spiritual Sword Prayers Against Bloody Waters