Jovan Maleševac

Jovan Maleševac (; ) was a Serbian Orthodox monk and scribe who collaborated in 1561 with the Slovene Protestant reformer Primož Trubar to print religious books in Cyrillic. Between 1524 and 1546, Maleševac wrote five liturgical books in Church Slavonic at Serbian Orthodox monasteries in Herzegovina and Montenegro. He later settled in the region of White Carniola, in present-day Slovenia. In 1561, he was engaged by Trubar to proof-read Cyrillic Protestant liturgical books produced in the South Slavic Bible Institute in Urach, Germany, where he stayed for five months.

Scribe in Herzegovina and Montenegro Jovan Maleševac was born in the village of Hotkovci north of Glamoč in western Bosnia, then part of the Ottoman Empire. He became a Serbian Orthodox hieromonk (priest-monk), and was active as a scribe writing liturgical books in Church Slavonic.

Proofreader in Germany

Maleševac later joined the people who emigrated from the Ottoman-held Bosnia, Herzegovina, and Serbia to neighbouring areas of the Habsburg Empire, and he went to the region of White Carniola (in present-day Slovenia). Before that, he may have been to Venice, as he was in correspondence with a man (possible Vićenco Vuković?) who worked at a Serbian printing house there. In White Carniola, he was contacted in 1561 by Protestant activists associated with the Slovene religious reformer Primož Trubar. but he was not confident of his Croatian translators' proficiency in that script. For this reason, Trubar and his colleagues negotiated with a Serb named Dimitrije Ljubavić. He had been a secretary of the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, before he went to Württemberg, where he converted to Protestantism. Dimitrije was willing to help print Cyrillic books, but after he was offered a high position at the Moldavian court, he went to Moldavia instead. Trubar and colleagues hoped that their Cyrillic books and the Uskok priests would help convert South Slavs in the Ottoman Empire and even Turks to Protestantism. Maleševac and Popović were introduced to Trubar in Ljubljana, from where they travelled together to Urach. They arrived there in September 1561, taking with them a large pack of the monks' books. At the Cyrillic printing press in Urach, Maleševac and Popović proof-read the New Testament, Luther's Small Catechism , Loci Communes, and other books. As monks, they abstained from meat, so a diet consisting of fish was specially prepared for them. They stayed in Urach for five months, and in February 1562 they returned to Ljubljana. Before they departed, they once more solemnly affirmed that the prepared Cyrillic versions of the New Testament and other books were satisfactory. In his letter to Baron Hans von Ungnad, who was the main patron of the Protestant printing works in Urach, Trubar expressed his satisfaction with the services provided by Maleševac and Popović, though one of his Croatian translators complained about them. Ungnad gave a horse and 40 forints to each of them.

There are no data about Maleševac after 1562. Despite the hopes of Trubar and his associates, their Cyrillic books had no impact on the Serbian people, while Protestantism gained only a small following in Slovenia and Croatia. A copy of the Cyrillic New Testament printed in Urach in 1563 is kept today in the library of the Serbian Orthodox Eparchy of Buda in Sentandreja, Hungary. The activities of Maleševac and Popović in Germany are regarded as an early case of inter-religious cooperation in Bible publication.