Jovan Marinović

Jovan Marinović (; 1821 – August 30, 1893) was a Serbian politician and diplomat. He introduced several enlightened reforms in Serbian political system. As a close collaborator of Minister Ilija Garašanin, Marinović became the leader of the Serbian Conservatives, eventually becoming Prime Minister of the Principality of Serbia. Educated in Paris, Marinović believed in European culture and reforms as a way of enlightening the Serbian peasant society. Being a member of one of the first generatiosn of Serbian Western-educated intellectuals, Marinović occupied several posts in the state administration. He was highly regarded as a diplomat.

Early life Born to a Serbian family in Sarajevo at the time part of the Bosnia Eyalet in the Ottoman Empire, Marinović moved to neighboring Principality of Serbia as a child.

At the session of the Serbian Parliament held on November 27, 1873, the Marinović government presented a set of far-reaching reform laws, including the law on the subsidization of industrial enterprises and the law of six days of land ploughing ("day" meaning a Serbian land measurement equivalent to 5,760 m2), as a minimal privately owned landed property protected from being sold or repossessed due to debts. This allowed Serbian peasants who were small landowners, at the time often victims of property loss due to predatory lending, to have at least of land (out of the total land which they owned) they could always count on as remaining in their possession. On December 23, 1873, his government instituted the law by which corporal punishment was abolished and the prison system reformed. Other reforms regarding secondary school and the Belgrade's Velika škola were passed as well. Their marriage was seen as the continuation of Miša Anastasijević's practice of marrying his daughters off to important decision-makers in the Principality of Serbia thereby securing personal wealth and expanding political influence.

Jovan Marinović and Persida had three children — two sons and a daughter.

One of their sons, Velizar, later married Agripina Bronkov, a Russian woman of Polish ancestry, moving with her to France where their son Petar Marinović was born in 1898. Known in France as Pierre Marinovitch, young Petar became an aviator with French Air Force in World War I, distinguishing himself as a flying ace.