Jovan Cvijić (, ; 1865 – 16 January 1927) was a Serbian geographer and ethnologist, president of the Serbian Royal Academy of Sciences and rector of the University of Belgrade. Cvijić is considered the founder of geography in Serbia. He began his scientific career as a geographer and geologist, and continued his activity as a human geographer and sociologist. Early life and family Cvijić was born in Loznica, in the westernmost part of the Principality of Serbia. His family was part of the Spasojević branch of the Piva tribe (Pivljani) in Old Herzegovina (currently Montenegro). Cvijić's father, Todor, was a merchant; his grandfather, Živko, was head of Loznica and a supporter of the House of Obrenović in Mačva. Živko fought in the 1844 Katana Uprising against the Defenders of the Constitution, and died after torture. Cvijić's great-grandfather, Cvijo Spasojević, patriarch of the Cvijić family, was a hajduk leader in Old Herzegovina who fought in the First Serbian Uprising against the Ottoman Empire. After its failure in 1813, he moved to Loznica, built a house and opened a store. His father, Todor (d. 1900), was a trader before accepting a clerkship in the municipality. Cvijić's mother, Marija (), was from a family in the village of Koremita in the Jadar region (near Tronoša and Tršić, the birthplace of Vuk Stefanović Karadžić). Todor and Marija had two sons, Živko and Jovan, and three daughters. Cvijić often said that in his childhood his spiritual education was primarily influenced by his mother and her family; he said less about his father and his father's family. However, in his works on ethnic psychology, Cvijić praised the Dinaric race of his father. Education After completing elementary school, Cvijić attended grammar school in Loznica where he took an interest in literature and learned French and German. He continued his education in Šabac before embarking to the First Belgrade Gymnasium to study medicine, graduating in 1884. After graduation, he wanted to study medicine, but Loznica could not provide him a scholarship to study abroad. A grammar-school teacher suggested that he attend geography classes at the Velika skola in Belgrade (now the University of Belgrade). Cvijić took his advice, enrolling in the natural sciences department and graduating in 1889. Cvijić taught at the Second Male Grammar School in Belgrade and in the meantime published his first geographical work on the Karst landscape in 1889 after a trip to the