in securing the repeal of some laws imposed on his and other nationalities in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. When Mihailo Obrenović III, Prince of Serbia, was assassinated, the Austro-Hungarian authorities sought to falsely implicate Laza, his mentor Miletić, and other Serbian intellectuals in a murder plot. Kostić was arrested and incarcerated but like the rest of them he was later released. In 1868, the new Prince of Serbia was the fourteen-year-old Milan IV Obrenović, who had fallen in love with Laza's most recent work Maksim Crnojević, which had been released that year. Kostić moved to Belgrade, where he became a popular figure as a poet. Through Milan's influence, Kostić obtained the position of editor of Srpsku nezavisnost (Serbian Independence), an influential political and literary magazine. Milan chose him to be Jovan Ristić's principal assistant at the 1878 Congress of Berlin and in 1880 Kostić was sent to Saint Petersburg as a member of the Serbian delegation. Belgrade's opposition parties began taking issue with Kostić's writings; he had boasted of his power over the King in jest but had disdain to make influential friends at court so in 1883 King Milan ask him to leave Belgrade for a time. Despite his bizarreness, Kostić was ranked a great poet and writer. Soon after, he took up residence in Cetinje and became editor-in-chief of the official paper of the Kingdom of Montenegro Glas Crnogoraca (The Montenegrin Voice), where he met intellectuals Simo Matavulj, Pavel Rovinsky, and Valtazar Bogišić. In 1890, Kostić moved to Sombor where he married Julijana Palanački in September 1895 and spent the rest of his life there. In Sombor he wrote a book which describes his dreams Dnevnik snova (Diary of Dreams), and the popular poem Santa Maria della Salute, which is considered the finest example of his love poems and elegies. Kostić has been following two lines in his work and research: theoretical mind cannot reach absolute, not having the richness of fascination and life necessary to its universality. He was opposed to the anthropological philosophy of Svetozar Marković and the views of revolutionist and materialist Nikolay Chernyshevsky. He died on 27 November 1910 in Vienna. Verse and prose In his poetry, Kostić often touched upon universal themes and human concerns, especially the relationships between man and God, society, and fellow humans. He contributed stylistic and linguistic innovations, experimenting freely, often at the expense of clarity. His work is closer