Joakim Vujić (Serbian Cyrillic: Јоаким Вујић; Baja, Habsburg monarchy, 9 September 1772 – Belgrade, Principality of Serbia, 8 November 1847) was a Serbian writer, dramatist (musical stage and theatre), actor, traveler and polyglot. He was one of the most accomplished Serbian dramatists and writers of the 18th century, director of Knjaževsko-srpski teatar (The Royal Serbian Theatre) in Kragujevac 1835/36. He is known as the Father of Serbian Theatre. Biography Vujić was born on 9 September 1772 in Baja, a small town on the bank of the Danube which had been granted, as early as 1696, special privileges by Emperor Leopold I as a "Serbian town" (though it had always been so for a long time). His ancestors (then living in Ottoman-occupied South Serbia) arrived at this region (Rascia or Rászság of the southern Pannonian Plain) seeking refuge from the Ottoman Turks. Vujić went to school in Baja. First, he attended a Slav-Serbian school, and then he proceeded to Latin, German and Hungarian schools. He was further educated in Novi Sad, Kalocsa and Bratislava (the Evangelical Licaeum and the Roman Catholic Academy). He became a teacher and earned his living chiefly as a teacher of foreign languages. He was an ardent supporter of Enlightenment and his model was Dositej Obradović, whom he met personally in Trieste's Serbian community before Dositej left for Karađorđe's Serbia. Joakim Vujić was a polyglot and spoke Italian, German, French, English, Hungarian, as well as Greek and Latin. He also learned some Hebrew. His career as a dramatic author began with the exhibition of a drama in or about the year 1813 and continued for almost thirty years. Before 1813 he incurred the hostility of the Austrian authorities, especially, it is said, of the Habsburgs, by the attacks which he made upon them on the stage in Zemun, and at their instance, he was imprisoned for a while. After writing a play during his imprisonment, in which he is said to have recanted, he was freed. His many travels and literary accomplishments established his influence in the new Serbian capital—Kragujevac—once and for all and at the same time knitted him closely to Prince Miloš, who recognized in him a man after his own heart, and made him the knaževsko-srbskog teatra direktor, the director of the Royal Serbian Theatre. He made several voyages to the Black Sea and different places in southern Russia before returning in 1842 back