Jovan Jovanović alias Zmaj (Novi Sad 1833 – Sremska Kamenica 1904) is probably the most popular 19th-century poet in Serbian. From a middle-class background, he first studied law, then medicine, and practised as a physician in various places of Vojvodina, in Belgrade, Vienna and Zagreb. But his real vocation was literature and journalism; Zmaj, his nickname (meaning “dragon”), derives from the title of the literary review he directed from 1864 until 1871. A prolific writer and translator, his collected works fill 16 volumes. His poetry shows the influence of his older contemporary Branko Radičević (1824–1853) in its preference for the lyrical, the choice of popular language and elements of folk poetry. Zmaj’s collections Djulići (“Rosebuds”, 1864) and Djulići uveoci (“Faded rosebuds”, 1882) are devoted to love and family life, the second in a darker mood following the death of his wife and four children.

Unlike Radičević, however, Zmaj also devoted poetry to national events; a deliberately patriotic poet, he cheers or laments the ups and downs of Serbian political life between Austro-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire. One of his most popular poems, Svetli grobovi (“Bright tombs”, 1879), is a meditation on transgenerational heritage, uniting a morbid celebration of death with a vital hope for better days; a thematic gesture which has remained characteristic of Serbian National Romanticism until very recently.

To be sure, Zmaj’s popularity derives, to a great extent, from the humoristic and satirical poetry of which he was also capable, and from his children’s verse. He has been enshrined in collective memory as the family-figure Čika Jova (Uncle Jovan).