Mateja Nenadović
| Mateja Nenadović | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| 1st Prime Minister of Serbia | |
|
In office 27 August 1805 – January 1807 |
|
| Monarch | Karađorđe |
| Preceded by | Position established |
| Succeeded by | Mladen Milovanović |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
26 February 1777 Brankovina, Ottoman Empire (present-day Serbia) |
| Died | 11 December 1854 (aged 77) Valjevo, Principality of Serbia (present-day Serbia) |
| Nationality | Serbian |
| Signature |  |
Matija or Mateja Nenadović (Serbian Cyrillic: Матија or Матеја Ненадовић; 26 February 1777 – 11 December 1854), known as Prota Mateja, was a Serbian archpriest, writer, and a notable leader of the First Serbian Uprising.
At the age of sixteen he was ordained priest, and a few years later was promoted to an archpriest (Serbian: протопоп), colloquially prota (Serbian: прота) of Valjevo. His father, Aleksa Nenadović, Knez (chief magistrate) of the district of Valjevo, was one of the most popular and respected public men among the Serbs at the beginning of the 19th century. When the four leaders of the Janissaries of the Sanjak of Smederevo (the so-called Dahias) thought that the only way to prevent a general rising of the Serbs was to intimidate them by murdering all their principal men, Aleksa Nenadović (1749–1804) was one of the first victims. The policy of the Dahias, instead of preventing, did actually and immediately provoke a general insurrection of the Serbs against the Turks.
Prota Mateja became the deputy-commander of the insurgents of the Valjevo district (1804), but did not hold the post for long, as Karađorđe sent him in 1805 on a secret mission to St. Petersburg, and afterwards employed him almost constantly as Serbia's diplomatic envoy to Russia, Austria, Bucharest and Constantinople. After the fall of Karadjordje (1813), the new leader of the Serbs, Miloš Obrenović, sent Prota Mateja as representative of Serbia to the Congress of Vienna (1814–1815), where he pleaded the Serbian cause indefatigably. During that mission he often saw Lord Castlereagh, and for the first time the Serbian national interests were brought to the knowledge of British statesmen. Prota Mateja's memoirs (Memoari Prote Mateje Nenadovića) are the most valuable authority for the history of the first and Second Serbian uprising against the Turks.
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