Vasilije "Vasa" Pelagić

Vasilije "Vasa" Pelagić was a writer, physician, educator, clergyman and a proponent of utopian socialism in the second half of the nineteenth century. Today he is considered one of the first theoreticians of physical education in the Balkans. He is also remembered as a revolutionary democrat and one of the leaders of the national liberation and socialist movement in Bosnia-Herzegovina & Serbia.

Early life and education

Born into a middle-class family, he was educated at a high school (gymnasium) in Sarajevo and went on to pursue further studies at the Grandes écoles in Belgrade, graduating from the Faculty of Theology in 1857. In 1860 he served as teacher in Brčko where he founded a reading room, one of the first in Bosnia. From there, via Belgrade, he went to Russia for his post-graduate studies. At the Moscow State University, he attended lectures in political issues facing medicine and history of medicine. He returned to Bosnia where he served in Banja Luka as an archimandrite and rector of a newly founded Serbian Orthodox Seminary. There he preached very progressive democratic ideas and taught gymnastics. His world view was greatly influenced not only by the Russian Revolutionary Democrats but by the decline of the vassal and tributary states of the Ottoman Empire.

Liberal democratic revolutionary

Brooding upon what he saw as the humiliation of his native land by Turkish sultans and later by Habsburg monarchs, Pelagić conceived the idea of restoring the spirits of his countrymen by the development of their physical and moral powers through the practice of gymnastics. He wrote pamphlets and books which brought together his study of the attitudes of the ancients toward diet, exercise and hygiene, and the use of natural methods for the cure of diseases. He also explained the principles of physical therapy and his Narodni ljekar (People's Physician) is considered the first book on sports medicine in the Balkans. 

The Ottoman authorities realized Pelagić's school was a political and liberal club. He got into conflict with the authorities which led to the closing of the his school in 1869. Pelagić was arrested not long after on grounds (among other charges) that he taught gymnastics (Ottoman authorities perceived gymnastics as military exercises). He was imprisoned in Turkey for numerous years before he was aided in escaping by the Russian and Serbian ambassadors. 

He spent time in Serbia and Montenegro, spreading liberal and democratic ideas among youth. In 1872 he left Montenegro for Novi Sad, Graz, Prague, Trieste and Zurich. Upon his return, he decided to publicly reject his monastic title of archimandrite and in the Serbian liberal journal Zastava (Flag) on 29 April 1873 he announced his decision. From then on he became one of the most famous dissenters and anti-clerical activists in the Balkans.

Pelagić took part in the anti-Turkish uprising of 1875–78 in Bosnia and vigorously protested the occupation of these territories by Austria-Hungary three years later (1878).

In the 1890s Pelagić helped organize labor societies among artisans and workers which he believed would become the basis for a socialist party. With a group of like-minded intellectuals, Pelagić helped found the Belgrade newspaper Socijal-Demokrat in 1895. In his works he advocated socialism and materialist views on the development of nature.

In Belgrade he was appointed state teacher of physical education, and took on a role in promoting physical fitness. A man of populistic nature, rugged, eccentric and outspoken, Pelagić often came into conflict with politicians and clerics. Late in life, Pelagić was incarcerated again for his anarchistic writings in Požarevac, where he suddenly died.

Legacy

Vasa Pelagić's influence on the development of physical education and sports in Bosnia and Herzegovina & Serbia was of great significance. Because of his theoretical and practical work, most of all in the school of physical education he is classified as one of the most important personalities from Bosnia and Herzegovina from that particular era, and within the area of physical culture. He also gave a great significance to the development of theory of physical exercise, physical education in schools, promoted games and other sport activities. He was a first theoretician and a pioneer of modern theory of physical culture in Bosnia and Serbia. Pelagić's role was creating and developing the theory of physical culture in the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia. During the thirty years of his revolutionary life and lengthy prison terms Pelagić managed to publish numerous books, pedagogic treatises and books aimed at educating people, which brought him fame as "the people's teacher". Vasa Pelagić's Narodni učitelj ("People's Teacher") was from 1879 until 1894 published in four editions in circulation of 18,000, while all his other books and booklets reached the circulation of 212,000 before his death, which made him probably the most widely read writer in the region. Alongside a vehement anti-clericalism his books spread early socialist ideas.

His birth town of Gornji Žabar was renamed in his honor to Pelagićevo. In Brčko where he was a teacher, the local gymnasium bears his name.

Works 

• Pokušaji za narodno i lično unaprećenje, Belgrade, 1871
• Put srećnijem životu ili nova nauka i novi ljudi, Budapest, 1879
• Socijalizam ili osnovni preporoćaj društva, Belgrade, 1894
• Istorija bosansko-hercegovačke bune, Sarajevo, 1893