Avram Petronijević

Avram Petronijević was a Serbian politician serving as Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Principality of Serbia on several terms and holding the longest term by one Prime Minister in the political history of Serbia.

Biography

Petronijević was born in Tekija, and was educated in a school in the neighboring Orşova. In 1817 he returned to Serbia to pursue a political career and soon became the personal secretary of Prince Miloš Obrenović. He was a member of the Serbian deputation in Constantinople from 1821 until 1826, and later several times a Serbian deputy at the Turkish government. Later, with Toma Vučić-Perišić, Dimitrije Davidović, Aleksa Simić, Stojan Simić, Milutin Savić, Ilija Garašanin, Petronijević stood at the head of Ustavobranitelji. He died in Tsargrad on 22 April 1852 and was buried in the church of St. Petka on the Bosporus, next to Samuilo Jakovljević, a colleague from the Serbian deputation in Constantinople from 1821 until 1826, though Jakovljević died in 1824.
Avram Petronijević founded the first glass factory in Serbia in 1846. It was located between villages Mišević and Belica, near the town of Jagodina. It worked well in the beginning, but ultimately was unable to compete with glass products from Austria, and did not last for long after Petronijević's death.