Draft:Gaja Pantelić-Vodeničarević

Gaja Pantelić-Vodeničarević (Serbian Cyrillic: Гаја Пантелић Воденичаревић; 1774-1849) was a Serbian militant and Karađorđe's most reliable friend, who was entrusted with secret missions in the preparations for the uprising in 1803, and also for the famous assembly in Orašac, at the Meeting in 1804. Their families were also close, because their fathers lived under the same roof together in Žabar, from where they later moved to Zagorica, where Karađorđe's father Petar became interested in bees, and Gaja's father Pantelija was interested in the mill, hence their surname Vodeničarevići.

It was through research that historians were able to ascertain Karađorđe's exact year of birth, and the most reliable data came from Gaja Pantelić's reminiscencesof the First Serbian Uprising and its prelude. Gaja Pantelić clearly says that he was 14 years old during Kočina Krajina and that Karađorđe was 8 years older than him. When 22 years are deducted from Kočina Krajina, the year 1766 is obtained. So, that would be the most accurate and logical year to figure out Karđorđe's year of birth. Therefore, in 1804, Karađorđe was 38 years old. He was mature enough to go through what he went through, and also strong enough to be able to overcome those gigantic hardships required by the First Serbian Uprising.

In one of the chapters of a book he collaborated with three other veterans Janićije Đurić, Petar Jokić, and Anta Protić, Gaja Pantelić recounted his reminiscences how the Serbian Revolution began when the freedom fighters left Topola and began burning down Turkish inns (hans) until Sibnica: "First, a han in Orašac, then in Banja, then in Vrbica, in Ralinovići, then in Sibnica, where we killed 17 Turks and freed the eighteenth so that he could tell and scare other Turks."