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Jovan Cvijić was born Sept. 29th, 1865 in Loznica, and died January 16th, 1927, in Belgrade. High grade studies he began in Belgrade, but finished them in Vienna. Soon afterwards he made the doctor ship thesis with the title "The Karst" (Karstphänomen) and became Ph.D. (geography and geology) in 1893.

During the first years of his work as university teacher in Belgrade, he was interested mainly in physical geography (geology, geomorphology, hydrology, and karstology specially), later more in human geography (anthropogeography, ethnography, sociology). He is the most important Yugoslav geographer and the initiator of modern geographical researches of the Balkan peninsula and one of the founders of karstology as science.

But through all his life, not regarding if he was making researches in geology or in sociology, he was field-worker, not a cabinet one, he was typical geographer-traveller. Specially for the works, connected to karst, he visited also a lot of caves, I mean inside of caves, even such ones with vertical entrances - potholes. He draw croquis and plans of caves, together with the other data from cave observations. For instance, in his work "Les glacières naturelles de Sérbie" (Spelunca Bull., 2, 6-7, 64-77, 1896) he wrote:"... this ice cave I visited on 10th May, 1893 ...". When he was second time in France, giving lectures on karstology, 1924-25, in Sorbonne (Paris), he was making excursions through SW and S French karst, dedicated to exploration of caves. He wrote special articles dedicated to caves and in his works he often referred to them.

Cvijić's explorations, including his speleological work, initiated, between the others, also the foundation of Speleological section within the frame of Geographical Society of Serbia in 1924, the first speleological organization in Serbia.