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Simeon Piščević, a Serbian officer who served Austria and then later Russia, recounts in his memoirs The Diary of General Piščević (first published in 1884) the loss of his wife and son during their crossing of the Carpathians in a storm. As a man of the Enlightenment, he processes his grief through the study of meteorological phenomena. Religious feelings give way to humanist thought, and mysticism to an analytical spirit. It is the rational understanding of the natural phenomenon that enables the process of mourning. It should be noted that Piščević’s work fits within the broader context of Serbian literature of the Baroque period, which marks its openness to Western modern influences. Piščević is as much a philosopher and a moralist as he is a storyteller whose work demonstrates a very good knowledge of German and Slavic literature.