Dr. Đorđe Živanović, in his paper: The Slavic Program of Teodor Pavlović in the Serbian National Newspaper, presented at the scholarly meeting of Slavicists during Vuk's days, September 12-16, 1979, states:
Regarding Maletin's assessment that Pavlović edited the Serbian National Newspaper without a plan, selection, or criticism:
"We would say that Pavlović indeed knew what he wanted and had a clear and deliberate program, but he could not present it too explicitly.
And that program was Slavic, rich and diverse. It just needed to be perceived, almost discovered. Then it will be seen that Pavlović did everything according to a well-thought-out plan, but skillfully concealed. He fulfilled the plan for an instructive, naive newspaper openly, while he intertwined the Slavic content into the basic one so that the censors wouldn't realize what he was actually giving his readers."
Contrary to Dr. Subotić's opinion about Pavlović's role in Serbian literature, Živanović says that, in his view, Pavlović has been poorly regarded by our literary historians: "they mention him with few words or most often do not mention him at all." Živanović, however, believes that Pavlović played an important role in this field in the first half of the 19th century, when there were few true writers and even fewer genuine literary enthusiasts. As more attention was paid to fiction writers in later times, those like Pavlović hardly found a place in our literary history. Without them, there would be neither true education nor culture, nor literature, "so then writers would have no one to write their books for."
Živanović considers Pavlović's significance for the development of Serbian literature very great but believes he is criticized for being on the side of those "who later failed with their theories about language and literature. That is a matter of certain orientations and concepts, which could be understood differently in these times."
He believes that Pavlović does not deserve to be forgotten just because he was friends with those who were not Vuk's supporters or because he was a staunch opponent of Illyrism, considering that term foreign and unacceptable, though he was not against the content of that movement.
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