There was as much of the moralist as of the wit in Ćirjak Račanin, and that side found its purest expression in devotional texts, which he is said to have not only ornately decorated and illuminated but composed during long nights of guard duty in the tower of the fortified Rača monastery. The Turks several times carried out reprisals against the monks for engaging in educational activities and promoting Serbian culture (copying ancient church manuscripts and writing books and disseminating them). Eventually, the monks were forced to take their archive with them and with their spiritual leader, Arsenije III Čarnojević, went to join the Christian forces in the Battle of Zenta in northern Serbia. At the time Serbia, with the help of Austria, harbored hope to rid itself of the Ottoman yoke. Two of Serbia's greatest sons, Đorđe Branković, Count of Podgorica, and Jovan Monasterlija were gathering volunteers for the ultimate confrontation. Ćirjak Račanin, like his fellow monks, joined the insurgents, led by Monasterlija, who was under the supreme commander of the Austrian crown.