The case occurred in 1725 in the Serbian village of Kisiljevo, then within territory administered by the Habsburg monarchy following the Treaty of Passarowitz. Local beliefs concerning restless or dangerous dead existed alongside Habsburg administrative and public-health systems, creating circumstances in which government officials could become directly involved when villagers interpreted a cluster of deaths as supernatural. The surviving account was written by Austrian administrator Ernst Frombald, making the case unusually well documented for an early eighteenth-century vampire tradition.

Petar Blagojević died in 1725. Approximately ten weeks after his death, a series of villagers reportedly became ill and died after brief illnesses, with nine deaths occurring within about eight days. According to Frombald's account, the dying villagers claimed that Blagojević had appeared to them during the night, lain upon them, and throttled them. Blagojević's widow was also reported to have said that the deceased had returned to the family home and demanded his opanci, or shoes, after which the widow left the village.

As the deaths continued, villagers concluded that Blagojević had become a vampire and demanded that the grave be opened. Frombald initially attempted to delay the exhumation until authorization could be obtained from higher authorities. The villagers reportedly refused to wait, fearing that additional deaths would occur and threatening to abandon the settlement if action was not taken immediately. Faced with the possibility that the villagers would proceed regardless, Frombald attended the exhumation along with a local religious official.

During the examination, Frombald recorded several characteristics that local belief regarded as evidence of vampirism. The corpse reportedly appeared unusually well preserved, while hair, beard, and nails were described as appearing newly grown. Old skin was said to have been replaced by new skin, and fresh-looking blood was observed around the mouth. To the villagers, these observations confirmed that Blagojević had remained unnaturally active after death and had fed upon the people who subsequently died.

Modern knowledge of decomposition provides ordinary mechanisms capable of producing many of these observations. Rates of decomposition vary substantially according to temperature, soil, burial conditions, moisture, disease, body composition, and other environmental factors. Skin dehydration and retraction can make hair, beard, and nails appear to have continued growing, while decomposition can force dark fluids from the mouth and other openings. Postmortem bloating and other changes can likewise make a corpse appear dramatically different from contemporary expectations of decay. These processes provide plausible explanations for the physical signs described by Frombald, although the surviving historical record does not allow every observation made during the exhumation to be independently reconstructed.

The villagers proceeded with traditional measures intended to destroy a vampire. A wooden stake was driven through the corpse, after which witnesses reportedly observed blood flowing from the body. The remains were then burned. Frombald documented the procedure while making clear that the actions were demanded and performed by the local population. His report provides unusually direct documentation of how local vampire beliefs interacted with Habsburg administrative authority during the early eighteenth century.

The cause of the cluster of deaths remains harder to determine. The brief illnesses described in the historical material have prompted later speculation involving infectious disease and other natural causes, but the surviving evidence is insufficient to diagnose a particular illness confidently. The fact that the villagers interpreted the deaths through an existing framework involving dangerous returning dead is itself historically important, particularly because Habsburg officials were simultaneously concerned with disease control and epidemic threats along the military frontier.

Frombald's report quickly became more important than the local episode alone. A copy of the letter was published in the Wienerisches Diarium on 1725-07-21, bringing the Kisiljevo events to a wider German-speaking readership. Historian Thomas Bohn identifies the report as containing the earliest known printed use of the word “vampire” and traces its later incorporation into works by Michael Ranft concerning the returning or “chewing” dead.

The later Medveđa Vampire Panic of 1731–1732 brought another Serbian vampire investigation before Habsburg authorities, this time involving a larger military-medical commission. Together, the Kisiljevo and Medveđa episodes helped carry Serbian and Balkan traditions concerning dangerous returning dead into wider European medical, theological, administrative, and popular discussion. They became important components of the eighteenth-century European vampire controversy rather than remaining isolated village traditions.

The significance of the Petar Blagojević Vampire Case therefore does not depend upon accepting vampirism as the explanation for the deaths or the condition of the corpse. The deaths, villagers' accusations, exhumation, examination, staking and burning of the body, official involvement, and subsequent publication of Frombald's report are historically documented. What remains uncertain includes the precise cause of the villagers' illnesses, the extent to which local traditions shaped individual testimony, and how later retellings altered details of the original account. The case remains particularly important because it preserves an unusually early intersection of folk belief, unexplained mortality, postmortem observation, government administration, and the emerging European concept of the vampire.