Gymnasium of Karlovci

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Gymnasium of Karlovci (Serbian: Карловачка гимназија) is the oldest Serbian gymnasium. It was founded in 1791. It is located in the center of Sremski Karlovci.

[edit] History

When Leopold II came on he Habsburg throne official Austrian royal politics towards Serbs in the region partly changed. Mitropolitan Stefan Stratimirović knew how to make use of it and he managed to get permission for founding of a secondary school (Gymnasium) in Sremski Karlovci. Thanks to the mitropolitan, and a rich citizen of Karlovci, Dimitrije Anastasijević Sabov who gave 20 000 forints in silver for the foundation, Serbs in Sremski Karlovci got the first Serbian secondary school (gymnasium) in Serbian history.

Teaching in Gymnasium started at 1st of December, 1791 in former Latin school building. It was a ground-floor, “U” shape floor plan building with both classrooms and teacher's and principal's apartments. Students took lessons in both Latin and German language. First principals were Czech and Slovaks because of lack of educated people among Serbs. The Gymnasium contained two boarding schools - “Blagodjejanije” was meant for penniless pupils and “Konvikt” was for wealthy pupils. In 1852/53 school-year school program had changed and Serbian language was added to program as native language of pupils in Karlovci.

At the end of 19th century pastor of Sremsko-Mitrovački county raised 325 000 crowns in gold for new school building on the wish of his brother, patriarch German Anđelić. Foundations were consecrated in 1890, by patriarch Georgije Branković. The building was designed by the Budapest architect Gyula Partos and by his idea the facade was colored in red and yellow as the admonition to the Serbian medieval ecclesiastical architecture.