| Valtazar Bogišić | |
|---|---|
| Born | 7 December 1834 Cavtat, Austrian Empire |
| Died | 24 April 1908 (aged 73) Rijeka, Austria-Hungary |
| Occupation | jurist, historian, ethnologist |
Valtazar Bogišić [1] (also known as Baltazar Bogišić; Cavtat, 7 December 1834 - Rijeka, 24 April 1908) was a Serbian [2] jurist, law historian and ethnologist. In domain of private law his most notable works are researches on family structure and the unique Montenegrin civil code from 1888. He is considered to be a pioneer in the area of sociology of law and legal ethnology research. Many of his theoretical remarks were acknowledged or rethought decades after his death.
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Bogišić's family was a prominent merchant family in Cavtat, a small coastal town near Dubrovnik. His grandfather moved to Cavtat from a nearby inland, from a village called Mrcine in Konavle where the Bogišić's had lived for centuries after accepted Catholic faith in the 15th century.[3]
Bogišić was born in Cavtat on December, 7 1834. His mother died giving birth to his sister Marija, his only sibling, 2 years later. His father wanted him to continue his family business and thought that prolonged schooling would interfere with that.
When he was 4 years old he was sent to a private girls' school, the only private school in town, because only 6 yearolds could enter a public school. He latter entered state accredited school which he left before graduating. Subsequently, when he was 11 he finished a 2 years nautical school. He was 4–5 years younger than all other graduates.
The most significant person in his childhood was his grandfather Valtazar Bogišić Senior. At the time he was already blind and told him a lot of folk stories as well as about his adventures on the sea, traveling, meeting important people like Miloš Obrenović and authorized his grandson to run his errands and even simple court cases. In his last will his grandfather left Bogišić half of his estate. With no proper formal education, Bogišić was buying a lot of books. When his father didin't give him money he would get it from his grandfather. Among his favorites were the ones by a Serbian reformer Vuk Stefanović Karadžić. Inspired by Vuk, his lifelong model, he started searching for and writing down Serbian folk poems.[4]
After a lot of persuasion and a sea accident, his father allowed him to enter 4 year grammar school (Progymnasium) with a condition not to take final exams as a guarantee that he wouldn't obtain necessary documents for further schooling. At that time, Bogišić started learning German on his own. He already spoke Italian as it was, lingua franca of the region, at the time.
In that time Bogišić was acquainted with Dubrovnik's count Niko Pucić (Pozze) the Great. This life long friend convinced him to take final exams despite his father's will and helped him prepare for them. Count Niko Pucić and his brother Medo were the most prominent people in Dubrovnik at the time. They gathered the intellectual elite which formed a cultural movement in Dubrovnik that will disappear in the beginning of the 20th century.
A turning point in Bogišić's life was the death of his father in 1856. Intrigues about the inheritance and family business followed but after 2 years Bogišić managed to get the papers in order and recuperate what the cousins had taken. 1858 he entered Ginnasio Liceale di S. Catterina (Liceo Foscarini) in Venice where he majored in Italian language and literature and got closer to the spirit of Italian national movement.
After graduating in Venice, thanks to friends Bogisic got an Austrian scholarship which he denied because it had a condition that he could only study at Austrian universities. During his studies he was involved with patriotic and panslavic circles. He studied philology, philosophy (including history) and law, and the studies also included some modern courses such as political economy. He was reading in Vienna, Berlin, Munich and Paris with many notable professors like Franz Bopp, the founder of comparative linguistics, Prussian historian Johann Gustav Droysen, Franc Miklošič, one of the most famous Slavic philologists, the founder of sociology Lorenz von Stein and many famous lawyers such as Theodor Mommsen, Rudolf von Jhering and few notable members of German Historical School of Law.
He obtained a Phd in Philosophy in Giessen in 1862, defending the thesis entitled "On Causes of Defeat of the Prussian Army in Hussite War". There he strongly referred to the research of historian František Palacký. He obtained a law degree (Rigorosum) in 1865 in Vienna. At the time he was already employed. When he was appointed professor in Odessa he was promoted to Doctor Iuris Honoris Causae.
Thanks to the certificate issued by Miklošič stating that "besides being a native speaker of Serbian and Italian (Bogišić) speaks all other Slavic languages",[5] after obtaining a PhD in Giessen, in 1862/63 Bogišić was hired as an administrator of the Slavia Department at the Viennese court library. There however he also administrated the legal department as well as publications from the French Revolution. As an administrator of the Slavia Department, he had the opportunity not only to read important books by Slavic writers but also to meet many of the authors.
In Vienna of the day different organizations were founded gathering members of different peoples from the Empire. Bogišić participated in the foundation of the club named Slovanska beseda which was, at first, gathering all Slavs from around the Empire and was later reorganized into a Czech-club. Upon Bogišić's initiative, a special Slavic library was formed in the club (Slovanska biblioteka) and Bogišić was its first president. At this time, Bogišić supported United Serbian Youth (Ujedinjena omladina srpska), and remained their supporter for the rest of his life. The organization pleaded for real unification of Serbs and Croats into a single Yugoslav nation and not only their formal common political actions, which was the idea of Yugoslavia, for many Croatian intellectuals. After the founding of the Yugoslav Academy of Sciences and Arts, Bogišić was one of its most significant writers. The Academy was established in Zagreb as a common scientific institution of south Slavic peoples. The first president was a Croat Franjo Rački, and the first secretary a Serb Đuro Daničić.
During his stay in Vienna, he was collecting documents about Dubrovnik's 17th century diplomat - Stjepan Gradić. He continued collecting Serbian epic poetry, which he started in his youth, and in 1863 he spent the holidays in Mostar, listening to the epic poets gathered around the newly built orthodox church. In 1867 he issued a book "Pravni običaji kod Slovena" (Legal customs of the Slavs). He mainly based his work on written sources, but he already started questioning his friends about the legal reasoning of the people in their regions. In 1872 he published a book "Pisani zakoni na slovenskom jugu" (Legal Status in the Slavic South). The idea was for this book to be an introduction to the serial, which was supposed to grasp written antic legal sources from the Slavic South.
Since his youth, Bogišić was very fond of museums. He believed that establishing a Slavic museum (Slovenski Muzeum) would contribute to the presentation of Slavic heritage, and rising consciousness about it, among the Slavs and others. In his publication "Slovenski Muzeum", he responded to the "Slavofobs" of the day, who argued that Slavic peoples have to develop on their own, like Germanic or Romanic nations previously. Here he showed himself to be a panslavist. This, among all Slavs very popular 19th century movement, originating from Poland and Bohemia, is today a surpassed form of a collective idealization and identification.
In 1867/68, Bogišić was named Councilor for Education in the Austrian Military Frontier. The population there was already used to a high degree of self-governance which is why several attempts to improve the school system failed. Regardless, Austira intended to introduce a stronger school system.
After refusing offers from the Universities in Kiev and Warsaw, he accepted a professorship at the newly established Russian University in Odessa. After becoming Russian citizen and a public servant in 1869, he gave his introductory lecture in Odessa in 1870. His most notable success in Odessa was the foundation of the Slavic Library, while as a professor, he didn't have much success because already in 1871 he caused (as it later turned out - orchestrated) mass student protests. Austrian press wrote that Bogišić "being a Serb was called to Odessa only due to panslavic respect"[6] and in reality was not welcomed in Russia. He continued teaching but without the previous enthusiasm. When his request for early retirement was denied, he tried to spend as much time on study trips so he even studied, on sight, legal customs at the Caucasus. He officially remained a professor of the Odessa University but already in 1873, following the orders of the czar, as a Russian subject, he left for Montenegro with a task to codify private law.
In Montenegro, the newspapers wrote that the new Civil Code had already been written, before Bogišić even got there. Bogišić however persuaded the Montenegro sovereign Nicholas I to wait and explained that the work on the code will take years. Earlier, Bogišić had prepared and published questionnaires for collecting legal customs. These were translated to several languages and established Bogišić as pioneer of ethnological and sociological legal research. Based on the questionnaires he published a Collection of legal customs of the south Slavs (Zbornik sadašnjih pravnih običaja u južnih Slovena I, Građa u odgovorima iz različnih krajeva slovneskoga juga), in 1874. Bogišić was not satisfied with the questionnaires because they only had around 300 questions about public and private law including the matters of international public law. For the purpose of writing a civil code he prepared a new questionnaire, which had 2000 questions, all of which from the private law domain.
Bogišić's civil code for Montenegro, The General Property Code (Opšti imovinski zakonik), was proclaimed not until 1888. During that time, Bogišić, who was still a Russian professor, established his residence in Paris and engaged in other assignments such as writing a constitution for the Serbian revolutionaries in Herzegovina and establishing state and legal order in Bulgaria which just gained independence from the Ottoman Empire. In 1878 he published his famous collection of folk poems (Narodne pjesme iz starijih, najčešće primorskih zapisa I). He also continued his researches on sociological and historical aspects of family. In the legal matters he insisted on separate codification of family and inheritance law, arguing that family law is not civil law strictu sensu, and that inheritance is a family law institute. That's why he refused to incorporate family and inheritance law into the Montenegrin civil code he wrote, consequently naming it - The General Property Code.
His draft constitution for Herzegovina from 1875, favors basic rights especially the ones referring to equality and is written in the best republican and liberal tradition thus reflecting the spirit of the local people as well as Bogišić's convictions from his youth. The Constitution is paradigmatic for Bogišić's nomotechnics. With a good eye for the social condition and needs, he managed to transform political ideals into a legal text acceptable for a common man. Such method will mark The General Property Code for the Principality of Montenegro which contains a strong idealization of people's legal reasoning. If he had to choose between what is rightful/just and what's in the people's reasoning and legal customs, he always chose the rightful solution.
During his work on the General Property Code, beside the legal customs Bogišić considered well established institutes of Roman Law. That's how Bogišić's Property Code is, at the same time, based on the notion of just, reception of Roman law and people's mind. Bogišić was especially thoughtful about the language of the code, so the actual code is written in a manner better than his other works. Such legal style served as an example for the 19th century legislation in the Kingdom of Serbia. Even in the second half of the 20th century, Belgrade legal school referred to Bogišić's code as its role-model and starting point. In that context, Bogišić's code was written in just the right time, when laws in the kingdom of Serbia were written in pure vernacular as was the case with Bogišić's Code. Most Yugoslav laws, giving they were written in Belgrade in the institutional frameworks previously established in the Kingdom of Serbia, belong to this legal-language tradition.
After finalizing his work on the Code, Bogišić was for some time the Minister of Justice in the Principality of Montenegro. Afterward, in 1899 the second and last improved version of the General Property Code was published. He then continued to live in Paris as a retired Russian professor. He lived as prominent citizen in Paris and was often visited by law students from different countries. Especially in those years he often came back to ideas of the United Serbian Youth and prepared a study on Serbo-Croatian controversy. When he left his hometown and Dubrovnik, as a young man, the cultural elite there saw the Dubrovnik heritage as a part of a rising modern Serbian culture. However on turn of the centuries, there were great fights between Serbs and Croats about Dubrovnik's legacy. Considering himself a Serb, Bogišić in those days published his autobiography in the Serbian Annual "Dubrovnik" as well as several articles in the Serbian patriotic paper from Dubrovnik - "Srđ".
Bogišić died in Rijeka, on the way to his hometown Cavtat in 1908.
According to the testimonies of Bogišić's Parisian friends, Bogisic seriously considered establishing a foundation in Belgrade which would, after his death, take care of his legacy especially the scientific library and archive, and give scholarships to prosperous young lawyers for studying abroad. Bogisic chose the Serbian capital Belgrade, fearing that his rich scientific collection might otherwise end up in Austrian hands, who had a hostile attitude toward Slavic culture back in the days before the First World War.[7] At that time, his hometown Cavtat was a part of Austro-Hungary. Since he eventually died with no last will, his sister Marija, who lived in Cavtat, inherited the whole estate including his scientific library and archive. 18 000 books including many rare antiques; 10 000 letters; various notes; ethnological and numismatic collections were kept in Cavtat in inadequate conditions for years. After the II WW the scientific library and archive was incorporated into Yugoslav Academy of Sciences and Arts, which is today the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts. It was then officially named - Baltazar Bogisic Collection (Zbirka Baltazara Bogišića).
Since Italian was an official language in the area of his birth, Bogišić's birth certificate is written in Italian and Latin language. Carrying his grandfather's name, Bogišić signed all of his works, in all languages, as Valtazar Bogišić and it was the name by which he was recognized by his contemporaries. Since his autobigraphy was first published in the local paper called "Dubrovnik", the editor noted that the usual nickname for Baldassaro (Italian for Valtazar) in Duborvnik is Baldo, and consequently referred to him as such with affection.[8] After his death Croatian authors started occasionally calling him Baltazar Bogisic, taking it for the Croatian version of his name. That's why his archive-memorial in his birthplace Cavtat, today located in Croatia, has Baltazar in its name, although that's not how he ever referred to himself.[9]