Vatroslav Jagic
Encyclopedia
Vatroslav Jagić was a Croatian language
researcher and a famous expert in Slavic languages
(Slavic studies) in the second half of the 19th century.
(then known by its German
name of Warasdin), where he attended the elementary school and is the place where he started his secondary-school education. He finished that level of education at the Gymnasium
in Zagreb
. Having a particular interest in philology
, he moved to Vienna
where he was lectured in Slavic studies under the guidance of Franc Miklošič
. He continued his studies and defended his doctoral dissertation Das Leben der Wurzel 'dê in Croatischen Sprachen in Leipzig
(Germany
) in 1871.
Upon finishing his studies, Jagić returned to Zagreb, where from 1860 to 1870 he held the position of professor
at at a Croatian high school.
In 1869, Jagić was elected a full member of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts
(at that time named the Yugoslav Academy of Sciences and Arts), and a correspondent member of the Russian Academy of Sciences
in Saint Petersburg
. Next year, 1871, he became a professor of Slavic studies at Odessa University
(Novorossiysk University) and worked also in Berlin
, where he moved in 1874 to become the very first professor of Slavic studies at the prestigious Friedrich Wilhelm University of Berlin
. Jagić held this post until 1880, when he moved again and became teacher at the University of St Petersburg.
In 1886 he returned to Vienna, where his studies started to be a replacement for retiring former lecturer Miklošič at the University of Vienna
. Here he taught, did research, and published until his own retirement in 1908.
Jagić died in Vienna but was laid to rest in his native Varaždin.
and language written by Jagić started to be published for the first time in the reports of the high school where he worked. In 1863, with his fellow researchers Franjo Torbar and Franjo Rački
he launched the journal Književnik. In this journal, he published several articles regarding the problematic of the grammar, syntax, as well that one of history of the language used by Croats
. His works were noticed within the Yugoslav Academy of Sciences and Arts (JAZU), founded in Croatia in 1866. His works and polemics were mainly related to verbs, paleography, vocalization
of the language, folk poetry, and its sources. At that time he also started publishing a collection of the works written by old Croatian writers.
In Berlin, he started publishing the Archiv für slavische Philologie (Archive for Slavic Philology), and kept editing it for 45 years. The periodical focused the attention of scholars and the general public on the Slavs, increasing their interest in Slavic languages and their culture. It also confirmed the importance of Slavic studies, its methodology, and its validity as a scholarly discipline.
While in Vienna, his intention was to write an encyclopedia related to the philology of the Slavs. This idea caused him to write Istorija slavjanskoj filologii ("History of Slavic philology"). This book was published in St. Petersburg in 1910 and contains the retrospective on the development of Slavic studies from the beginning to the end of the 19th century.
Jagić's work is impressive in scope and quality: Croatian linguist Josip Hamm
has remarked that Jagić's collected works would, put together, number more than 100 volumes of large format.
Among his most famous students were the Polish Slavic specialist Aleksander Brückner
and the Ukrainian poet and scholar Ivan Franko
.
, as most experts claimed, but in southern Macedonia
. Jagić was interested in the life and work of Juraj Križanić
(1618-1683), a Dominican priest that had shown considerable interest in Pan-Slavism
and cooperation between Catholicism and Orthodoxy.
He spent the greater portion of his life outside of Croatia
but promoted it through his lecturing and was always in touch with events relating to the language and culture at home. Politically, he was a person often criticized for being insensitive and lacking in action and involvement politically beneficial for the Croats. However, this opinion, although not without foundation, when dispassionately analyzed, has lost much of its edge: Jagić's numerous articles and books on Croatian, its grammatical structure and historical morphology recorded in earliest written works had done much to ascertain and chart the continuity of modern standard Croatian with its medieval and Renaissance
vernacular origin.
Croatian language
Croatian is the collective name for the standard language and dialects spoken by Croats, principally in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Serbian province of Vojvodina and other neighbouring countries...
researcher and a famous expert in Slavic languages
Slavic languages
The Slavic languages , a group of closely related languages of the Slavic peoples and a subgroup of Indo-European languages, have speakers in most of Eastern Europe, in much of the Balkans, in parts of Central Europe, and in the northern part of Asia.-Branches:Scholars traditionally divide Slavic...
(Slavic studies) in the second half of the 19th century.
Life
Jagić was born in VaraždinVaraždin
Varaždin is a city in north Croatia, north of Zagreb on the highway A4. The total population is 47,055, with 38,746 on of the city settlement itself . The centre of Varaždin county is located near the Drava river, at...
(then known by its German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
name of Warasdin), where he attended the elementary school and is the place where he started his secondary-school education. He finished that level of education at the Gymnasium
Gymnasium (school)
A gymnasium is a type of school providing secondary education in some parts of Europe, comparable to English grammar schools or sixth form colleges and U.S. college preparatory high schools. The word γυμνάσιον was used in Ancient Greece, meaning a locality for both physical and intellectual...
in Zagreb
Zagreb
Zagreb is the capital and the largest city of the Republic of Croatia. It is in the northwest of the country, along the Sava river, at the southern slopes of the Medvednica mountain. Zagreb lies at an elevation of approximately above sea level. According to the last official census, Zagreb's city...
. Having a particular interest in philology
Philology
Philology is the study of language in written historical sources; it is a combination of literary studies, history and linguistics.Classical philology is the philology of Greek and Classical Latin...
, he moved to Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
where he was lectured in Slavic studies under the guidance of Franc Miklošič
Franc Miklošic
Fran Miklošič , was a Slovene philologist.-Biography:Miklošič was born in the small village of Radomerščak near the Lower Styrian town of Ljutomer, then part of the Austrian Empire....
. He continued his studies and defended his doctoral dissertation Das Leben der Wurzel 'dê in Croatischen Sprachen in Leipzig
Leipzig
Leipzig Leipzig has always been a trade city, situated during the time of the Holy Roman Empire at the intersection of the Via Regia and Via Imperii, two important trade routes. At one time, Leipzig was one of the major European centres of learning and culture in fields such as music and publishing...
(Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
) in 1871.
Upon finishing his studies, Jagić returned to Zagreb, where from 1860 to 1870 he held the position of professor
Professor
A professor is a scholarly teacher; the precise meaning of the term varies by country. Literally, professor derives from Latin as a "person who professes" being usually an expert in arts or sciences; a teacher of high rank...
at at a Croatian high school.
In 1869, Jagić was elected a full member of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts
Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts
The Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts is the national academy of Croatia. It was founded in 1866 as the Yugoslav Academy of Sciences and Arts , and was known by that name for most of its existence.- History :...
(at that time named the Yugoslav Academy of Sciences and Arts), and a correspondent member of the Russian Academy of Sciences
Russian Academy of Sciences
The Russian Academy of Sciences consists of the national academy of Russia and a network of scientific research institutes from across the Russian Federation as well as auxiliary scientific and social units like libraries, publishers and hospitals....
in Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...
. Next year, 1871, he became a professor of Slavic studies at Odessa University
Odessa University
The I. I. Mechnikov Odessa National University , located in Odessa, Ukraine, is one of the country's major universities. It was founded in 1865, by an edict of Czar Alexander II of Russia, reorganizing the Richelieu Lyceum of Odessa into the new Imperial Novorossiya University. In the Soviet...
(Novorossiysk University) and worked also in Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
, where he moved in 1874 to become the very first professor of Slavic studies at the prestigious Friedrich Wilhelm University of Berlin
Humboldt University of Berlin
The Humboldt University of Berlin is Berlin's oldest university, founded in 1810 as the University of Berlin by the liberal Prussian educational reformer and linguist Wilhelm von Humboldt, whose university model has strongly influenced other European and Western universities...
. Jagić held this post until 1880, when he moved again and became teacher at the University of St Petersburg.
In 1886 he returned to Vienna, where his studies started to be a replacement for retiring former lecturer Miklošič at the University of Vienna
University of Vienna
The University of Vienna is a public university located in Vienna, Austria. It was founded by Duke Rudolph IV in 1365 and is the oldest university in the German-speaking world...
. Here he taught, did research, and published until his own retirement in 1908.
Jagić died in Vienna but was laid to rest in his native Varaždin.
Works
Works on literatureLiterature
Literature is the art of written works, and is not bound to published sources...
and language written by Jagić started to be published for the first time in the reports of the high school where he worked. In 1863, with his fellow researchers Franjo Torbar and Franjo Rački
Franjo Racki
Franjo Rački was a Croatian historian, politician and writer. He compiled important collections of old Croatian diplomatic and historical documents, wrote some pioneering historical works, and was a key founder of the Yugoslavian Academy of Sciences and Arts.-Historian:Rački was born in Fužine,...
he launched the journal Književnik. In this journal, he published several articles regarding the problematic of the grammar, syntax, as well that one of history of the language used by Croats
Croats
Croats are a South Slavic ethnic group mostly living in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and nearby countries. There are around 4 million Croats living inside Croatia and up to 4.5 million throughout the rest of the world. Responding to political, social and economic pressure, many Croats have...
. His works were noticed within the Yugoslav Academy of Sciences and Arts (JAZU), founded in Croatia in 1866. His works and polemics were mainly related to verbs, paleography, vocalization
Speech production
Speech production is the process by which spoken words are selected to be produced, have their phonetics formulated and then finally are articulated by the motor system in the vocal apparatus...
of the language, folk poetry, and its sources. At that time he also started publishing a collection of the works written by old Croatian writers.
In Berlin, he started publishing the Archiv für slavische Philologie (Archive for Slavic Philology), and kept editing it for 45 years. The periodical focused the attention of scholars and the general public on the Slavs, increasing their interest in Slavic languages and their culture. It also confirmed the importance of Slavic studies, its methodology, and its validity as a scholarly discipline.
While in Vienna, his intention was to write an encyclopedia related to the philology of the Slavs. This idea caused him to write Istorija slavjanskoj filologii ("History of Slavic philology"). This book was published in St. Petersburg in 1910 and contains the retrospective on the development of Slavic studies from the beginning to the end of the 19th century.
Jagić's work is impressive in scope and quality: Croatian linguist Josip Hamm
Josip Hamm
Josip Hamm was a Croatian Slavist.-Biography:Hamm was born in the village of Gat near Belišće and Valpovo. In 1924 he finished the classical gymnasium in Osijek, and in 1929 he graduated in Slavic and Germanic studies at the University of Zagreb.He worked as a lecturer at the gymnasiums in...
has remarked that Jagić's collected works would, put together, number more than 100 volumes of large format.
Among his most famous students were the Polish Slavic specialist Aleksander Brückner
Aleksander Brückner
Aleksander Brückner was a Polish scholar of Slavic languages and literatures , philologist, lexicographer and historian of literature. He is among the most notable Slavicists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and the first to prepare complete monographs on the history of Polish language...
and the Ukrainian poet and scholar Ivan Franko
Ivan Franko
Ivan Yakovych Franko was a Ukrainian poet, writer, social and literary critic, journalist, interpreter, economist, political activist, doctor of philosophy, the author of the first detective novels and modern poetry in the Ukrainian language....
.
Interests
He was very interested in Old Church Slavic, and he concluded and proved that it did not originate in the central plains of PannoniaPannonia
Pannonia was an ancient province of the Roman Empire bounded north and east by the Danube, coterminous westward with Noricum and upper Italy, and southward with Dalmatia and upper Moesia....
, as most experts claimed, but in southern Macedonia
Macedonia (region)
Macedonia is a geographical and historical region of the Balkan peninsula in southeastern Europe. Its boundaries have changed considerably over time, but nowadays the region is considered to include parts of five Balkan countries: Greece, the Republic of Macedonia, Bulgaria, Albania, Serbia, as...
. Jagić was interested in the life and work of Juraj Križanić
Juraj Križanic
Juraj Križanić , also known as Yuriy Krizhanich, was a Croatian Catholic missionary who is often regarded as the earliest recorded pan-Slavist and anti-Normanist.-Early life, education, and early missionary work:...
(1618-1683), a Dominican priest that had shown considerable interest in Pan-Slavism
Pan-Slavism
Pan-Slavism was a movement in the mid-19th century aimed at unity of all the Slavic peoples. The main focus was in the Balkans where the South Slavs had been ruled for centuries by other empires, Byzantine Empire, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire, and Venice...
and cooperation between Catholicism and Orthodoxy.
He spent the greater portion of his life outside of Croatia
Croatia
Croatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of the Mitteleuropa, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers ...
but promoted it through his lecturing and was always in touch with events relating to the language and culture at home. Politically, he was a person often criticized for being insensitive and lacking in action and involvement politically beneficial for the Croats. However, this opinion, although not without foundation, when dispassionately analyzed, has lost much of its edge: Jagić's numerous articles and books on Croatian, its grammatical structure and historical morphology recorded in earliest written works had done much to ascertain and chart the continuity of modern standard Croatian with its medieval and Renaissance
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
vernacular origin.