Cedomilj Mijatovic - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Čedomilj Mijatović was a Serbia

Serbia

Serbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans...

n statesman

Statesman

A statesman is usually a politician or other notable public figure who has had a long and respected career in politics or government at the national and international level. As a term of respect, it is usually left to supporters or commentators to use the term...

, economist

Economist

An economist is a professional in the social science discipline of economics. The individual may also study, develop, and apply theories and concepts from economics and write about economic policy...

, historian

Historian

A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the study of all history in time. If the individual is...

, writer

Writer

A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....

, politician

Politician

A politician, political leader, or political figure is an individual who is involved in influencing public policy and decision making...

, diplomat

Diplomat

A diplomat is a person appointed by a state to conduct diplomacy with another state or international organization. The main functions of diplomats revolve around the representation and protection of the interests and nationals of the sending state, as well as the promotion of information and...

and one of the leaders of the Progressive Party

Serbian Progressive Party (historical)

The Serbian Progressive Party was a liberal political party in Serbia that existed from 1881 to 1919.-Origins:The origin of the Progressive Party can be traced back to a political grouping known as "Young Conservatives" that had existed from 1871...

. He was six times minister of Finance in the Principality/Kingdom of Serbia

Serbia

, three time minister of foreign affairs and minister plenipotentiary in Serbia

Serbia

to the Court of St. James's

Court of St. James's

The Court of St James's is the royal court of the United Kingdom. It previously had the same function in the Kingdom of England and in the Kingdom of Great Britain .-Overview:...

(1884–1885; 1895–1900, and 1902/1903), to Romania

Romania

Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...

(1894), and the Ottoman Empire

Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...

(1900). He is one of the most important liberals in history of Serbian politics. Mijatović's authority as a writer on Serbia

Serbia

is universally acknowledged, and he had contributed largely to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, Ninth Edition (1875-1889) and Eleventh Edition (1911).

Early life and education

His father Milan (1805–1852) was a lawyer who came to Serbia

Serbia

from Southern Hungary

Hungary

Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...

and became a teacher of Latin, history and geography in Belgrade

Belgrade

Belgrade is the capital and largest city of Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers, where the Pannonian Plain meets the Balkans. According to official results of Census 2011, the city has a population of 1,639,121. It is one of the 15 largest cities in Europe...

's First Gymnasium (Grammar School). However, Čedomilj Mijatović was primarily influenced by his mother, Rakila Kristina (1826–1901), who was of mixed Serbian

Serbs

The Serbs are a South Slavic ethnic group of the Balkans and southern Central Europe. Serbs are located mainly in Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina, and form a sizable minority in Croatia, the Republic of Macedonia and Slovenia. Likewise, Serbs are an officially recognized minority in...

-Spanish

Spanish people

The Spanish are citizens of the Kingdom of Spain. Within Spain, there are also a number of vigorous nationalisms and regionalisms, reflecting the country's complex history....

origin.

Mijatović studied a combination of economic courses and sciences in Munich

Munich

Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...

, Zurich

Zürich

Zurich is the largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is located in central Switzerland at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich...

and 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...

between 1863 and 1865 and completed his education by gaining experience from the National Bank of Austria and Kredit Anstalt in 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...

. During his studies in 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...

he met his future British wife Elodie Lawton

Elodie Lawton

Elodie Lawton Mijatović was a British author who lived in Boston in the 1850s, where she was an advocate of the abolitionist movement. In 1864 she married Serbian politician, writer and diplomat, Čedomilj Mijatović , and lived with him in Belgrade and then in London where she died...

(1825–1908), previously a dedicated abolitionist in Boston

Boston

Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...

, who influenced him significantly, and turned him into a devoted Anglophile. She was the first female historian in Serbia

Serbia

and she published in 1872 The History of Modern Serbia. Later she published a collection of Serbian folk short stories and a collection of Serbian epic poems.

At the age of 23 he became a professor at the Belgrade's Grande École, the highest educational institution in Serbia of that age. He taught political economy and wrote three very influential textbooks, two of which were based on Lorenz von Stein

Lorenz von Stein

Lorenz von Stein was a German economist, sociologist, and public administration scholar from Eckernförde. As an advisor to Meiji period Japan, his conservative political views influenced the wording of the Constitution of the Empire of Japan.- Biography :Stein was born in the seaside town of Borby...

. In these works he demonstrated his affinity for liberal economy and influenced many later Serbian economists to take similar positions. As a professor he started campaigning in favour of building a railway through Serbia. He gained many supporters among merchants and educated men for this idea, but many opposed him in Serbia

Serbia

during this campaign. He was also the earliest critique of communist and socialist utopian ideas in Serbia

Serbia

. His translation of Henry Thomas Buckle

Henry Thomas Buckle

Henry Thomas Buckle was an English historian, author of an unfinished History of Civilization.- Biography :...

’s book History of Civilisation in England, was published in Serbian in 1871 and influenced several generations of pro-Western Serbs

Serbs

Efforts to reform the Serbian Orthodox Church

Miјatović’s wife was a member of the Wesleyan Church

Wesleyan Methodist Church

The Wesleyan Methodist Church was a Methodist denomination in the United States organized on May 13, 1841. It was composed of ministers and laypeople who withdrew from the Methodist Episcopal Church because of disagreements regarding slavery, church government, and the doctrine of holiness...

and was able to imbue her husband with nonconformist religious devotion. However, he always remained faithful to the Serbian Orthodox Church

Serbian Orthodox Church

The Serbian Orthodox Church is one of the autocephalous Orthodox Christian churches, ranking sixth in order of seniority after Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem, and Russia...

but wanted to bring some religious zeal into it. That was not a very popular task in Serbia of his time. He found a collaborator in this endeavour in the person of a Belgrade priest Aleksa Ilić who established a religious monthly Hrishchanski Vesnik (Christian Messenger, in Serbian Cyrillic: Хришћански весник), the first journal dedicated to religious revival in Serbia. A Scottish philanthropist Francis Mackenzie

Francis Mackenzie

Francis Mackenzie, was a Scottish member of the Plymouth Brethren Nazarene group, who travelled to Belgrade to start work for the British and Foreign Bible Society to foster religiosity among the Serbian people. He stayed in Belgrade from 1876 till 1895....

who settled in Belgrade

Belgrade

helped this project materially and Miјatović remained one of the main contributors of the journal.

He was the most active and influential Serbian translator from English during the 19th century. The bibliography of his translations includes about a dozen titles. Most of them deal with religious topics. That was his effort to contribute to religious revival. His translations into Serbian include: sermons of well-known British preachers such as Dr. Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Canon Henry Parry Liddon

Henry Parry Liddon

Henry Parry Liddon was an English theologian.- Biography :The son of a naval captain, he was born at North Stoneham, near Eastleigh, Hampshire. He was educated at King's College School, and at Christ Church, Oxford, where he graduated, taking a second class, in 1850...

and Dr. Macduff. He also translated John Bunyan

John Bunyan

John Bunyan was an English Christian writer and preacher, famous for writing The Pilgrim's Progress. Though he was a Reformed Baptist, in the Church of England he is remembered with a Lesser Festival on 30 August, and on the liturgical calendar of the Episcopal Church on 29 August.-Life:In 1628,...

's The Pilgrim's Progress
The Pilgrim's Progress
The Pilgrim's Progress from This World to That Which Is to Come is a Christian allegory written by John Bunyan and published in February, 1678. It is regarded as one of the most significant works of religious English literature, has been translated into more than 200 languages, and has never been...

and Dr. David Brown’s Commentaries to the Gospels.

Miјatović as cabinet minister

At the age of thirty-one he was already Minister of Finance at the end of 1873. He started his career as a protégé of the leader of the subsequent Liberal Party, Jovan Ristić

Jovan Ristic

Jovan Ristić, or Ristitch was a Serbian statesman and diplomat....

, but soon joined the club of so called young conservatives who turned into a kind of the personal party of the Serbian ruler, Prince Milan Obrenović (Prince from 1868, and King from 1882 till 1889). In the Government of Jovan Marinović, from November 1873 till December 1874 he was Minister of Finance for the second time and in that capacity he was instrumental in bringing important reforms. He introduced the metric system to Serbia. Serbia joined the Latin Monetary Union and he baptised the new domestic currency, the dinar, after mediaeval Serbian silver coins. He always considered his most important achievement in this government the law stipulating the amount of property that had to be left to peasants, and could not be confiscated to cover their debts. This minimal amount included peasant’s house, a yoke of oxen, the plough, and five acres of land. He was elected for the third time as Minister of Finance in the Government of Danilo Stefanović (Stefanović) in 1875.

The group of young conservatives he joined established the newspaper Videlo and soon came to power in October 1880. In the Government of Milan Piroćanac, Mijatović got two tenures. He was Minister of Foreign Affairs for the fourth time and Minister of Finance. Being a close friend of the ruler and in control of the two key ministries he was considered by many diplomats as the most influential person of this Cabinet. Prince Milan used him for the most significant missions. The two decisions that shaped Serbia’s history for many years were carried out by Mijatović.

When modern political parties were created in Serbia, in 1881, the Progressive Party turned out to be the only of the three Serbian parties (the other two being the mostly pro-Russian Liberal Party and very pro-Russian Radical Party) that was ready to make an agreement with Austria-Hungary, which became the most influential country in Serbia after the Congress of Berlin in 1878. The ruler decided to open a new page in Serbian foreign policy and arranged that a secret convention should be signed with the Habsburg Monarchy

Habsburg Monarchy

The Habsburg Monarchy covered the territories ruled by the junior Austrian branch of the House of Habsburg , and then by the successor House of Habsburg-Lorraine , between 1526 and 1867/1918. The Imperial capital was Vienna, except from 1583 to 1611, when it was moved to Prague...

. Mijatović was gradually entrusted by the ruler to complete this task and on June 28, 1881 he signed the Secret Convention by which Serbia got the diplomatic and political backing of the Habsburg Empire but abandoned her independence in the field of Foreign Policy. When the two other most prominent members of the Cabinet, Prime Minister Piroćanac and Home Minister Garašanin learned about the exact contents of the Convention they decided to resign but had to accept the new reality in the end. In return Mijatović had to resign his post as Minister of Foreign Affairs and kept only his tenure at the Ministry of Finance. His last act as Minister of Foreign Affairs was to sign a Consular Convention and a Commercial Agreement with the United States of America

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

on October 14. 1881. During talks that preceded the signing of the Secret Convention Mijatović was well received in Vienna

Vienna

by the Emperor Francis Joseph

Franz Joseph I of Austria

Franz Joseph I or Francis Joseph I was Emperor of Austria, King of Bohemia, King of Croatia, Apostolic King of Hungary, King of Galicia and Lodomeria and Grand Duke of Cracow from 1848 until his death in 1916.In the December of 1848, Emperor Ferdinand I of Austria abdicated the throne as part of...

and other dignitaries of the Empire. The Emperor later decorated him with the first class of the Order of the Iron Crown, which entitled its bearer to become Austro-Hungarian count. Serbian citizens were banned by the Serbian constitution to accept any nobility titles. It is not clear if Mijatović ever officially submitted application to become an Austro-Hungarian count, yet he used this title openly since 1915, being the only Serb from the Kingdom of Serbia who did it.

Affair with Union Général

As the Minister of Finance Mijatović had to secure Serbia’s commitments from the Berlin Treaty by which she undertook to build the part of the Vienna

Vienna

-Constantinople

Constantinople

Constantinople was the capital of the Roman, Eastern Roman, Byzantine, Latin, and Ottoman Empires. Throughout most of the Middle Ages, Constantinople was Europe's largest and wealthiest city.-Names:...

railway line that went through Serbia. Since Serbia could not finance the project herself a proper foreign creditor had to be found and a Parisian financial society called Union Général was selected in 1881. Unfortunately it faced bankruptcy as soon as the beginning of 1882, which brought the already shaky state of Serbian finances very close to complete disaster. Learning of the bankruptcy Mijatović urgently travelled to Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

and there supported by Austro-Hungarian diplomacy found a way out. Another financial house Comptoir National D’Escompte took on the projects without detriment to Serbia. In spite of this success the reputation of Mijatović’s party suffered a serious blow and never recovered. It turned out that the agents of the Union Général in Belgrade had tried to bribe many MPs and politicians and the reputation of the Progressivists suffered the most from this. He took personal part in preparing a law on the establishment of the National Bank of Serbia that was passed by the Serbian Parliament in January 1883. He advocated establishment of such institution long before and had an opportunity to establish it during his tenure. The Government of the Progressivists resigned in October 1883.

Negotiator of the Peace Treaty at Bucharest

Being a lonely Serbian Anglophile Mijatović wished to be appointed as the first Serbian Minister in London, but had to wait until October 1884 when he became the second Serbian Minister at the Court of St. James's

Court of St. James's

The Court of St James's is the royal court of the United Kingdom. It previously had the same function in the Kingdom of England and in the Kingdom of Great Britain .-Overview:...

. During this tenure he came into contact with many influential persons but his diplomatic post in London soon ended since he was appointed to be the sole Serbian negotiator in Bucharest where peace negotiations were scheduled following the Serbo-Bulgarian War. Serbia attacked Bulgaria on November 14, 1885 and within two weeks suffered a humiliating defeat. It was thanks to the Secret Convention signed with Austria-Hungary that Serbia was able to get out of the war without suffering more serious consequences. In Bucharest

Bucharest

Bucharest is the capital municipality, cultural, industrial, and financial centre of Romania. It is the largest city in Romania, located in the southeast of the country, at , and lies on the banks of the Dâmbovița River....

Miyatović and the Bulgarian representative Ivan Evstratiev Geshov

Ivan Evstratiev Geshov

Ivan Evstratiev Geshov was a Bulgarian politician who served as Prime Minister.Born in Plovdiv to a family originally from Karlovo, Geshov was educated at various Greek and Protestant institutions, as well as Owens College in Manchester...

concluded, on 3 March 1886, one of the shortest treaties in diplomatic history with one article only: „Article seul et unique. – L’état de paix qui a cessé d’exister entre le Royaume de Serbie et le Principauté du Bulgarie le 2-14 Novembre, 1885, est rétabli à partir de l’échange de ratification du present traité qui aura lieu à Bucharest.” Mijatović proved to be a peacemaker since he had ignored instructions from Belgrade that were prepared in such a way that he was supposed to find an excuse for new war. Apparently Mijatović was more worried about what sort of reputation he would have in England if negotiations failed than about criticism from Belgrade for his conciliatory approach.

First self exile to London

Having returned from Bucharest Mijatović became for the fifth time Finance Minister in the Government of Milutin Garašanin in 1886/1887. Finally in 1887/1889 he was for the second time Foreign Minister in the Government of Nikola Hristić (Hristić). In this capacity he signed renewal of the Secret Convention. However, the decision of King Milan to abdicate on 6 March 1889 effectively ended his special position at the Court. The new government encouraged persecution of the members of the Progressive Party. Faced with all these failures he decided to leave Serbia and withdrew to Britain

United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was the formal name of the United Kingdom during the period when what is now the Republic of Ireland formed a part of it....

in September 1889.

He found refuge in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

where he spent years between 1889 and 1894 and was committed to writing novels in Serbian based on gothic novels of Sir Walter Scott and historical works. Novels that he wrote in these years made him perhaps the most popular Serbian writer of his age. He added to his fame by publishing a book entitled On Conditions for Success [О условима успеха/O uslovima uspeha] in 1892 based on Samuel Smiles

Samuel Smiles

-Early life:Born in Haddington, East Lothian, Scotland, the son of Samuel Smiles of Haddington and Janet Wilson of Dalkeith, Smiles was one of eleven surviving children. The family were strict Cameronians, though when Smiles grew up he was not one of them...

’ bestseller Self-Help. In Britain he became well known when he published a book on the last Byzantine

Byzantine

Byzantine usually refers to the Roman Empire during the Middle Ages.Byzantine may also refer to:* A citizen of the Byzantine Empire, or native Greek during the Middle Ages...

Emperor. Owing to this book he was elected to be an honorary member of the Royal Historical Society

Royal Historical Society

The Royal Historical Society was founded in 1868. The premier society in the United Kingdom which promotes and defends the scholarly study of the past, it is based at University College London...

, being the first Serb to attain such a distinction. Some time earlier he had become the second President of the Serbian Royal Academy, in 1888, but he resigned this post in 1889. It was in London, where Mijatović obtained introductions to the most celebrated writers in Britain, and became a contributor to the Encyclopaedia Britannica.

Diplomatic career

In 1894 he returned from his self-exile to become Minister of Finance for the sixth and last time, but his tenure ended with the resignation of the whole Government after only two months in April 1894. He spent the rest of that year as a Serbian Minister in Bucharest but was recalled at the end of 1894. In April 1895 he got his favourite appointment. He became for the second time Serbian Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary at the Court of St. James's and kept this position until 1900. During this mandate he represented Serbia at the Hague Peace Conference in May–July 1899 where he advocated very progressive views, but both Aleksandar Obrenović

Aleksandar Obrenovic

Not to be confused with Alexander I of Yugoslavia.Alexander I or Aleksandar Obrenović was king of Serbia from 1889 to 1903 when he and his wife, Queen Draga, were assassinated by a group of Army officers, led by Colonel Dragutin Dimitrijević-Accession:In 1889 Alexander's father, King Milan,...

and the Serbian Government did not share his enthusiasm for the instruments of international law and international arbitration. In 1900 he was put in the most important diplomatic place for Serbia. He became Serbian Minister in Constantinople

Constantinople

but was recalled since he did not agree with the marriage of the Serbian King Alexander with a lady who was a commoner and a widow. He became Serbian senator in 1901 and stayed in London trying to establish a Serbian Commercial Agency. At the end of 1902 he was appointed for the third time to be Serbian Minister in London.

In the early morning of June 11, 1903 a conspiracy of Serbian officers killed King Alexander Obrenović and his unpopular wife Queen Draga. Having murdered them they threw their naked bodies out of window. The new government consisted of regicides and it appointed Petar Karađorđević to be new ruler of Serbia. The very event and composition of the new Cabinet caused widespread condemnation throughout Europe but only Britain and the Netherlands decided to break off diplomatic relations with Serbia. Mijatović was himself horrified and he was the only Serbian diplomat who resigned his post on June 22. This act was never forgiven to him by influential political circles in Belgrade.

Mijatović’s name became known around the world thanks to a clairvoyant session that he attended together with a famous Victorian journalist William Thomas Stead

William Thomas Stead

William Thomas Stead was an English journalist and editor who, as one of the early pioneers of investigative journalism, became one of the most controversial figures of the Victorian era. His 'New Journalism' paved the way for today's tabloid press...

. The result of the clairvoyant session that took place on the night of 20 March 1903, in Stead's opinion was that 'the bloody tragedy in the palace was seen clairvoyantly three months before it took place, and described in the hearing of at least a dozen credible witnesses'. Almost all the British dailies, as well as the American and continental press, commented on the prophecy. Later he was very much influenced by Stead and became a leading Serbian adherent of spiritism.

After the May Coup Mijatović stayed in London until the end of his life. In 1908 he published his most popular book in English that went through three British and three American editions entitled Servia and the Servians. His reputation in Serbia after 1903 suffered greatly due to false rumours that he was implicated in a conspiracy to bring Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught and Strathearn

Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught and Strathearn

Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught and Strathearn was a member of the shared British and Saxe-Coburg and Gotha royal family who served as the Governor General of Canada, the 10th since Canadian Confederation.Born the seventh child and third son of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and...

, beloved son of Queen Victoria

Victoria of the United Kingdom

Victoria was the monarch of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death. From 1 May 1876, she used the additional title of Empress of India....

, to the throne of Serbia. In 1911 he met King Peter Karageorgević in Paris and from this moment he was fully reconciled with the new regime in Serbia. Therefore it is not surprising that he was considered as an unofficial member of the Serbian delegation in London during the London Conference in December 1912. Being a widower from 1908 he was considered as a favourite candidate of both the Serbian Government and the King to become the Archbishop of Skopje

Skopje

Skopje is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Macedonia with about a third of the total population. It is the country's political, cultural, economic, and academic centre...

, which had two years earlier been incorporated to the Serbian state. But these efforts failed.

He became very active again at the beginning of the First World War

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

. He wrote many letters and articles to British dailies but his most remarkable action in this field was his visit to the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

and Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

. He was accompanied by the most famous British suffragette, Emmeline Pankhurst

Emmeline Pankhurst

Emmeline Pankhurst was a British political activist and leader of the British suffragette movement which helped women win the right to vote...

, who championed the causes of Britain’s small allies (Belgium and Serbia) during World War I

World War I

. A visit to America with such a well-known person made lot of sensation and enabled to Mijatović to have well attended lectures and to give interviews to the leading dailies.

He died in London on May 14, 1932.

Works in English

He published 19 books in Serbian, and 6 books in English. The books in English are: Constantine, the Last Emperor of the Greeks or the Conquest of Constantinople by the Turks (A.D. 1453), after the Latest Historical Researches (London: Sampson Low, Marston & Company, 1892); Ancestors of the House of Orange (1892); A Royal Tragedy. Being the Story of the Assassination of King Alexander and Queen Draga of Servia (London: Eveleigh Nash, 1906); Servia and the Servians (London: Sir Isaac Pitman & Sons, 1908); Sir Donald Mackenzie Wallace, Prince Kropotkin, C. Mijatović, J. D. Bourchier, A Short History of Russia and the Balkan States (London: The Encyclopaedia Britannica Company, 1914), and The Memoirs of a Balkan Diplomatist (London, New York, Toronto and Melbourne: Cassel and Co., 1917).

His book Servia and the Servians together with his entries on Serbia in the Tenth and Eleventh editions of the Encyclopaedia Britannica served a very important purpose of offering a favourable view of Serbia to the Anglo-American public at the beginning of the twentieth century in a very turbulent and decisive period for Serbia. He was arguably the first Serb to contribute to the Encyclopaedia Britannica and some of his entries were reproduced up until 1973. The other was Prince Bojidar Karageorgevitch

Prince Bojidar Karageorgevitch

Prince Bojidar Karageorgevitch was a member of the Serbian House of Karađorđević. He was a world traveller...

Assessment

His long life in Britain made him a cultural bridge between two nations. His role in British-Serbian relations in unmatched in terms of his influence on mutual relations. Many British Balkan experts were aware of this and had a very high opinion of Mijatović. James David Bourchier

James David Bourchier

James David Bourchier was an Irish journalist and political activist. He worked for The Times as the newspaper's Balkan correspondent. He lived in Sofia from 1892 to 1915. Bourchier was an honourable member of the Sofia Journalists' Society and a trusted advisor of Prince Ferdinand of Bulgaria...

, a correspondent of The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...

, remarked that “he is generally regarded by his fellow-countrymen as the most learned man in Servia.” William T. Stead, who met him during the Peace Conference in The Hague, was so delighted with him that he wrote: “It was almost worth while creating the Kingdom Servia if only to qualify Čedomilj Mijatovitch for a seat in the Parliament of the Nations.” Stead also had such a high opinion of Mijatović as a diplomat that in 1903 he remarked: “He is far and away the best known, the most distinguished, and the most respected diplomatist the Balkan Peninsula has yet produced.” The leading British daily The Times covered almost every step Mijatović took during the eighties, especially through its Vienna correspondents. There are almost 300 contemporary articles of The Times mentioning Mijatović. At no time before had any Serbian minister, or any Serb at all, enjoyed such sympathies from The Times as did Mijatović in the last two decades of the nineteenth century. When he resigned his tenure of the President of the Serbian Royal Academy The Times commented: “Of all the statesmen in Servia, M. Mijatovitch is probably the one who holds the highest character in foreign countries. He has filled the principal offices in Servia, not only those that are rewards for party services, by those conferred by public consent, if not by public acclamation, on men whose abilities are not judged by mere party conflicts.”

His whole working life was strongly influenced by the culture of Victorian Britain. In introducing Gothic novels into Serbian literature he was influenced by Sir Walter Scott. The inspiration for his religious pieces originated from Charles Haddon Spurgeon and Cannon Henry Parry Liddon

Henry Parry Liddon

. Even his policy was inspired by British statesmen, especially by William Ewart Gladstone

William Ewart Gladstone

William Ewart Gladstone FRS FSS was a British Liberal statesman. In a career lasting over sixty years, he served as Prime Minister four separate times , more than any other person. Gladstone was also Britain's oldest Prime Minister, 84 years old when he resigned for the last time...

and Lord Salisbury. In Britain he became familiar with spiritualism, a widespread habit during the Victorian era. Through the influence of William Thomas Stead

William Thomas Stead

and Sir Oliver Lodge he gradually became an ardent believer in spiritualism and supernatural phenomena. Another British influence came in the field of parliamentarianism. Mijatović wished to copy British budgetary debates but the Serbian parliament consisting mostly of peasant MPs did not quite understand this effort. Finally he wanted to transmit a Protestant vision of ethics of labour and capital as formulated in bestsellers of Samuel Smiles

Samuel Smiles

and in the works of some Presbyterians. For this reason he was called in a biography published on him in Serbian “a Victorian among Serbs”.

External links

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