Ksenija Atanasijević
Encyclopedia
Ksenija Atanasijević was the first recognised major female Serbia
n philosopher, and one of first female professors of Belgrade University, where she graduated. She wrote about Giordano Bruno
, ancient Greek philosophy and the history of Serbian philosophy, and translated some of the most important philosophical works into the Serbian language
, including materials by Aristotle
and Plato
. She was also an early Serbian feminist writer and philosopher.
Her major work, Filosofski fragmenti, was published in 1929.
, the youngest of six children to Doctor Svetozar Atanasijević and Jelena Atanasijević, née Čumić, who died while giving her birth. Her father was a well-respected doctor and director of the State Hospital in Belgrade. Her mother's family was related to the famed Belgrade lawyer, writer and politician Aćim Čumić. Twelve years later, her father died. Ksenija's stepmother, Sofija Kondic, who taught at the Women's College (Visa zenska skola) in Belgrade, became her rightful guardian. Kondic was well-qualified to continue Ksenija's education. From Kondic Ksenija received her first lessons in philosophy: she learned quickly and eagerly, and no sooner another tragedy befall on her. Ksenija's older brother was killed in World War I.
Ksenija's best friends while growing up were poet Rastko Petrović and his sister, painter Nadežda Petrović
.
Authoritarian and demanding, Petronijević was exactly what Ksenija needed at that point. A brilliant professor and one of the most famous philosophers of his day in Serbia and elsewhere, he was a hard taskmaster.
Petronijević's aim was to challenge his pupils to be able to maintain a philosophical discussion with their tutor. Ksenija was one of the most brilliant students ever to attend the university and it was not long before she attracted the attention of Belgrade's most distinguished intellectuals. She graduated in July 1920 with the highest marks in her graduating class, obtaining a university diploma in "pure and applied philosophy and classics." An excellent student, she decided to pursue an academic career in philosophy and soon after graduation, began working on a doctoral thesis on Giordano Bruno
's De triplici minimo. She went to Geneva and Paris to seek out rare philosophical works and to discuss her thesis with specialists in the field, and on January 20, 1922, defended her Ph.D with honors in Belgrade before a panel of academics, including rector Jovan Cvijić
, Mihailo Petrović
, Milutin Milanković
, Veselin Čajkanović
, and Branislav Petronijević, her mentor. After her thesis was successfully defended, she became the first woman to hold a Ph.D. in Philosophy in Serbia. She was then 28 years old.
During her teaching career, she was a committed feminist both in theory and practice. She was a member of the Serbian Women's League for Peace and Freedom, the Women's Movement Alliance, and editor of the first feminist journal in the country, The Women's Movement, published from 1920 to 1938.
In 1936, she was removed from her university position on trumped-up charges of plagiarism because some of her male colleagues who worked alongside her felt threatened by her exceptional abilities. It was the result of a reaction to the liberal ideas she espoused and promoted and especially to her decision not to become part of an entirely male-dominated, academic ideological clique. Her sense of intellectual autonomy meant that not only was she unwilling to accept conservative ideologies structuring her teaching and writing, she was also capable of criticizing the work of her peers. At the time the Encyclopædia Britannica
cited her study, The Metaphysical and Geometrical Doctrine of Bruno, written in French in Paris in 1924 as an authoritative work about an important and often neglected aspect of Bruno's philosophy. Her consequent dismissal caused a considerably outcry in Belgrade among intellectuals. At a public meeting where many people spoke in support of her, the most prominent speakers were law professor Živojin M. Perić and poet Sima Pandurović
.
Despite the support Atanasijević received, however, her position at the university was never restored to her, and she spent the rest of her working life—until 1941—as an inspector for the Ministry of Education. World War II brought troubles and unrest, even for the apolitical Ksenija Atanasijević. After writing articles against anti-Semitism and National Socialism, she was arrested by the Gestapo
in 1942. Then when the war ended, Atansijević was arrested again, but this time by Tito's communists on charges of war crimes, like those attributed to Veselin Čajkanović
and others for teaching during Nazi occupation. Once released, she retired in 1946 after a short stint as an employee of the National Library of Serbia
.
, metaphysics
, logic
, aesthetics
and the history of philosophy
. She is best known for her original interpretations of Giordano Bruno's work and for her 'philosophy of meaning' developed in Filozofski fragmenti (Philosophical fragments, 1928–1929), considered by many to be her most important and significant work. She died in Belgrade in 1981.
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 philosopher, and one of first female professors of Belgrade University, where she graduated. She wrote about Giordano Bruno
Giordano Bruno
Giordano Bruno , born Filippo Bruno, was an Italian Dominican friar, philosopher, mathematician and astronomer. His cosmological theories went beyond the Copernican model in proposing that the Sun was essentially a star, and moreover, that the universe contained an infinite number of inhabited...
, ancient Greek philosophy and the history of Serbian philosophy, and translated some of the most important philosophical works into the Serbian language
Serbian language
Serbian is a form of Serbo-Croatian, a South Slavic language, spoken by Serbs in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia and neighbouring countries....
, including materials by Aristotle
Aristotle
Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology...
and Plato
Plato
Plato , was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, student of Socrates, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the...
. She was also an early Serbian feminist writer and philosopher.
Her major work, Filosofski fragmenti, was published in 1929.
Biography
Ksenija Atanasijević was born on February 5, 1894 in BelgradeBelgrade
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...
, the youngest of six children to Doctor Svetozar Atanasijević and Jelena Atanasijević, née Čumić, who died while giving her birth. Her father was a well-respected doctor and director of the State Hospital in Belgrade. Her mother's family was related to the famed Belgrade lawyer, writer and politician Aćim Čumić. Twelve years later, her father died. Ksenija's stepmother, Sofija Kondic, who taught at the Women's College (Visa zenska skola) in Belgrade, became her rightful guardian. Kondic was well-qualified to continue Ksenija's education. From Kondic Ksenija received her first lessons in philosophy: she learned quickly and eagerly, and no sooner another tragedy befall on her. Ksenija's older brother was killed in World War I.
Ksenija's best friends while growing up were poet Rastko Petrović and his sister, painter Nadežda Petrović
Nadežda Petrovic
Nadežda Petrović is considered the most important Serbian female painter from the late 19th and early 20th century...
.
Scholarship
While Ksenija attended the Lyceum, she was also influenced by Nada Stoiljković, her philosophy professor. Stoiljković suggested that Ksenija should take up philosophy with her former professor at Belgrade, Branislav Petronijević, and so, in the autumn of 1918, Ksenija Atanasijevic became Petronijevic's pupil at the University of Belgrade.Authoritarian and demanding, Petronijević was exactly what Ksenija needed at that point. A brilliant professor and one of the most famous philosophers of his day in Serbia and elsewhere, he was a hard taskmaster.
Petronijević's aim was to challenge his pupils to be able to maintain a philosophical discussion with their tutor. Ksenija was one of the most brilliant students ever to attend the university and it was not long before she attracted the attention of Belgrade's most distinguished intellectuals. She graduated in July 1920 with the highest marks in her graduating class, obtaining a university diploma in "pure and applied philosophy and classics." An excellent student, she decided to pursue an academic career in philosophy and soon after graduation, began working on a doctoral thesis on Giordano Bruno
Giordano Bruno
Giordano Bruno , born Filippo Bruno, was an Italian Dominican friar, philosopher, mathematician and astronomer. His cosmological theories went beyond the Copernican model in proposing that the Sun was essentially a star, and moreover, that the universe contained an infinite number of inhabited...
's De triplici minimo. She went to Geneva and Paris to seek out rare philosophical works and to discuss her thesis with specialists in the field, and on January 20, 1922, defended her Ph.D with honors in Belgrade before a panel of academics, including rector Jovan Cvijić
Jovan Cvijic
Jovan Cvijić was a Serbian geographer, president of the Serbian Royal Academy of Sciences, and rector of the University of Belgrade. A world-renowned scientist, Cvijić is considered the founder of geography in Serbia.-Early life and family:Jovan Cvijić was born on October 11 Jovan Cvijić...
, Mihailo Petrović
Mihailo Petrovic
Mihailo Petrović Alas , was an influential Serbian mathematician and inventor. He was also a distinguished professor at Belgrade University, an academic of the Serbian Royal Academy, and a fisherman. He was a student of Henri Poincaré, Charles Hermite and Charles Émile Picard...
, Milutin Milanković
Milutin Milankovic
Milutin Milanković was a Serbian geophysicist and civil engineer, best known for his theory of ice ages, suggesting a relationship between Earth's long-term climate changes and periodic changes in its orbit, now known as Milankovitch cycles. Milanković gave two fundamental contributions to global...
, Veselin Čajkanović
Veselin Cajkanovic
Veselin Čajkanović was a Serbian classical scholar, religious history scholar, and Greek and Latin translator.-Biography:...
, and Branislav Petronijević, her mentor. After her thesis was successfully defended, she became the first woman to hold a Ph.D. in Philosophy in Serbia. She was then 28 years old.
Recognition
In 1924, she became the first female university professor to be appointed to the Arts Faculty, Department of Philosophy at the University of Belgrade, where she taught classics, medieval and modern philosophy and aesthetics for twelve years.During her teaching career, she was a committed feminist both in theory and practice. She was a member of the Serbian Women's League for Peace and Freedom, the Women's Movement Alliance, and editor of the first feminist journal in the country, The Women's Movement, published from 1920 to 1938.
In 1936, she was removed from her university position on trumped-up charges of plagiarism because some of her male colleagues who worked alongside her felt threatened by her exceptional abilities. It was the result of a reaction to the liberal ideas she espoused and promoted and especially to her decision not to become part of an entirely male-dominated, academic ideological clique. Her sense of intellectual autonomy meant that not only was she unwilling to accept conservative ideologies structuring her teaching and writing, she was also capable of criticizing the work of her peers. At the time the Encyclopædia Britannica
Encyclopædia Britannica
The Encyclopædia Britannica , published by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., is a general knowledge English-language encyclopaedia that is available in print, as a DVD, and on the Internet. It is written and continuously updated by about 100 full-time editors and more than 4,000 expert...
cited her study, The Metaphysical and Geometrical Doctrine of Bruno, written in French in Paris in 1924 as an authoritative work about an important and often neglected aspect of Bruno's philosophy. Her consequent dismissal caused a considerably outcry in Belgrade among intellectuals. At a public meeting where many people spoke in support of her, the most prominent speakers were law professor Živojin M. Perić and poet Sima Pandurović
Sima Pandurovic
Sima Pandurović , born in Belgrade on 14 January 1883, was a Serbian poet, part of the Symbolist movement in European poetry at the time. He was one of the founders of the Moderna movement in Serbian poetry...
.
Atanasijević's life 1936–1946
Pandurović, who stood by her throughout the ordeal, was quoted in a newspaper article saying: "She has been accused at the plenum of the University Council of plagiarism by one member of the faculty who has not the remotest inkling of philosophy and who has unaccountably taken it on himself to defend that discipline from a genuine thinker."Despite the support Atanasijević received, however, her position at the university was never restored to her, and she spent the rest of her working life—until 1941—as an inspector for the Ministry of Education. World War II brought troubles and unrest, even for the apolitical Ksenija Atanasijević. After writing articles against anti-Semitism and National Socialism, she was arrested by the Gestapo
Gestapo
The Gestapo was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Beginning on 20 April 1934, it was under the administration of the SS leader Heinrich Himmler in his position as Chief of German Police...
in 1942. Then when the war ended, Atansijević was arrested again, but this time by Tito's communists on charges of war crimes, like those attributed to Veselin Čajkanović
Veselin Cajkanovic
Veselin Čajkanović was a Serbian classical scholar, religious history scholar, and Greek and Latin translator.-Biography:...
and others for teaching during Nazi occupation. Once released, she retired in 1946 after a short stint as an employee of the National Library of Serbia
National Library of Serbia
The National Library of Serbia is the national library of Serbia, located in the city of Belgrade, .-History:...
.
Atanasijević's legacy
Ksenija Atansijević left a substantial volume of work, including more than 400 texts, among them books and essays in philosophy, psychology, history, and literature. Her interest in philosophy was broad and eclectic, covering ethicsEthics
Ethics, also known as moral philosophy, is a branch of philosophy that addresses questions about morality—that is, concepts such as good and evil, right and wrong, virtue and vice, justice and crime, etc.Major branches of ethics include:...
, metaphysics
Metaphysics
Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world, although the term is not easily defined. Traditionally, metaphysics attempts to answer two basic questions in the broadest possible terms:...
, logic
Logic
In philosophy, Logic is the formal systematic study of the principles of valid inference and correct reasoning. Logic is used in most intellectual activities, but is studied primarily in the disciplines of philosophy, mathematics, semantics, and computer science...
, aesthetics
Aesthetics
Aesthetics is a branch of philosophy dealing with the nature of beauty, art, and taste, and with the creation and appreciation of beauty. It is more scientifically defined as the study of sensory or sensori-emotional values, sometimes called judgments of sentiment and taste...
and the history of philosophy
History of philosophy
The history of philosophy is the study of philosophical ideas and concepts through time. Issues specifically related to history of philosophy might include : How can changes in philosophy be accounted for historically? What drives the development of thought in its historical context? To what...
. She is best known for her original interpretations of Giordano Bruno's work and for her 'philosophy of meaning' developed in Filozofski fragmenti (Philosophical fragments, 1928–1929), considered by many to be her most important and significant work. She died in Belgrade in 1981.
Selected works
- Brunovo učenje o najmanjem, BelgradeBelgradeBelgrade 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...
, 1922. - Počeci filozofiranja kod Grka, Belgrade, 1928.
- Filozofski fragmenti I-II, Belgrade, 1929-30.
- La doctrine métaphisique et géométrique de Bruno, Bg et Paris 1923.
- Le doctrine d’Epicure, ParisParisParis 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...
1928. - Un fragment philosophique, Belgrade, 1929.
- Considération sul le monde et la vie dans la litérature populaires des Yougoslaves, Paris 1929/30.
- Die gegenwärtigen philosophishen Strömungen in Jugoslavien – Der russische Gedanke, Internationale Zeitschrift für Philosophie, BonnBonnBonn is the 19th largest city in Germany. Located in the Cologne/Bonn Region, about 25 kilometres south of Cologne on the river Rhine in the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, it was the capital of West Germany from 1949 to 1990 and the official seat of government of united Germany from 1990 to 1999....
, 3, 1930. - Die Anfängedes Philosophiernes bei den Griechen, 1928.