Veselin Cajkanovic
Encyclopedia
Veselin Čajkanović was a Serbian
classical scholar, religious history scholar, and Greek
and Latin
translator
.
at Belgrade's grande école (which became the University of Belgrade
), and later at the University of Leipzig
and University of Munich (where he took his Master of Arts
degree
). In 1908 he became a Latin lecturer at the Belgrade University School of Philosophy and published his MA dissertation
, Quaestionum paroemiographicarum capita selecta, in Tübingen
.
Čajkanović fought in both Balkan Wars
and in World War I
. He retreated with the Serbian Army
through Albania
in face of the 1915 anti-Serbia
n offensive of the Central Powers
. Later he was at the Thessaloniki Front
, where he described his activities in his Autobiography as "defending, together with other Balkan Christians, his country from foreign conquerors." Čajkanović was awarded the Order of the White Eagle with Swords and the Légion d'honneur
.
From 1921 on he taught the comparative history of religion
at the Faculty of Theology in Belgrade
.
Wrote Marko Zivkovic in the Anthropology of East Europe Review, "Cajkanovic was one who brought the latest philosophical, historical, ethnographic and comparative methodologies of inter war Europe to bear on his life project of reconstructing from the pre-Christian, pagan Serbian mythology and religions. Cajkanovic did most of his work between the wars in Belgrade where he was a professor at the University and a member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts
.
"He did not leave a line of successors, as he might have done, being in many respects a figure comparable to what Mircea Eliade
was in Romania." The communists who took over after the war did not approve of Cajkanovic's scholarship, and even to this day, most of his work is still in manuscript form.
Veselin Cajkanovic taught at the University of Belgrade throughout German occupation of Yugoslavia, teaching at the Faculty of Theology and, when the provisional government of the so-called Democratic Federal Yugoslavia put Tito in power, he was so engrossed with his work that he did not notice what went around him. Consequently, life during the anarchistic upheaval, which turned the existence of a non-proleterian into hell on earth, was comparatively easy for him. He sat at a writing table or in front of a class without troubling about the chaos outside.
He himself may not have troubled about gunfire in the streets, but he began to fear for the safety of his family in such uncertain conditions. Above all a professor who was relatively uninterested in politics and causes, Cajkanovic certainly realized, as did his compatriots and fellow-professors, Slobodan Jovanovic
, Dimitrije Najdanovic, Milos Mladenovic
, Đoko Slijepčević and others, who left the country in time, that an environment of occupation, revolution and civil war
was -- as Cajkanovic put it -- "hardly the time for teaching." Yet he taught privately just the same since the University of Belgrade was forced to close down in 1941. And so, it was not long before he was dismissed by the Communists as "an undesirable war criminal" for teaching while under Nazi occupation. It came as an unbearable shock to a sensitive scholar like himself. He fell ill never to recover his health again. He died a year later, in 1946.
He authored several books, while numerous studies and articles remained scattered in various publications. His texts were published mainly in Serbian
, Latin, and German
and include:
Čajkanović's collected works, edited by Vojislav Đurić, were published in five volumes in 1994 in Belgrade
.
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...
classical scholar, religious history scholar, and Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
and Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
translator
Translation
Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. Whereas interpreting undoubtedly antedates writing, translation began only after the appearance of written literature; there exist partial translations of the Sumerian Epic of...
.
Biography
Čajkanović studied classical philologyPhilology
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...
at Belgrade's grande école (which became the University of Belgrade
University of Belgrade
The University of Belgrade is the oldest and largest university of Serbia.Founded in 1808 as the Belgrade Higher School in revolutionary Serbia, by 1838 it merged with the Kragujevac-based departments into a single university...
), and later at the University of Leipzig
University of Leipzig
The University of Leipzig , located in Leipzig in the Free State of Saxony, Germany, is one of the oldest universities in the world and the second-oldest university in Germany...
and University of Munich (where he took his Master of Arts
Master of Arts (postgraduate)
A Master of Arts from the Latin Magister Artium, is a type of Master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The M.A. is usually contrasted with the M.S. or M.Sc. degrees...
degree
Academic degree
An academic degree is a position and title within a college or university that is usually awarded in recognition of the recipient having either satisfactorily completed a prescribed course of study or having conducted a scholarly endeavour deemed worthy of his or her admission to the degree...
). In 1908 he became a Latin lecturer at the Belgrade University School of Philosophy and published his MA dissertation
Thesis
A dissertation or thesis is a document submitted in support of candidature for an academic degree or professional qualification presenting the author's research and findings...
, Quaestionum paroemiographicarum capita selecta, in Tübingen
Tübingen
Tübingen is a traditional university town in central Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is situated south of the state capital, Stuttgart, on a ridge between the Neckar and Ammer rivers.-Geography:...
.
Čajkanović fought in both Balkan Wars
Balkan Wars
The Balkan Wars were two conflicts that took place in the Balkans in south-eastern Europe in 1912 and 1913.By the early 20th century, Montenegro, Bulgaria, Greece and Serbia, the countries of the Balkan League, had achieved their independence from the Ottoman Empire, but large parts of their ethnic...
and in World War I
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 retreated with the Serbian Army
Serbian Army
-Objectives:The Serbian Army is responsible for:* deterring armed threats* defending Serbia's territory* participation in peacekeeping operations* providing humanitarian aid and disaster relief-Personnel:...
through Albania
Albania
Albania , officially known as the Republic of Albania , is a country in Southeastern Europe, in the Balkans region. It is bordered by Montenegro to the northwest, Kosovo to the northeast, the Republic of Macedonia to the east and Greece to the south and southeast. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea...
in face of the 1915 anti-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 offensive of the Central Powers
Central Powers
The Central Powers were one of the two warring factions in World War I , composed of the German Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Ottoman Empire, and the Kingdom of Bulgaria...
. Later he was at the Thessaloniki Front
Macedonian front (World War I)
The Macedonian Front resulted from an attempt by the Allied Powers to aid Serbia, in the autumn of 1915, against the combined attack of Germany, Austria-Hungary and Bulgaria. The expedition came too late and in insufficient force to prevent the fall of Serbia, and was complicated by the internal...
, where he described his activities in his Autobiography as "defending, together with other Balkan Christians, his country from foreign conquerors." Čajkanović was awarded the Order of the White Eagle with Swords and the Légion d'honneur
Légion d'honneur
The Legion of Honour, or in full the National Order of the Legion of Honour is a French order established by Napoleon Bonaparte, First Consul of the Consulat which succeeded to the First Republic, on 19 May 1802...
.
From 1921 on he taught the comparative history of religion
Comparative religion
Comparative religion is a field of religious studies that analyzes the similarities and differences of themes, myths, rituals and concepts among the world's religions...
at the Faculty of Theology 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...
.
Wrote Marko Zivkovic in the Anthropology of East Europe Review, "Cajkanovic was one who brought the latest philosophical, historical, ethnographic and comparative methodologies of inter war Europe to bear on his life project of reconstructing from the pre-Christian, pagan Serbian mythology and religions. Cajkanovic did most of his work between the wars in Belgrade where he was a professor at the University and a member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts
Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts
The Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts is the most prominent academic institution in Serbia today...
.
"He did not leave a line of successors, as he might have done, being in many respects a figure comparable to what Mircea Eliade
Mircea Eliade
Mircea Eliade was a Romanian historian of religion, fiction writer, philosopher, and professor at the University of Chicago. He was a leading interpreter of religious experience, who established paradigms in religious studies that persist to this day...
was in Romania." The communists who took over after the war did not approve of Cajkanovic's scholarship, and even to this day, most of his work is still in manuscript form.
Veselin Cajkanovic taught at the University of Belgrade throughout German occupation of Yugoslavia, teaching at the Faculty of Theology and, when the provisional government of the so-called Democratic Federal Yugoslavia put Tito in power, he was so engrossed with his work that he did not notice what went around him. Consequently, life during the anarchistic upheaval, which turned the existence of a non-proleterian into hell on earth, was comparatively easy for him. He sat at a writing table or in front of a class without troubling about the chaos outside.
He himself may not have troubled about gunfire in the streets, but he began to fear for the safety of his family in such uncertain conditions. Above all a professor who was relatively uninterested in politics and causes, Cajkanovic certainly realized, as did his compatriots and fellow-professors, Slobodan Jovanovic
Slobodan Jovanovic
Slobodan Jovanović was one of Serbia's most prolific jurists, historians, sociologists, journalists and literary critics. He distinguished himself with a characteristically clear and sharp writing style later called the "Belgrade style"...
, Dimitrije Najdanovic, Milos Mladenovic
Milos Mladenovic
Miloš Mladenović was professor emeritus of History at McGill University in Montreal, and an expert on Cold War politics of the day....
, Đoko Slijepčević and others, who left the country in time, that an environment of occupation, revolution and civil war
Civil war
A civil war is a war between organized groups within the same nation state or republic, or, less commonly, between two countries created from a formerly-united nation state....
was -- as Cajkanovic put it -- "hardly the time for teaching." Yet he taught privately just the same since the University of Belgrade was forced to close down in 1941. And so, it was not long before he was dismissed by the Communists as "an undesirable war criminal" for teaching while under Nazi occupation. It came as an unbearable shock to a sensitive scholar like himself. He fell ill never to recover his health again. He died a year later, in 1946.
He authored several books, while numerous studies and articles remained scattered in various publications. His texts were published mainly in Serbian
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....
, Latin, and 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....
and include:
- The folklore and religion studies (1924)
- VergilVirgilPublius Vergilius Maro, usually called Virgil or Vergil in English , was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He is known for three major works of Latin literature, the Eclogues , the Georgics, and the epic Aeneid...
and his contemporaries (1930) - A survey of Roman literature (1932)
- Florilegium latinum in usum schoiarfum (1940)
- On Serbian Highest Deity (1941)
Čajkanović's collected works, edited by Vojislav Đurić, were published in five volumes in 1994 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...
.
External links
- Magical Sitting by Veselin Cajkanovic (in English)
- Myth and Religion within Serbs by Veselin Čajkanović (in Serbian)