Jovan Cvijić | |
|---|---|
Јован Цвијић | |
.jpg) Photograph byMilan Jovanović (1911) | |
| Born | (1865-10-11)11 October 1865 |
| Died | 16 January 1927(1927-01-16) (aged 61) |
| Resting place | New Cemetery, Belgrade, Serbia |
| Alma mater | Belgrade Higher School University of Vienna |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Geography,geology,folklore |
| Doctoral advisor | Albrecht Penck[1] |
| Notable students | Pavle Vujević |
| Signature | |
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Jovan Cvijić (Serbian Cyrillic:Јован Цвијић,pronounced[jǒʋantsʋǐːjitɕ]; 11 October [O.S. 29 September] 1865 – 16 January 1927) was aSerbiangeographer,[2]ethnologist, university professor and academic.
He was the president of theSerbian Royal Academy of Sciences andrector of theUniversity of Belgrade. Cvijić is considered the founder of geography in Serbia. He began his scientific career as a geographer andgeologist, and continued his activity as ahuman geographer andsociologist. He initiated theSerbian Ethnographic Collection (Srpski etnološki zbornik), within which 102 books were published, representing a unique scientific and interdisciplinary project on a global scale.[3] Jovan Cvijić received numerous awards and medals, both domestically and internationally, for his work.
Cvijić was born inLoznica, in the westernmost part of thePrincipality of Serbia.[4] His family was part of the Spasojević branch of thePiva tribe (Pivljani) inOld Herzegovina (currentlyMontenegro). Cvijić's father, Todor, was a merchant; his grandfather, Živko, was head of Loznica and a supporter of theHouse of Obrenović inMačva. Živko fought in the 1844Katana Uprising against theDefenders of the Constitution, and died after torture.[5]
Cvijić's great-grandfather, Cvijo Spasojević,patriarch of the Cvijić family, was ahajduk leader in Old Herzegovina who fought in theFirst Serbian Uprising against theOttoman Empire.[6] After its failure in 1813, he moved to Loznica, built a house and opened a store.[5]
His father, Todor (d. 1900), was a trader before accepting a clerkship in the municipality. Cvijić's mother, Marija (née Avramović), was from a family in the village ofKorenita in theJadar region (near Tronoša andTršić, the birthplace ofVuk Stefanović Karadžić). Todor and Marija had two sons, Živko and Jovan, and three daughters. Cvijić often said that in his childhood his spiritual education was primarily influenced by his mother and her family; he said less about his father and his father's family. However, in his works on ethnic psychology, Cvijić praised theDinaric race of his father.[5]
After completing elementary school, Cvijić attendedgrammar school in Loznica where he took an interest in literature and learnedFrench andGerman.[4]
He continued his education inŠabac before embarking to theFirst Belgrade Gymnasium to study medicine, graduating in 1884.[4][5]
After graduation, he wanted to study medicine, but Loznica could not provide him a scholarship to study abroad. A grammar-school teacher suggested that he attend geography classes at theVelika skola in Belgrade (now theUniversity of Belgrade). Cvijić took his advice, enrolling in the natural sciences department and graduating in 1889.[4][5]
Cvijić taught at the Second Male Grammar School in Belgrade and in the meantime published his first geographical work on thekarst landscape in 1889 after a trip to the eastern countryside of Serbia piqued his interest.[4]
He enrolled atVienna University where he studied physical geography and geology under the tutelages of scholars likeAlbrecht Penck, Professor Suess (president of theAustrian Academy) andJulius von Hann.[4] He received his PhD from Vienna University in 1893.[7] His thesisDas Karstphänomen, introduced the sub-discipline study of karst geomorphology.[8]
Soon afterwards, Cvijić toured the Balkans to conduct fieldwork and research.[4]
In 1911, Cvijić married Ljubica Nikolić, a widow from Belgrade, née Krstić (1879–1941).[9]
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Cvijić's work can be compartmentalized into five sections: thekarst,glaciations in the Balkan mountains,tectonic elements in the peninsula,lakes andhuman geography.[4] Much of his research was complicated by the tense political situations with the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman authorities, dangerous and remote areas and lack of suitable roads and maps.[4]
In the mid 1890s, Cvijić's excursions took him first to eastern Serbia and then to Bulgaria, where he visited the area around theRila mountain range. Later, he focused on the mountains of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro, studying the karst and tectonic structure, looking for evidence of glaciations, leading him to publishPapers on the glacial epoch in the Balkan peninsula.[4]
He was interested ingeology andgeomorphology. Cvijić'smonograph on lime karst was well received in European scientific circles, and an introductory academic lecture established him as the firstSouth Slavictectonicist. TheSerbian lime fields had been studied only peripherally by Otto von Pirch (1830),Ami Boué (1840),Felix Philipp Kanitz,Milan Milićević,Jovan Žujović and Vladimir Karić before him.[citation needed]
Cvijić conducted a pioneering human-geographical survey in "Balkan Peninsula 1918", 1922–I, 1931–II, based on his research of Balkanpersonality types.[citation needed] He researched for 38 years, leading expeditions in the Balkans, the southernCarpathian Mountains andAnatolia which produced a number of research papers. Cvijić's two-volumeGeomorphology is an important starting point for research into the Balkan peninsula.[10]
When studying underAlbrecht Penck's tutelage he was encouraged to focus on the study ofkarst phenomena in the northernDinaric Alps which was a region Penck was already acknowledged with. His first major work wasDas Karstphänomen published in 1893. This work was a publication of the key points of hisdoctoral thesis.Das Karstphänomen was published as a slightly modified translation inSerbo-Croat in 1895. This work describes landforms such askarren,dolines andpoljes. In a 1918 publication, Cvijić proposed acyclical model for karstic landscape development.[1][11] The results of this work written in French were made accessible to English-language scientists in 1921 when it was commented by E.M. Sanders. Differences in climate and geology were used by Cvijić to explain various shapes and types of karst landforms, sometimes incorrectly. Nevertheless, his views on the role of climate on the development of karst were more accurate than those of variousclimatic geomorphologists that succeeded him and who greatly exaggerated the role of climate.[1]
It has been attributed to Cvijić that the term karst prevailed overEdouard Martel's proposed term "Le Causse". Another terminology usage indebted to Cvijić is that ofdoline, a term he introduced, and that overlaps with that ofsinkhole. Eventually, Cvijić emerged as the "father of karst geomorphology".[1]
In 1896 Cvijić published "Instructions for studying villages in Serbia and other Serbian lands", which was later revised to apply to other Balkan regions.[12]
Concurrently, he developed an interest in the life of people living in the Balkans. His travels took him to Macedonia and its lakes, the coastlines of Albania and Greece, toLake Skadar andLake Pamvotida. In 1902 he published his first work on human geography.[4] In 1906 he published his signature monographBasics of Geography and Geology of Macedonia and Old Serbia, which became a staple reference for future researchers.[13]
He published detailed instructions for conducting field research into populations and habitats to help his colleagues, including the 1907 article "On scientific research and our University".
Cvijić's thesis on the effects of climate and geography on human life is the basis of his approach to human geography, where he emphasizes that humankind is ecologically sensitive. When classifying anthropological types Cvijić considered social structure (work, endogamy, exogamy and migration) the primary factor, stressing the effects of the physical environment on a population's psyche.[citation needed] His basic concepts are presented in the 1902 Balkan-peninsula paper, "Human-geography problems". Influenced by Cvijić's paper, Milorad Dragić (a former student) elaborated on psychological anthropological research in his 1911 paper "Instructions for studying settlements and psychological characteristics" (after which Cvijić expanded his thesis on "The Balkan peninsula and South Slavic lands" in Serbian).[citation needed]
Cvijić introduced the term 'metanastasic movements', which referred to slow, gradual, a place-to-place human movement. He and his students took wide exploration of this phenomenon, eventually establishing the Serbian ethnological-historic school which gathered ethnological material from all around theBalkan peninsula and encompassed exploration of written sources.[14]
The sparking of interest in human-geographical and ethnographical research was one of the greatest achievements of Cvijić's scientific career. His efforts and research helped him gather crucial data, which he used during negotiations on the state borders of theKingdom of Yugoslavia after World War I.
After the conclusion of World War I, Cvijić was invited to theParis Peace Conference as an expert on border delineation.[15] Using ethnographic charts, Cvijić demonstrated the geographical distribution of the various Balkan peoples which helped determine the borders of a new country: theKingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes.[16] It was agreed that the new country should incorporateBanat,Bačka,Baranya andCarniola as well as the Bled triangle (Bled,Bohinj andTriglav).[citation needed]
After Cvijić's return fromVienna in March 1893 he became a professor in the Faculty of Philosophy of theVelika Skola in Belgrade where he taught geography. He was tenured and taught there until 1927.[4]
Cvijić played an active role in reforming the school, helping found an ethnography department whose first professor was his oldest student and assistant,Jovan Erdeljanović (followed byTihomir Đorđević); Cvijić remained in the geography department. He was influential in establishing five new faculties: medicine, agriculture and theology in Belgrade, philosophy in Skopje and theSubotica Law School.[citation needed] From 1906 to 1907 he was rector ofBelgrade University and again from 1919.[4]
In 1915 he lectured about the Balkans atSorbonne University in Paris.[4]
Cvijić thought that the grammar-school education of that era should last seven years, instead of eight, and felt that young men should be included early in adult life and independent work.
Grammar school forms the intelligence and character perhaps even deeper and stronger than university; it influences the spirit and moral value of future intellectuals. Besides university, the moral and spiritual situation and its development depend on the type of grammar school, what will its civilization get, and in the end, will it slow or interfere with the development of great personalities, which show the properties of one nation.[citation needed]
Cvijić' s scientific impartiality has been criticized for his support of Serbia's political advancement;[17] his geographic work was used to scientifically justify politics ofterritorial expansion and further territorial claims.[17]
... For economic independence, Serbia must acquire access to theAdriatic Sea and one part of theAlbanian coastline: byoccupation of the territory or by acquiring economic and transportation rights to this region. This, therefore, implies occupying an ethnographically foreign territory, but one that must be occupied due to particularly important economic interests and vital needs.[17]
According to Cvijić,Bulgarians were "different from the other South Slavs in their ethnic composition". He described as Slav three ethnographic groups previously considered Bulgarians: theMacedonian Slavs, theShopi and theTorlaks. Cvijić excluded the region aroundSofia (Bulgaria's capital) from the Bulgarian group, maintaining that the aforementioned groups were Slavic (and therefore Serbian).[18] He believed that Serbia could govern a much larger area than the territory it held.[19]
You should get used to constant thinking about a problem, work, profession until you find a solution. There are bright moments, especially bright nights, which are rare; where you can find an answer to a question or come up with a research plan. That time of spiritual lucidity and creativity should be put to use, and not thinking about rest according to that ordinary human, oriental laziness. That does not hurt the body, and if it does hurt, the body exists in order to be spent properly.[20]
With a group of geographers and biologists, Cvijić founded the Serbian Geographic Society in Belgrade in 1910 and was its president until his death.[4] In 1912 he began a magazine, theSerbian Geographic Society Herald, which is still published. Cvijić conducted weekly seminars for science students, which were also attended by teachers from Belgrade grammar schools. He founded the Faculty of Philosophy's Geographical Institute in 1923 (the first such organization in the Balkans), managing it until his death.
On May 31, 1947, theSerbian Academy of Sciences and Arts founded the Jovan Cvijić Geographical Institute in Belgrade.[21][22] On 21–22 November 2002, the Academy hosted a meeting on "the socio-political work of Jovan Cvijić".[23]
TheJovan Cvijić's house is housed in his family's house in Belgrade at 5 Jelena Ćetković Street. Since 1996, the house (built in 1905) has been declared a cultural monument by the state and was decorated byDragutin Inkiostri Medenjak; Cvijić favored a decorative style based on Balkan folklore. The museum features manuscripts, letters, notes, books, paintings, geographical charts, atlases and personal items, and occasional lectures are presented.
In Serbia, a number of schools and streets are named after Cvijić and he is still considered the most important Serbian geographer.
His work has been continued by his students, six of whom later became members of the Serbian Academy (includingPavle Vujević,Borivoje Z. Milojević andMilisav Lutovac). The scientist's life and work were researched by geographer Milorad Vasović for his 454-page book,Jovan Cvijić: Scientist, Public Worker, Statesman (1994).
Cvijić received a number of awards. He belonged to 30 scientific societies (academies, geographical and natural societies), receiving ten decorations. Cvijić received a gold medal for his work in 1924 from theNew York Geographical Society and medals from England and France. Two varieties ofsaffron were named after him.[citation needed]
In more than 30 years of scientific study, Cvijić published many works. One of the best-known isThe Balkan Peninsula. Other publications include:[28]
{{citation}}: CS1 maint: work parameter with ISBN (link)Cvijićev pradeda Cvijo Spasojević, hajduk iz Prvog ustanka i harambaša, koji je ipak sina Živka školovao u Temišvaru.
| Academic offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Rector ofUniversity of Belgrade 1906–1907 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Rector of University of Belgrade 1919–1920 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | President of Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts 1921–1927 | Succeeded by Slobodan Jovanović |
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