GENEZA ISTORIOZOFSKIH POGLEDA STOJANA NOVAKOVIĆA NA RASKRŠĆU VEKOVA
THE GENESIS OF THE HISTORIOSOPHIC VIEWS OF STOJAN NOVAKOVIĆ AT THE TURN OF THE CENTURY

Summary/Abstract: The article »The Genesis of Stojan Novaković’s Historiosophic Views« is the author’s documented portrayal of the renown Serbian historian, Stojan Novaković (1842-1915). A description of his personality, his general ideology, his scientific and public work, his unsuccessful writing of poetry, prose and accounts of his travels of Novaković as a Slavist (philologist and linguist), a polyglot, a historian concerned with Serbian literature and the writer of the first systematic work on this subject (1867, 1871). In his study of the history of literature, Novaković gradually developed his theory and method based on empirical, inductive analysis and impartiality, and having as its starting point his conviction that literature is the »photographer and philosopher of its time« and the driving force of cultural life, particularly of smaller nations. As a politician, statesman and diplomat, Novaković thought that practice ought to be based on science, enriched by anti-Machiavellistic principles of morality, justice and law. In domestic politics, he believed in the ascendancy of common interests over partial ones and of the people’s sovereignty over force, in religious tolerance with separate church and state and in the need for progress in all aspects of education, culture and technology. He felt that international politics should be based on compromise and the balance of power and believed in the ideas of a united Yugoslavia, of Balkan federalism and of the supremacy of Europe as a cultural model.

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