Римско право у српској штампи пре објављивања Инштитуција Јустинијановиг римског права Рајка Лешјанина
Roman Law in Serbian Press Before Institutions of Justinian's Roman Law by Rajko Lešjanin

Author(s): Uroš Stanković
Subject(s): Law, Constitution, Jurisprudence, Roman law
Published by: Правни факултет Универзитета у Источном Сарајеву
Keywords: Roman law; Serbian press; Romanistics;
Summary/Abstract: The article shows data on Roman Law published in Serbian periodicals prior to 1857, when the first textbook on this subject, authored by Belgrade Lyceum professor Rajko Lešjanin, came to light. All articles revealing any information on the ancient Roman's legal system were considered, regardless of their content. The collected data were sorted by subject and presented to the reading public with necessary explanations. None of the articles can be described as purely romanistic. The only two texts belonging to the category of law either relate predominately to the law in force or broader topics of ancient legal history, with the Roman legal system being not more than one of the themes. The organization of powers in ancient Rome and the history of Roman Law prevailed over Roman Law in a narrower sense in the Serbian press. Roman private law is generally considered to be of higher importance than Roman public law, but the Serbian press can not serve as a proof of that position. Private and public law of ancient Rome occupy nearly equal space in the texts. However, the data on the first are more useful for the readership since they tend to be more consistent with the truth, even if published in literary articles. From the point of view of the present day, the articles contain notorious information that could only be obtained by reading a Roman Law coursebook. Nevertheless, judging their significance from that standpoint is unacceptable. They can only be valued if the moment of their publishing is taken into account-the time when only a narrow circle of Serbs were educated lawyers who had some knowledge of Roman law. Owing to the analyzed articles, a broader reading public had the opportunity to get acquainted with the Romans' achievements in law. If all the scattered snippets about the Roman legal system in Serbian periodicals had been collected, they would have produced a short manual of Roman law, to which Lešjanin's coursebook could serve only as an upgrade and by no means a work previous to which nothing had existed.

• Details
• Contents