Serbian Revolution (1804-1813) and the Legal and Political Ideas of Antiquity Cover Image

Српска револуција (1804-1813) и античке правне и политичке идеје
Serbian Revolution (1804-1813) and the Legal and Political Ideas of Antiquity

Author(s): Samir Aličić
Subject(s): Law, Constitution, Jurisprudence, History of Law, Political history, 19th Century
Published by: Правни факултет Универзитета у Источном Сарајеву
Keywords: Revolution;Serbia;Democracy;Statutory law;People;Forms of government;
Summary/Abstract: The subject of the research is the reception of ancient legal and political ideas by Serbian intellectuals who actively participated in the First Serbian Up- rising (1804-1813) and in the creation of the ideology of the Serbian Revolution. They generally accepted the theory of social contract according to which the state is not an abstract term separate from the people who make it, that is, it is equated with the community of citizens. Serbian scholars knew about the forms of government that existed in classical antiquity, and they accepted the division of forms of government into monarchical, aristocratic and democratic, just like some fundamental legal principles of Roman law, such as equality of citizens before the law and the rational and ethical character of law. Also, defining the concept of law as an expression of the people's will expresses the influence of the analogous concept of Roman law.