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https://doi.org/10.17234/RadoviZHP.56.1
Ante Starčević at the Competition for the Chair of Philosophy at the Zagreb Royal Academy of Sciences in 1849: Autograph of the Competition Essay (Summary)
Zvjezdana Sikirić Assouline
Sažetak
The paper analyses the course of the competition procedure for filling the Chair of Philosophy at the Royal Academy of Sciences in Zagreb opened in the spring of 1849 and the Latin manuscript written as a part of the procedure by Ante Starčević, who applied for the professorship as one of four candidates. The competition for the Philosophy Chair is mentioned by his biographers, who highlight, based also on Starčević’s own claims, that he did not get the position due to political interventions. The modern historiography puts this event in the broader context of modernization processes and the conflict between liberals and conservatives, as well as the question of the position of the Catholic Church in the post 1848 situation and the question of the impending broader education reform. In a very strict competition procedure the four young applicants, Ante Starčević, Ivan Franjo Šagovac, Konrad Šufflaj and Imbro Tkalac were subject to a twelve hour long written exam and an oral exam the following day. In the written exam, consisting of three philosophy questions (How are judgments divided? How is the principle of causality explained? What is the highest principle of ethics?), Ante Starčević wrote the longest and the most comprehensive essay, and in the oral exam, consisting of presenting a topic of one’s own choice, Starčević spoke about the purpose of human life. This paper is the first to analyse Starčević’s manuscript and present it to the scientific audience in its original form, along with Croatian translation, thus enabling further research of a valuable document which had not hitherto been used as a source, due to the language barrier, its length and hard to read handwriting. A smaller part of the manuscript (one and a half page out of eleven) is deliberately written in Croatian, to show the author’s ability to teach Philosophy in the vernacular language, which was to be fully implemented in the Royal Academy of Sciences the following academic year. Analysing that part of the manuscript, the paper highlights the significance of the pioneering effort to coin the necessary new vocabulary for scientific use in Croatian. The paper further discusses the opinions and final report of the members of the competition commit¬tee, which consisted of professors Romuald Kvaternik, Kajetan Petter, Ivan Ev. Kiseljak and Antun Molnar and points to the fact that, according to the competition procedure, their final choice of candidate Šagovac (two votes, Starčević and Šufflaj one vote each) was not binding, i. e. the Banal Council could potentially choose any of the three candidates named in that report as meeting the requirements, not just the recommended number one. This is exactly what happened, in Starčević’s favour, albeit short lived. The paper follows the final failure of appointing any of the candidates who applied for the position in 1849 and traces the final efforts of both Starčević and Šagovac to make a case for themselves in 1850 and 1851, with an unfavourable result issued by the highest authority, the Ministry of Education and Religion in Vienna.
Ključne riječi
Hrčak ID:
330234
URI
Datum izdavanja:
22.12.2024.
Posjeta: 630 *