Original scientific paper
The Student Strike of 1908 at the University of Zagreb
Tihana Luetić
orcid.org/0000-0002-1590-8420
; Department of Historical Research of the Institute of Historical & Social Sciences, Croatian Academy of Sciences & Arts, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
The article deals with the student strike at the University of Zagreb, which occurred in the summer term of the academic year 1907/1908 and was motivated by the politically influenced forceful retirement and suspension of the university professors Đuro Šurmin and Gavro Manojlović, imposed by the regime of Ban Pavao Rauch, which violated the honour and the autonomy of the university. On the basis of relevant scholarship and sources, in the first place materials from the Archive of the Rector’s office of the University of Zagreb, the Archive of the Faculty of Philosophy, the daily newspaper Obzor [The Horizon], student periodicals and memoirs, the author has tried, besides reconstructing all events connected with this student action, to depict the atmosphere existing among various political student organisations that operated within the university, as well as the reaction of university professors and the domestic and foreign public to the retirement of the professors and the student strike. For the first time in the history of the University of Zagreb, the students, with a fairly small number of exceptions, boycotted the classes and did not enrol in the summer term of 1907/1908. They left Zagreb and continued their studies in foreign university centres, mostly in Prague. From the extant sources one can get an impression of student unity regardless of the political factions to which they belonged, although it is clearly visible that the group of the so-called Naprednjaci [the Progressives] led the action. Their mutual motive was to raise their voice against the attack on academic liberty, and the whole action had a substantial echo within the country and abroad. Although the strike was formally unsuccessful, it still registered as an exceptional joint action of all the students of the university, whose primary goal was the defence of its autonomy, and in the wider sense, it also represented a strong demonstration against the current government of the country.
Keywords
the University of Zagreb; students; social history; Đuro Šurmin; Gavro Manojlović
Hrčak ID:
95094
URI
Publication date:
28.12.2012.
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