Đuro Daničić ( sr-Cyrl, Ђуро Даничић, ; 4 April 1825 – 17 November 1882), born Đorđe Popović ( sr-cyr, links=no, Ђорђе Поповић) and also known as Đura Daničić ( sr-Cyrl, links=no, Ђура Даничић), was a

Serbia , image_flag = Flag of Serbia.svg , national_motto = , image_coat = Coat of arms of Serbia.svg , national_anthem = () , image_map = , map_caption = Location of Serbia (gree ...

philologist Philology () is the study of language in oral and written historical sources. It is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics with strong ties to etymology. Philology is also defined as the study of ...

, translator, linguistic historian and lexicographer. He was a prolific scholar at the

Belgrade Lyceum The Lyceum of the Principality of Serbia was the first higher education school in Serbia in which education was taught in Serbian. History The Lyceum of the Principality of Serbia () was founded in 1838 on the initiative of Prince Miloš Obre ...

Biography

He was born in

Novi Sad Novi Sad ( sr-Cyrl, Нови Сад, ; #Name, see below for other names) is the List of cities in Serbia, second largest city in Serbia and the capital of the autonomous province of Vojvodina. It is located in the southern portion of the Pannoni ...

, in the family of Orthodox priest Jovan Popović. He attended schools in Novi Sad and

Bratislava Bratislava (German: ''Pressburg'', Hungarian: ''Pozsony'') is the Capital city, capital and largest city of the Slovakia, Slovak Republic and the fourth largest of all List of cities and towns on the river Danube, cities on the river Danube. ...

, and studied

law Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior, with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been variously described as a science and as the ar ...

at the

University of Vienna The University of Vienna (, ) is a public university, public research university in Vienna, Austria. Founded by Rudolf IV, Duke of Austria, Duke Rudolph IV in 1365, it is the oldest university in the German-speaking world and among the largest ...

. He published his first papers under the name Đuro Daničić in 1845, after the heroic

Senj Senj is a town on the upper Adriatic coast in Croatia, in the foothills of the Mala Kapela and Velebit mountains. The symbol of the town is the Nehaj Fortress () which was completed in 1558. For a time this was the seat of the Uskoks, who were ...

Uskok The Office for the Suppression of Corruption and Organised Crime (), better known as USKOK, is a body of the Croatian criminal justice system, attached to the State's Attorney Office and specializing in investigations related to corruption and ...

from a folk poem, and a name that he continued to use throughout the rest of his life. Under the influence of

Vuk Karadžić Vuk Stefanović Karadžić ( sr-Cyrl, Вук Стефановић Караџић, ; 6 November 1787 (26 October OS)7 February 1864) was a Serbian philologist, anthropologist and linguist. He was one of the most important reformers of the moder ...

and

Franz Miklosich Franz Miklosich (, also known in Slovene as ; 20 November 1813 – 7 March 1891) was a Slovenian philologist and rector of the University of Vienna. Early life Miklosich was born in the small village of Radomerščak near the Lower Styrian town ...

, he started studying Slavic philology, to which he subsequently devoted his entire career. In 1856, he became the librarian of the People's Library in Belgrade and secretary of the Society of Serbian Literacy, and, in 1859, professor of the

(''Velika škola''). In 1866 he was invited to

Zagreb Zagreb ( ) is the capital (political), capital and List of cities and towns in Croatia#List of cities and towns, largest city of Croatia. It is in the Northern Croatia, north of the country, along the Sava river, at the southern slopes of the ...

to serve as a secretary general of the Yugoslav Academy of Sciences and Arts (JAZU). He served as a secretary general on two occasions between 1866-1873 and 1877-1882. From 1873 he taught as a professor at Belgrade's

Grandes écoles Grandes may refer to: *Agustín Muñoz Grandes, Spanish general and politician * Banksia ser. Grandes, a series of plant species native to Australia * Grandes y San Martín, a municipality located in the province of Ávila, Castile and León, Spain ...

(former Belgrade Lyceum and future

University of Belgrade The University of Belgrade () is a public university, public research university in Belgrade, Serbia. It is the oldest and largest modern university in Serbia. Founded in 1808 as the Belgrade Higher School in revolutionary Serbia, by 1838 it me ...

), and in 1877 he returned to Zagreb where he played a key role in preparing the Academy's Dictionary, "Croatian or Serbian Dictionary of JAZU". He was the editor of the first volume (A–Češula) that was published from 1880 to 1882. His death in 1882, in Zagreb, interrupted that work and he was buried in Marko's cemetery in Belgrade.

Works

Daničić played a key role of laying the foundation of Serbian philology, grammar, historical dictionary and dialectology on the basis of principles set by

. His translation of the

Old Testament The Old Testament (OT) is the first division of the Christian biblical canon, which is based primarily upon the 24 books of the Hebrew Bible, or Tanakh, a collection of ancient religious Hebrew and occasionally Aramaic writings by the Isr ...

, mostly from German sources, also influenced Croatian translation literature. Daničić also assisted Karadžić in his translation of the

New Testament The New Testament (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus, as well as events relating to Christianity in the 1st century, first-century Christianit ...

into Serbian in 1847. After undergoing a revision, both translations were accepted and are still in use today by the

Serbian Orthodox Church The Serbian Orthodox Church ( sr-Cyrl-Latn, Српска православна црква, Srpska pravoslavna crkva) is one of the autocephalous (ecclesiastically independent) Eastern Orthodoxy, Eastern Orthodox Eastern Orthodox Church#Constit ...

and its members. In 1847, he published a well-known polemical essay "The War for Serbian Language and Orthography", where he opposed linguistic ideas of Miloš Svetić, the pseudonymous Jovan Hadžić, Karadžić's main opponent, and supported Karadžić's

phonemic orthography A phonemic orthography is an orthography (system for writing a language) in which the graphemes (written symbols) correspond consistently to the language's phonemes (the smallest units of speech that can differentiate words), or more generally ...

. He gave the theoretical background to Karadžić's concepts in his numerous linguistic works. Daničić also studied the older Serbian literature and his redactions of old manuscripts are still in use, like Theodossus' ''

Hagiography A hagiography (; ) is a biography of a saint or an ecclesiastical leader, as well as, by extension, an adulatory and idealized biography of a preacher, priest, founder, saint, monk, nun or icon in any of the world's religions. Early Christian ...

Saint Sava Saint Sava (, ; Old Church Slavonic: ; Glagolitic: ; ; 1169 or 1174 – 14 January 1235/6), known as the Enlightener or the Illuminator, was a Serbs, Serbian prince and Eastern Orthodox Church, Orthodox monk, abbot of Studenica Monastery, Studeni ...

'' (1860),

Domentian Domentijan ( sr-Cyrl, Доментијан; c. 1210 - after 1264), also known as Domentijan the Hilandarian (Доментијан Хиландарац), was a major figure in medieval Serbian literature and philosophy.Mateja Matejić and Dragan M ...

's ''Hagiographies of Saint Simeon and Saint Sava'' (1865), Gospel of St. Nicholas () (1864), ''Lives of Kings and Archbishops Serbian'' (1866) and numerous others. Daničić started scientific work as supporter of Karadžić's ideas of linguistic pan-Serbism (attribution of Shtokavian dialect and written heritage to Serbian ethnos). His early works were ostensibly devoted to "Serbs of Catholic faith", for which he was criticized by young Vatroslav Jagić. In 1857, he published "Differences between Languages Serbian and Croatian" (written using the old orthography) where he identified Croatian with the

Chakavian dialect Chakavian or Čakavian (, , , proper name: or own name: ''čokovski, čakavski, čekavski'') is a South Slavic supradialect or language spoken by Croats along the Adriatic coast, in the historical regions of Dalmatia, Istria, Croatian L ...

. However, his attitudes evaluated towards promotion of pan-Yugoslavian ideology, much closer to the viewpoints of

Illyrian movement The Illyrian movement (; ) was a pan-South-Slavic cultural and political campaign with roots in the early modern period, and revived by a group of young Croatian intellectuals during the first half of the 19th century, around the years of 1835 t ...

, with which he was closely cooperating. That included linguistic unity of Croats and Serbs and the opinion that the Croatian literature is at the same time Serbian and vice versa. His linguistic papers were titled using "Croatian or Serbian" qualifier when he published in Zagreb, and "Serbian or Croatian" when published in

Belgrade Belgrade is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Serbia, largest city of Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers and at the crossroads of the Pannonian Basin, Pannonian Plain and the Balkan Peninsula. T ...

Legacy

He is included in The 100 most prominent Serbs.

Selected works

* ''The War for Serbian Language and Orthography'' (1847) * ''Little Serbian Grammar'' (1850) * ''Serbian Syntax'' (1858) * ''Morphemes in Serbian or Croatian Language'' (1872) *'' History of Morphemes in Serbian or Croatian Language'' (1874) * ''Basics of Serbian or Croatian Language'' (1876) * ''Roots in Croatian or Serbian Language'' (1877) * ''Croatian or Serbian Dictionary, Volume 1 (A-češula)'' (1880–1882) * ''Serbian accents ''(1925)

References

Sources

* Jovan Skerlić ''Istorija nove srpske književnosti'' (Belgrade, 1921) pages 255-271 *

Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts The Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts (; , SANU) is a national academy and the most prominent academic institution in Serbia, founded in 1841 as Society of Serbian Letters (, DSS). The Academy's membership has included Nobel Prize, Nobel la ...

: http://www.sanu.ac.rs/English/Clanstvo/IstClan.aspx?arg=130 * (old Serbian) * (old Serbian)

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Danicic, Duro Linguists from Serbia Linguists from Croatia Translators of the Bible into Serbian Eastern Orthodox Christians from Serbia Members of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts Writers from Novi Sad 1825 births 1882 deaths University of Vienna alumni Academic staff of Belgrade Higher School 19th-century translators Academic staff of the Lyceum of the Principality of Serbia