Stjepan Damjanović (born 2 November 1946) is a

Croatia Croatia, officially the Republic of Croatia, is a country in Central Europe, Central and Southeast Europe, on the coast of the Adriatic Sea. It borders Slovenia to the northwest, Hungary to the northeast, Serbia to the east, Bosnia and Herze ...

linguist Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ...

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 ...

and paleoslavist. He worked as a regular professor at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at the

University of Zagreb The University of Zagreb (, ) is a public university, public research university in Zagreb, Croatia. It is the largest Croatian university and one of the oldest continuously operating universities in Europe. The University of Zagreb and the Unive ...

. He is a former President of

Matica hrvatska Matica hrvatska () is the oldest independent, non-profit and non-governmental Croatian national institution. It was founded on February 2, 1842 by the Croatian Count Janko Drašković and other prominent members of the Illyrian movement during ...

Biography

He was born on 2 November 1946 in

Strizivojna Strizivojna is a village and a municipality in Osijek-Baranja County, in eastern Croatia, located between Vrpolje and Stari Mikanovci. In the 2011 census, there were 2,525 inhabitants, absolute majority of whom are Croats The Croats (; ...

near

Đakovo Đakovo (; , , sr-Cyrl, Ђаково) is a town in the region of Slavonia, Croatia. Đakovo is the centre of the fertile and rich Đakovo region ( ). Etymology The etymology of the name is the (diákos) in Slavic form đak (pupil). The Hungar ...

. He graduated Yugoslav languages and literatures and

Russian Russian(s) may refer to: *Russians (), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *A citizen of Russia *Russian language, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages *''The Russians'', a b ...

at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in

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 ...

, where he has been working ever since. In 1971 he served as an assistant to the professor Eduard Hercigonja at the Department for

Old Church Slavonic Old Church Slavonic or Old Slavonic ( ) is the first Slavic languages, Slavic literary language and the oldest extant written Slavonic language attested in literary sources. It belongs to the South Slavic languages, South Slavic subgroup of the ...

(today called ''Department for Old Church Slavonic language and Croatian

Glagolitic The Glagolitic script ( , , ''glagolitsa'') is the oldest known Slavic alphabet. It is generally agreed that it was created in the 9th century for the purpose of translating liturgical texts into Old Church Slavonic by Saints Cyril and Methodi ...

''), since 1982 serving as a

docent The term "docent" is derived from the Latin word , which is the third-person plural present active indicative of ('to teach, to lecture'). Becoming a docent is often referred to as habilitation or doctor of science and is an academic qualifi ...

and since 1986 as a regular professor. In the period 1992–2008 he served as a head of the department. At the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences he received his M.A. (1977) and Ph.D. (1982) in theses on languages of medieval Croatian texts. Damjanović retired from teaching at the Faculty in 2017. In 1998 he became an associate member, and in 2004 a regular member of

Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts The Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts (; , HAZU) is the national academy of Croatia. HAZU was founded under the patronage of the Croatian bishop Josip Juraj Strossmayer under the name Yugoslav Academy of Sciences and Arts (, JAZU) since its ...

. He also taught courses at the universities of

Osijek Osijek () is the fourth-largest city in Croatia, with a population of 96,848 in 2021. It is the largest city and the economic and cultural centre of the eastern Croatian region of Slavonia, as well as the administrative centre of Osijek-Baranja ...

Rijeka Rijeka (; Fiume ( �fjuːme in Italian and in Fiuman dialect, Fiuman Venetian) is the principal seaport and the List of cities and towns in Croatia, third-largest city in Croatia. It is located in Primorje-Gorski Kotar County on Kvarner Ba ...

Mostar Mostar () is a city and the administrative centre of Herzegovina-Neretva Canton of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, an entity of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the historical capital of Herzegovina. Mostar is situated on the Neretva Riv ...

Bochum Bochum (, ; ; ; ) is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia. With a population of 372,348 (April 2023), it is the sixth-largest city (after Cologne, Düsseldorf, Dortmund, Essen and Duisburg) in North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous German federa ...

Graz Graz () is the capital of the Austrian Federal states of Austria, federal state of Styria and the List of cities and towns in Austria, second-largest city in Austria, after Vienna. On 1 January 2025, Graz had a population of 306,068 (343,461 inc ...

and

Prague Prague ( ; ) is the capital and List of cities and towns in the Czech Republic, largest city of the Czech Republic and the historical capital of Bohemia. Prague, located on the Vltava River, has a population of about 1.4 million, while its P ...

. He served as a president of the Committee of Croatian Slavists and organized the First Croatian Congress of Slavists in

Pula Pula, also known as Pola, is the largest city in Istria County, west Croatia, and the List of cities and towns in Croatia, seventh-largest city in the country, situated at the southern tip of the Istria, Istrian peninsula in western Croatia, wi ...

. In 1996–2000 he was a member of the Administrative Council of the University of Zagreb, and in the period 1999-2002 he was the Secretary-General of

. He founded and edited Matica's publishing series ''Inozemni kroatisti'' ("Foreign Croatists").

Work

Damjanović published about 60 scientific papers, 80 recensions and about a dozen books. Some of his notable books are: * ''Tragom jezika hrvatskih glagoljaša'' (1984) * ''Opširnost bez površnosti'' (1988) * ''Jedanaest stoljeća nezaborava'' (1991) * ''Jazik otačaski'' (1995) * ''Glasovi i oblici općeslavenskoga književnoga jezika'' (1993, reprinted under the titles ''Staroslavenski glasovi i oblici'' and ''Staroslavenski jezik'') * ''Filološki razgovori'' (2000) * ''Slovo iskona. Staroslavenska/starohrvatska čitanka'' (1st ed. 2002, 2nd ed. 2004) * ''Mali staroslavensko-hrvatski rječnik'' (2004, co-authored with I. Jurčeviće, T. Kuštović, B. Kuzmić, M. Lukić, M. Žagar) * ''Slavonske teme'' (2006) * ''Hrvatska pisana kultura'' (co-authored with Josip Bratulić, 1st volume in 2005, 2nd in 2006, 3rd in 2008) * ''Jezik hrvatskih glagoljaša'' (2008)

References

Damjanović's biography
at the

's website * http://info.hazu.hr/stjepan_damjanovic_biography_en {{DEFAULTSORT:Damjanovic, Stjepan 1946 births Linguists from Croatia Linguists of Slavic languages Members of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts Living people Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb alumni Academic staff of the University of Zagreb Presidents of the Matica hrvatska