The lifeblood of every society

"Without denying, it must be admitted that every youth movement, and especially one that had a specific direction, had a strong influence on the moral success of the people and its actions at almost every time and on every occasion. Youth is the necessary life juice; she brings freshness and enthusiasm to the society, the youth know how to give everything a more ideal color and to imbue the whole work with some romance of youth."

With these words begins Vladimir Ćorović's study of the Serbian academic society "Zora" from Vienna, for many years the most influential student group in Vienna. It is not too bad to mention that the author himself was twenty years old in 1905 and was a student in Vienna.

World student societies were formed in Great Britain at the very end of the 18th century as literary circles, and with the end of the French Revolution, the Napoleonic Wars and the national awakening, they began to be established throughout continental Europe. The most significant were the burshenshafts, which arose on the territory of the German Empire and aimed to fight for greater personal freedoms and the national unification of the then very heterogeneous Germany. They will be emulated by the majority of South Slavic students at universities throughout Central Europe.

DISPOSAL, MINISTERS AND PRACTITIONERS

Following similar societies, in 1818, Serbian and Croatian students gathered in Vienna with the idea of ​​publishing the newspaper "Oglasnik Ilirski", and they were led by Antun Mihanović, a law student, a famous Croatian poet who authored the hymn "Lijepa naša domovino", but also the Austrian consul in Belgrade in the period from 1836 to 1838. During his service in Belgrade, he became close to Anka, the third daughter of Lord Jevrem, brother of Prince Miloš Obrenović, whom he met at the capital's "posele", a kind of counterpart to the European gatherings of the high society of that time.

Besides Vienna, Graz represented another university center where young people from the Balkans were educated. At the end of the second decade of the 19th century, a society was founded which was initially called "Illyrian Club", and later changed its name to "Serbian Government".

Like any other government, this one had its own constitution, ministers and lower officials. At the head was a certain man from Vrs with the title "despot", who, according to Jovan Skerlić, died young as a clerk in Slavonski Brod. The Minister of Foreign Affairs was Jovan Šupljikac, the brother of Serbian Duke Stevan from the revolutionary year of 1848, and the Minister of Finance had the appropriate title of "Rothschild", which is proudly worn by Božidar Petranović, a Serbian lawyer and historian born in Dalmatia.

It is interesting, and at that time probably also practical, that only law students could be despots and ministers, while the positions of "practitioners" were reserved for philosophy students, such as Ljudevit Gai, Đorđe Mušicki and the future Slovak bishop Slomšek.

At the meetings of the society, there was singing and entertainment, Serbian folk songs from the collections of Vuk Karadžić were read, and sometimes literary attempts by the members themselves. It should be emphasized that throughout the 19th century, educated youth almost exclusively tried their hand at writing. Patriotic and love songs, as well as dramas on the theme of the glorious past, were especially popular.

PANSLAVIA IF DEMOCRACY RULES IN RUSSIA

Szeged students from Serbian regions in Vojvodina did not miss the association around literary and national ideas. In the period from 1835 to 1837, "Mlado Jedinenija" functioned, with the aim "to train the members in all kinds of beautiful style". Jovan Subotić, who was already sending his verses to "Serbski Letopis", stood out in particular. They were succeeded by the "Society for Learning Serbs", which operated intermittently from 1843 to 1848, when it was banned by the school authorities. They conceptualize their administration on the principle of dualism, headed by two captains, followed by a librarian, a protocolist and a sub-protocolist. One of the company's goals is to translate the works of Latin writers, and to write odes and praises.

In the years preceding the revolutionary 1848, a large number of Serbian students from Novi Sad and Karlovac high schools continued their education in Lutheran high schools in Pest and Požun, where education was better and the Orthodox faith was more tolerated. Požun, today's Bratislava, is particularly noteworthy, becoming the center of the new Slovak national movement, with an emphasis on literature that was independent from the Czech Republic.

Ljudevit Štur, a professor at the Lyceum, starts "Slovakke narodne novine" and gathers around him pupils enthusiastic about pan-Slavistic verses. The fact that Bishop Petar II Petrović Njegoš sang to him as early as 1947 shows how great his influence was on the Serbian school youth of those years. One of Štur's pan-Slavic inspired ideas was for all Slavs to unite with Russia and convert to Orthodoxy, on the condition that democracy prevails in Russia. Among the most agile students who gathered around Štur, we should mention Svetozar Miletić, who gathered like-minded people in his apartment who made a "covenant of eternal friendship" and vowed to live and die for "Slavism". The society was named "Sloboda", and published the handwritten paper "Soko".

Pupils from Pest were not left behind either, so they started the handwritten newspaper "Svetovid", and in 1847 they founded an association that organized a memorial service for the deceased poet Simi Milutinović Sarajlija the following year. Their present-day heirs are more than worthy of them. So the other day, during the blockade of RTS, which calls itself the "national service", they held a minute of silence and more than effectively recited the libertarian verses of the late Ljubomir Simović.

...

SOCIETY FOR STATESMEN

With the development of education in the Principality of Serbia, in 1845 several students of "poetry" in Belgrade (today's high school students) form the "Dušan Polk", which exercises "exercise" every Thursday on Tašmajdan, Laudan's trench and Vojno Senjak, in order to better prepare for, as they thought, the fateful war of liberation. Among them, we should highlight Jevrem Grujić (the most famous Darosavac), Petar Protić Sokoljanin (one of the most famous people from Azbukov) and Milovan Janković.

How did these "poets" become "sages and scholars", i.e. students of the Belgrade Lyceum, it was natural for their "Polk" to become a confirmed society, and on Vidovdan 1847, the "Serbian Youth Society" was established, which was soon approved by the rector of the Lyceum, Kosta Branković. Out of about fifty lyceum students, twenty of them become members of the group, but high school students are also allowed to become members. It should be emphasized that the archive of the "Society" was kept in the National Library of Serbia until April 6, 1941, when it burned with the rest of the written heritage of these areas.

With the beginning of the new school year in 1848, future statesmen Jovan Ristić, Radivoje Milojković and Tihomir Nikolić joined them. The popularity of the "Society" spread among the citizens so much that Metropolitan Petar was elected as an honorary member, and during the annual assembly in 1848, the chairman of the Soviet, Stojan Simić, donated 500 market groschi for the needs of the "Society". The literary work of the "Society" is mainly depicted in poetic creativity, which, according to Skerlić, is a strange mixture of pseudo-classical poetry with Serbian folk poetry: "... Kraljević Marko fraternizes with Orpheus, Saint Sava goes side by side with Astraea, fiddles maples with harp and lyre, September wine with Olympic nectar."

At the weekly meetings, discussions were held, among other things, about what the new national costume should look like. Some members did not like the fact that the European clothing fashion was coming among the inhabitants of the young principality, the Turkish fez was considered a relic of the past, so the choice was narrowed down to the modern kalpak or the way "as it is worn by Emperor Dušan".

They asked the Ministry of Education to establish more public schools, they also proposed a political-national program, and Jevrem Grujić published the article "Overview of the State" in the "Neven-Slog" edition of that company, which had to be printed in Zemun in 1849 because censorship banned it in Serbia. The words devoted to "inner liberation" are still very relevant today, and today's "mature" generations do not benefit at all that today's "youth" has to repeat them as if we are not 170 years away from the time of their origin. In short: "For internal liberation, it is necessary to present to our people: What is it as a nation, what rights should it have? - What is government, why and from whom, and what are its limits? Tell it precisely: What does it mean for a nation to live in a state and invite it to live like that too..."

MINISTER OF EDUCATION AGAINST STUDENTS

Based on the previous lines, it is clear that the society does not stand well with the conservative authorities. Toma Vučić Perišić, whose career was on the wane, tried in every way to thwart the normal work of the "Society". Namely, the first student riots broke out at the Lyceum in 1850, and the very next year, in 1851, the work of the "Society" was banned by a simple order from the Minister of Education due to a liberal speech. When the commission was formed in 1855, the "Society" was formally closed.

In brief, this is how the development of the first self-organized school and student groups looked, which, thanks to their youthful energy, but also learned from the experiences of the community where their members were born and grew up, paved the way for the liberalization and democratization of Serbia during the 19th century.

As for the seemingly untouchable Tome Vučić Perišić, the prince and the government systematically isolated him, Ilija Garašanin retired him immediately after becoming the prince's representative in 1852, and he met an inglorious end with the return of Prince Miloš to Serbia in 1859.