Božidar Petranović

Božidar Petranović (18 February 1809 – 12 September 1874) was a Serbian author, scholar, journalist, and one of the leading historians of Serbian literature and a distinctive proponent of world literature. He is also mentioned as Teodor (Greek version of Serbian Božidar) Petranović in some publications.

Born in Šibenik, Dalmatia, Božidar Petranović was one of the first Dalmatian Serbs to be educated in the newly constructed Metropolitanate of Karlovci's Gymnasium of Karlovci. He was also educated in Graz together with Ljudevit Gaj.

Božidar Petranović was the founder and publisher of the first Serb academic and scientific paper in Zadar, entitled the "Serbian-Dalmatian Magazine" (Srbsko-dalmatinski magazin). In 1838, Petranović claimed that the greater part of the population of the Kingdom of Dalmatia was "of Serb name" and spoke "true Serbian dialect". He later hired the Dubrovnik Orthodox priest Djordje Nikolajević as an editor of Magazin, and the two promulgated Ljudevit Gaj-Vuk Karadžić's language reforms. He also corresponded with author Niccolo Tommaseo and journalist Pacifico Valussi (1813-1893).

Throughout 1848-1849, Petranović argued that to secure a better economic future it was necessary to transfer Dalmatia into a commercial haven between sea and hinderland, between Mediterranean and Balkan trade by lifting maritime custom taxes. In this pursuit, Petranović, along with Stipan Ivičević and Zora dalmatinska editor Ante Kuzmanić, tried to found a Dalmatian-Bosnian newspaper. Ivičević also sought toconvince Habsburg authorities to set up a railroad line that connected Dalmatia directly to Mostar, Sarajevo, and Belgrade.

Petranović also wrote very interesting studies on Rousseau, Voltaire and Matthias Bel in the Serbian Journal (Srpske novine) in 1838. Also, in 1838, he claimed Dubrovnik's literary tradition for Serbia since Dubrovnik's (also known as Ragusa of old) authors "wrote in Serbian, but with Latin letters." (Croats particularly members of the Catholic clergy were of the opposite opinion and so the dispute continues to this day).

Petranović is the author of Bogomili: Crkva Bosanska ("Bogomils: The Bosnian Church", published by Demarki-Ruzier, Zadar), a book that received considerable attention from European and Russian scholars when it was first published in 1867. In it he claimed that the Bosnian Church was part of the Eastern Orthodox Church, but with the advent, spread and influence of Bogomilism, some members of the Serbian Orthodox Church broke away and acquired heretical beliefs. With the ensuing Turkish invasions of the 15th Century, persecuted Bogomils were more apt to espouse Islam than the rest of the Christian population, than to fight for their survival against the invading Islamic, Asiatic hordes. Similar theories were proposed by Vaso Glušac (1879-1955) at the beginning of the 20th century, and contemporary historian Dragoljub Dragojlović in his 1987 book.

His ambitious history of world literature, Istorija književnosti (published by Danilo Medaković in Novi Sad, 1858), conceived at least fifteen years before its publication, proposed a radically different and more elaborate historical concept of literature—a work on the influence of foreign literatures on the development of Serbian literature. Petranović published Part I as a book, and fragments of Part II in literary periodicals; in an announcement of his book he stated that the national culture had neglected literary history (Petranović: Rukovodstvo). His overview included ancient Jewish, Chinese, Indian, Chaldean, Egyptian, Greek, Roman and Paleo-Christian literature. He was a lonely figure, but by the end of the 19th century several historians of literature defended his universal approach, arguing that his approach to literature was necessary for a better understanding of the national literature. Ljubomir Nedić, Svetozar Marković, Bogdan Popović, Pavle Popović, Jovan Skerlić, Slobodan Jovanović and Branko Lazarević all took a particular liking to him.

By the early twentieth century, this led to the founding of a Department of World Literature in the School of Philosophy at the University of Belgrade; its first professor was Svetomir Nikolajević, later Professor in the School of Philology at the University of Belgrade.

Petranović died in Venice on 12 September 1874.