Die Anfange des Rechtsstudiums im Serbien der neuzeit und die Juristenausbildung in der Habsburgermonarchie (ein Beispiel des rechtstransfers)

Abstract

The Higher School (La Haute Ecole) was founded in Belgrade on 1st (old calendar), i.e. 12th of September 1808 (actual calendar). Despite the fact that the School has already been a subject of research, some of the questions remained disputable. One of them relates to its character, that is to the issue of whether it is acceptable to consider the School to be a predecessor of the University of Belgrade, and especially of its Faculty of Law, or not. In order to review that controversy, the author compares the system of higher education and the legal studies in the region of that time. The founding fathers of the Higher School and its first professors completed their legal studies in the Hapsburg Monarchy, so the author pays special attention primarily to the Austrian system of legal education after the educational and university reforms performed by Maria Theresia, expecting that it may explain the chief influences upon the Belgrade Higher School profile. He also points to social circumstances and needs of the rising Serbian state to obtain educated officials and pubic servants, as it barely missed them after the long lasting Turkish occupation. The author determines the comparison criteria: curricula, length of schooling, number of teachers, academic titles and methods of lecturing, and finds many elements in common with the legal educational model at Austrian Royal Academies. He comes to conclusion that the Belgrade Higher School was shaped according to the modified system of Hungarian legal academies, regulated by the Ratio educationis totiusque rei litterariae per regnum Hungariae et provincias eidem ad nexas of 1777 and Ratio educationis of 1806. In addition, the author uses these criteria to compare the Belgrade High School (1808-1813) with the Lyceum in which it was transformed in 1838, showing that the curricula of the later legal studies were not essentialy different nor more developed than in 1808. .