CEREMONY CELEBRATION OF THE FIRST DECADE OF WORK OF THE FACULTY OF PHILOSOPHY IN SKOPJE

Abstract

Not long after the end of the First World War and the formation of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, the Minister of Education Pavle Marinković started an initiative to establish a Faculty of Philosophy in Skopje. In December 1919. he sent a letter to the, then rector of Belgrade University, Jovan Cvijić, in which he requested that the institution headed by Jovan express its opinion on the mentioned initiative. The very next day, the Council of the University of Belgrade met and supported the proposal of minister Marinković, pointing out that the establishment of the Faculty of Philosophy in Skopje will be of great national and cultural importance. On February 2, 1920, the Decree was passed on the establishment of the Faculty of Philosophy in Skopje, which officially “gave birth” to this institution. During the first decade of its existence, the Faculty of Philosophy in Skopje built the image of an institution to be respected, despite objective difficulties and considerable problems it has faced since its inception. It was the only high school institution of the Yugoslav monarchy in the area between Belgrade and the border with Albania, Greece and Bulgaria. Faced with post-war poverty, the material, infrastructural and technological backwardness of the southern regions, as well as various sociopolitical crises and turmoil, it nevertheless became a lively center of educational, scientific and cultural life of the Yugoslav south part. On February 1, 1931, a solemn celebration of the tenth anniversary of the work of this institution was organized. As part of the aforementioned event, the day of Saint Sava was also celebrated. A formal session of the council of this faculty was held, greeting speeches by high dignitaries were heard, the consecration of the foundation of the student dormitory was performed, an exhibition of old printed and handwritten books, ancient frescoes, archaeological and ethnographic collections in the Museum of Southern Serbia was held. The celebration ended with a performance in the Skopje National Theater. The main organizer and host of the meeting was a prominent theologian and historian Radoslav Grujić, then dean of the Faculty of Philosophy in Skopje. It was a dignified, well-organized manifestation with an appropriate program and with the participation of distinguished people not only from Skopje and the Vardar region, but also from the wider area of the Yugoslav state.