- Juraj Križanić
Juraj Križanić, also known as Yuriy Krizhanich (ca.
1618 -September 12 ,1683 ) was aCroat ian Catholic missionary who is often regarded as the earliest recorded pan-Slavist and anti-Normanist.Križanić studied in
Zagreb ,Bologna , andRome . In 1647, he arrived inMoscow with the idea of promoting the union of Eastern and Western churches. His mission failed as his ideas were taken as dangerous, interpreted as converting from Orthodoxy to Catholicism. Križanić returned toRussia 12 years later, still seeking to arrange the union of Slavic nations under leadership of the tsar.After two-year-long stay in the Russian capital, he was taken into custody and transported to
Tobolsk inSiberia . There he lived for 15 years, surviving on a state stipend and working on the treatises "On Divine Providence", "On Politics", and "On Interpretation of Historic Prognostications". In these books, written in his self-devised "Common Slavonic language" (a Pan-Slavonic grammar named "Grammatitchno Iskaziniye"), he set forth a comprehensive program of reforms required for the Russian state. His "Politics" was published by Bezsonov ("Russia in the Seventeenth Century", 1859-60).His appeal to the Czar to head the Slavs in the fight against the Germans shows a remarkable political foresight. He returned from Siberia in 1676, and after that date little is known of him. He died during theBattle of Vienna .His works, which also include writings on music and economics, were re-discovered and printed in the mid-19th century.
References
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Vatroslav Jagić : "Istoriia slavianskoi filologii", St. Petersburg, 1910
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