Ljubomir Stojanović


Ljubomir Stojanović was a Serbian politician, philologist and academic.

Biography

Stojanović was a philologist and historian, who graduated from the School of Philosophy at the Grandes écoles. After studies in Belgrade he went on to post-graduate studies in Vienna, St. Petersburg and Leipzig. At first a grammar school professor, he was appointed university professor at the High School in Belgrade. Opposed to the royal absolutism of King Aleksandar I Obrenović, Stojanović joined the People's Radical Party of Nikola Pašić in 1897.
After the split with the older generation of Radicals who accepted the compromise with the Crown in 1901, Stojanović led the younger group of Radicals, a semi-independent faction since 1901 which eventually became independent in 1905. As a founding member and a leader of the Independent Radical Party in Serbia, Stojanović was several times minister of Education and Religious Affairs, and Prime Minister from 29 May 1905 to 14 March 1906, during the 'Golden Age of Serbia', under the democratic and constitutional rule of King Peter I Karađorđević.
After the First World War Stojanović was one of the founders of the Yugoslav Republican Party and its first president. Stojanović was often described as a puritan moralist in politics.
Secretary of the Serbian Royal Academy, future Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts from 1913 to 1923, Stojanović was very prolific in various scientific fields: he published a dozen volumes of medieval Serbian manuscripts and documents: Miroslavljevo Jevandjelje, Stari srpski zapisi i natpisi , medieval Serbian charters and letters as well as medieval Serbian genealogies and annals. Stojanović published the catalogues of medieval Serbian manuscripts and old books in the National Library of Serbia in Belgrade as well as the catalogue of manuscript collection at the Serbian Royal Academy.
A scholar of enormous erudition, energy and determination, Stojanović published 17 volumes of works of Vuk St. Karadžić, the main reformer of the Serbian alphabet, including several volumes of his extensive correspondence. Stojanović wrote grammar textbooks for Serbian secondary schools, published important scholarly studies of old Serbian printing MA, Serbian churches from 15th to 16th century, the Archbishop Danilo II. His most important scholarly work is an extensive and detailed biography of Vuk St. Karadžić, based on mostly unused sources.

Selected works

He is included in The 100 most prominent Serbs.