Miloš Luković
Institute for Balkan Studies
Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts
Belgrade
Valtazar Bogišić and the General Property Code for the Principality of
Montenegro: Domestic and Foreign Associates
Abstract: Assigned with the task to prepare a general property code for the Principality
of Montenegro, V. Bogišić conducted in 1873 a survey on customary law, relying on
several local informants who were well versed in the matter and as a rule holders of
high military and civil offices. A distinctive group of Bogišić’s associates were members of the commission responsible for discussing two drafts of the code, all of them
judges of the highest court in Montenegro at the time. In contrast to their contribution which is quite well known, that of his foreign consultants, although significant, is
not. In two of his texts, one of which was published posthumously, Bogišić expressed
his gratitude for the assistance provided by the eminent French and German legal
experts R. Dareste, E. Glasson, C. Bluntschli, J. Neubauer and K. Dickel.
Keywords: Valtazar Bogišić, Property Code, Principality of Montenegro, domestic associates, foreign consultants, Russia
Introduction
Of the many works of the Serbian scholar Valtazar Bogišić (1834–1908), the
one for which he is best known is his magnum opus: General Property Code
for the Principality of Montenegro (Opšti imovinski zakonik za Knjaževinu
Crnu Goru) of 1888. This is a civil code which does not include family and
inheritance law, and has therefore been designated as property code.1
After the Second World War, interest has begun to grow in the genesis of the Code. Scholarly work based on the material from Bogišić’s archive
at Cavtat has resulted in extensive studies such as those by N. Martinović,
1
The Code was formally proclaimed on 6 April 1888 in the Montenegrin capital, Cetinje, and came into force on 1 July the same year by Prince Nikola’s decree. See Bogišić
1980 I–VI.
Bogišić’s archives, a library of more than 15,000 books and a museum holding his
personal belongings, art collections and other valuable objects, are at Cavtat. They are
in ownership of the Institute of Historical Sciences at Dubrovnik, which forms part
of the Croatian Academy of Arts and Sciences based in Zagreb. His archives contain
more than 160 manuscripts, unfinished texts and notes on various subjects: history of
law of the Slav peoples, codification of property law in Montenegro, ethnology, folklore,
literature etc. For more, see Djivanović 1984.
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W. G. Zimmermann, T. Nikčević, J. Bojović and S. Pupovci.3 Useful information on the origin of the Code has also come from documents kept
in Russian archives4 and Bogišić’s personal correspondence with many renowned figures and institutions (about a thousand) from Belgrade, Novi
Sad, Cetinje, Zagreb, Dubrovnik, Split, Djakovo and several European centres, of which only a small part has been published.5 That work has shed
much more light on a number of people who assisted Bogišić in the process
of preparing the Code, and whose contribution had for a long time been
unknown or neglected, resulting in all the credit for the Code being attributed to Bogišić. The contribution least examined is the one made by
eminent experts in civil law from Vienna, Berlin, Munich, Paris, as well as
members of the state codification commissions in Berlin and Budapest. This
paper will, therefore, shed more light on the broader context of this cooperation and the professional profile of these associates of Bogišić’s.
1. Bogišić’s education and career prior to his codifying mission
Bogišić’s codifying mission in Montenegro began in late 187. Nikola I,
Prince of Montenegro and the Highlands (Crna Gora i Brda), which was
the official name of the country in 1796–1878, made a request to the Russian Tsar to send Valtazar Bogišić, professor at the Novorossiski University
in Odessa, to Montenegro. By that time Montenegro had regained Russian
support withdrawn during the Crimean War and the Prince was receiving
annual financial aid from Russia.6 In this revival of pro-Russian feeling, he
found solid support in the Russian consul in Dubrovnik, Alexandr S. Yonin.
Meanwhile, military and administrative reforms had been carried out in
Montenegro, but, not even following the demarcation of her borders with
the Ottoman Empire under the aegis of the European powers (1859/60)
was Montenegro internationally recognized as an independent country and
Prince Nikola needed to put the legal system on a more solid footing in
order to demonstrate his country’s credibility before the European powers.7
Thus Bogišić found himself in the service of Russian-Montenegrin political
relations, in fact in the orbit of Russia’s Balkan policy.
3
Martinović 1958 and 1964; Zimmermann 196; Nikčević 1967; Bojović 199; Pupovci 1996 and 004.
4
See Pupovci 1996; Montenegrin Codes III; Bogišić 1999
5
See Jagić 1930; Novak 1960; Ivanišin 196; Nedeljković 1968.
6
Jovanović 1977, 181; Popović 1995, 314–316.
7
Martinović 1958, 55–60; Pupovci 1996, 0; Montenegrin Codes III, 89–90.
M. Luković, Domestic and Foreign Associates of Valtazar Bogišić
177
Bogišić’s life, which led to his being sent to Montenegro, was an unusual one, and by then he had already become a scholar of some repute in
the Slav world.8 Valtazar Bogišić was born at Cavtat in 1834, into a Catholic
family originally from the Dubrovnik hinterland region of Konavle, “on the
border between Herzegovina and the one-time Republic of Dubrovnik”.9
He had no regular education before he entered university. Both his grandfather and father were seamen and traders, and had made a sizable fortune.
The young Bogišić kept his father’s business books and drew up businessrelated legal documents in Italian. In that way he gained practical legal experience and at the same time learnt German and French. Having settled
family business and property matters following the sudden death of his
father in 1856, Bogišić completed an accelerated secondary school course
in Venice in 1859. He then began law studies and read the first two semesters in Vienna, the third in Berlin, and the fourth in Munich, and attended
several lectures in Paris. He completed the final two years (four semesters)
of law in Vienna, simultaneously studying philosophy. In the course of his
studies, Bogišić mastered several languages and became a polyglot.
Bogišić’s professors in Vienna were the law professors Unger, Glaser, Arnddts, Siegel, Stein and Neumann, the historians Jäger, Sieckel and
Aschbach, and the philologists Miklosich, Bonitz and Vahlen. His Berlin
teachers were the jurists Dirksen and Stahl, the German philologist Beseler, the canon law scholar Richter, the founder of comparative linguistics
Bopp, the historian Droysen and the philosopher Michelet. His professors
in Munich were the jurists Windscheid and Bluntschli, the church historian
Dölinger and the art historian Lützov. In 186 he received doctoral degree
in philosophy from the university in Giessen,10 where he had also attended
lectures of the prominent Roman law professor Ihering. In Heidelberg he
attended lectures of the renowned scholar of civil law, Wangerow.
In 1863, Bogišić found employment at the department for Slavic books
of the Court Library (Hofbibliothek) in Vienna, while completing his law
studies and receiving a doctoral degree in 1864. His work at the Court Li8
During his employment at the Court Library in Vienna, Bogišić published two works:
Legal Customs of the Slavs, the first of its kind in the Slav world, and A Guide to Describ�
ing Living Legal Customs, in fact a questionnaire containing 35 questions and intended
only for the South Slavs. The Guide was translated into Ukrainian, Bulgarian, Slovenian
and (partially) Czech, but it soon gained popularity beyond the Slav world. Bogišić
spent a few years busily collecting customary law and from the abundant material collected prepared a Compilation of Contemporary Legal Customs of the South Slavs. Material
from Various Parts of the Slavic South (1874).
9
Bogišić provides information about himself, his family and origin in three autobiographical texts, see Bogišić 1938 [190]; and Bogišić 1938.
10
Bogišić 1938 [190], 5, 74; Bogišić 1938, 51.
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brary brought him multiple benefits. He was in constant contact with scholars from different Slavic countries, to mention but the Pole Wacław Maciejowski; Russians Izmail Ivanovich Sreznevsky, Nil Alexandrovich Popov,
Mikhail Fyodorovich Rayevsky; Serbs Djura Daničić, Jovan Gavrilović, Stojan Novaković and Vladan Djordjević; Croats Franjo Rački, Vatroslav Jagić
and Imbro Ignjatijević Tkalac.11 In Vienna he made contact with liberals
from Serbia, a connection that would prove useful to him later on.1
It was in Vienna that Bogišić embraced the then widespread notion
of Serbs and Croats as being “two halves of a single people”, and remained
faithful to it for the rest of his life, although he was never politically active.13
He expressed his Serb national feeling and his affiliation to the Catholic
tradition, two constituent elements of his identity from his youth days in his
hometown of Cavtat and contacts with the intellectual circle round Niko
Veliki Pucić in Dubrovnik.14 He called his own language Serbian, and he
also used the terms Serbo-Croatian and Croatian.
After five years at the Court Library, Bogišić entered the AustroHungarian Ministry of Defence, and was appointed Temesvar-based school
supervisor for the Banat and Srem regions of the Military Frontier (Vojna
Krajina Militärgrenze), which had a large Serbian community. For a time,
Bogišić lived in Novi Sad, where he used to meet up with Jovan Hadžić,
author of the Civil Code of the Principality of Serbia. He also used to visit
Belgrade, where he met up with Djura Daničić, Jovan Gavrilović, Stojan
Novaković, Janko Šafarik and other prominent figures in Serbia’s cultural
life. In Belgrade he also met the Austro-Hungarian consul Benjamin von
Kállay, subsequently the Austro-Hungarian governor of Bosnia-Herzegovina and author of a History of the Serbian People. Bogišić kept track of events
in the Serbian capital, and when preparations began for the 1869 Constitution of the Principality of Serbia, he submitted, together with a conational
from the coastal region (“two southern Serbs”), a proposal for some of its
clauses.15
Yet, Bogišić thought of leaving the Habsburg Monarchy, which in
the wake of the Austro-Prussian war of 1866 underwent essential internal
change: in 1867 it became a dual monarchy. Having been granted the first
ever honorary doctorate from Odessa University (Novorossiski), which had
been founded in 1865, and elected full professor at its Law School and
11
Bogišić 1938 [190], 79.
Nedeljković 1968, 65; see Bogišić 1938 [190], 106.
13
See Bogišić 1938 [190], 106.
14
For a detailed account of the Serbs in Dalmatia between the fall of the Venetian Republic and the formation of the Yugoslav state in 1918, see Bakotić 1938.
15
Bogišić 1938, 50; Nedeljković 1968, 8–9.
1
M. Luković, Domestic and Foreign Associates of Valtazar Bogišić
179
chair of the History of Slavic Legal Systems, Bogišić set out for Odessa.
He arrived there in early January 1870, became a Russian citizen and was
granted the title of state advisor.16 Although he taught for no more than
five semesters, he continued to be officially considered professor of Odessa
University until his retirement in late 1889. The request for his mission to
Montenegro arrived at a point when his research into the Slavic customary
laws and legal systems had gained a fresh momentum: in the summer of
187 he was doing a research in the Caucasus, which was part of the Russian Empire at the time.17
2. Bogišić’s codification concept and method
Prior to his mission to Montenegro, Bogišić had not been specifically concerned with theoretical, methodological and practical problems of codification.18 Now that he had to cope with them, he was left to his own devices.
The kind of work that lay before him was being done by teams of many
members and over many years in countries such as Germany, Switzerland
and Japan. The mission was therefore a turning point in his life. The assignment he was allotted by the Russian authorities was completely different
from anything he had done so far, and he had to find a formula to carry it
out.
The prolonged length and content of Bogišić’s codification mission
was influenced by several factors. As time went on his pragmatism came
increasingly to the fore: he adjusted the task entrusted to him to his own
scholarly views and personal plans, used it to enhance his scholarly reputation and to solidify his official status with the relevant Russian ministries.
Bogišić’s propensity to live a life of ease and to travel much, and not always
for official purposes, did not go unnoticed.19 As a result, his work on the
Code took more than fifteen years (187–1888). Bogišić’s preparatory work
on the Code was validated by two Russian ministries (of Foreign Affairs
and of National Education) and the Tsar himself, and the prolongation of
his Montenegrin mission was approved several times in a row.0
16
Bogišić 1938 [190], 87.
Bogišić described his time in the Caucasus in his Autobiography, see Bogišić 1938
[190]; see also Novak 1960, 11–15; Nedeljković 1968, 6–63.
18
As already pointed out by Pupovci 1996, 7.
19
Novak 1960, 95.
0
For more detail, see Pupovci 1996.
17
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Bogišić first arrived in Cetinje in early April 1873, but already in
May he was a member of Prince Nikola’s suite on his visit to Vienna.1
He remained in Montenegro until January 1874, which is when he carried
out his famous survey on customary laws in Montenegro, Herzegovina and
northern Albania. The concept of the Code was defined during his two stays
in 1875, in July and in August–September respectively. Late in May 1881,
he arrived in Cetinje once again in order to discuss issues surrounding the
Code project, and stayed until February 188, but during that period he visited Dubrovnik seven times to prepare there for the next stage of his work.
He made his last stay in Montenegro in the interval between June 1885
and January 1886, but apart from three months, he spent most of the time
in Dubrovnik. All the remaining months and years of the fifteen-year-long
preparation of the Code, then, Bogišić spent out of Montenegro.
With the consent of the Russian Minister of Education, Bogišić settled in Paris in November 1874. Apart from the rich libraries and the possibility of consulting legal experts, he had some private reasons for settling
in the French capital,3 where he spent most of the time until the proclamation of the Code, although he frequently travelled. Saint Petersburg was the
place of his second longest sojourn. The material kept in Russian archives
(primarily the Archive of Foreign Policy of the Russian Empire and the
Russian State Historical Archive in Moscow)4 elucidates the position of
Russia’s highest government bodies and persons towards Bogišić and Montenegro. At the end of Bogišić’s codifying work, a representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry said in Saint Petersburg that Bogišić’s work should
be seen as a “monument to Russia’s historical and civilizational role in the
Orthodox East”.5 Russia had financed Bogišić’s work on the Code from
beginning to end, including its printing and its author’s pension.6
Besides Paris, Bogišić made stays of varying length in Vienna: in September 1879, May 1881, May and June 1883, July and August 1884,7 the
spring of 1885, and June and July 1886.8 He travelled to Berlin in March
1877, July 1878, May and June of 1880, April and May of 1881,9 April
1
Medaković 1998, 93.
Novak 1960, 5–53.
3
Ibid., 47.
4
Cf. Pupovci 1996, and 004, 41–6, 37–79; Montenegrin Codes III.
5
Pupovci 1996, 57.
6
For a detailed account, see Pupovci 1996; partly also Martinović 1958, 36.
7
Novak 1960, 304–305.
8
Novak 1960, 3, 311 ff; Nedeljković 1968, 154.
9
Novak 1960, 81.
M. Luković, Domestic and Foreign Associates of Valtazar Bogišić
181
188, the autumn of 1883, and July and August 1884. He paid somewhat
shorter visits to other capital cities that were of interest for his codifying
work, such as London ( July and August 1880), Heidelberg (April 1881),
Munich ( June 1883), Prague (May 1881) and Budapest (October 1874
and September 1884).30 In 1877, sent by the Russian government to join
the Russian troops in Bulgaria during the Russo-Turkish war of 1877–78,
Bogišić drew up the “Provisional rules of the organization of courts” in Bulgaria.
Bogišić believed that collecting and studying customary law was a
necessary “preliminary” to his work of codification. It was a way to learn
about and appraise the nature of what he called the “indigenously developed” laws of the people in order to avoid the mechanical and anachronous transplantation of institutes of Roman law into contemporary legislation. Bogišić’s views were encouraged by the work of the so-called Warsaw
School of Law, notably the pan-Slavic historian Wacław Maciejowski, with
whom he had established friendly relations and maintained a long-standing correspondence.31 Contending that customary law was very much alive
in the traditional patriarchal structure of Montenegrin society, and that, by
contrast, written laws were very few, especially in the domain of civil law,
Bogišić designed an extensive questionnaire (,000 questions) to cover customary practices in both public and private laws, and used it in the survey
he carried out in the course of 1873.3
Bogišić visited Belgrade in 1874 to acquaint himself with the thirty years of implementation of the Civil Code of the Principality of Serbia.33
His proposal to draw up a single civil code for Serbia and Montenegro on
identical principles was not accepted in Belgrade.34 During Bogišić’s stay in
Cetinje in mid-1875, he convinced Prince Nikola and the Senate to agree to
his concept of the Code,35 by demonstrating that what Montenegro needed
most at the moment was a regulation in the field of civil law. In that way, the
initial broadly conceived general national code (which would have included
public law as well) became reduced to a civil one, which in turn, lacking
family law and the law of inheritance, became a property code.
30
Novak 1960; Nedeljković 1968.
Bogišić 1938 [190], 10; Nikčevič 1967, 8.
3
For more on the 1873 survey, see Martinović 1958, 7–167; Martinović 1964; Bogišić
1984; Nikčević 1984.
33
Sirotković 1989, 69; Luković 1994, 49.
34
For more, see Nikčević 1971.
35
For more, see Bojović 199; Luković 004.
31
18
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3. Bogišić’s associates
The names of Bogišić’s associates in preparing the Code are known. They
can be divided into two categories according to their origin. Because of the
peculiar nature of his codification mission, however, it is not always simple
to make a clear distinction between domestic and foreign. Namely, in Montenegro Bogišić represented the Russian “side”, while at the same time being treated as “one of us”, a Serb from the neighbouring Dubrovnik area. He
had a few associates playing various roles in Montenegro, and they unambiguously are domestic. However, some of his key associates were subjects of
Austria-Hungary (as was Bogišić himself prior to his departure for Russia),
on the one hand, and Serbs or Croats or “Serbo-Croats” by nationality, on
the other. They also seem entitled to be categorized as domestic associates,
as are those from the Principality/Kingdom of Serbia. As Bogišić’s truly
foreign associates may be considered citizens of France, Germany, Switzerland, Hungary, and even those of Austria-Hungary who were not of Serb,
Croatian or “Serbo-Croatian” nationality.
3.1. Domestic associates
When, in 1873, Bogišić designed the questionnaire for surveying legal customs in Montenegro, Prince Nikola appointed informants for particular
areas of Montenegro, but also for some of the neighbouring areas, such as
Herzegovina and northern Albania.36 The informants were high-ranking
military and civilian officials knowledgeable about customary law: Vojvoda
Djuro Matanović, Senator Jole Piletić, ex-Senator Vido Bošković, Vojvoda
Djuro Cerović and Vojvoda Marko Miljanov, while the informant for church
relations was Archimandrite Visarion Ljubiša.37
Members of the commission on two code drafts may be described
as a distinctive category of associates: Djuro Matanović, Jagoš Radović and
Gavro Vuković, judges of the Grand Court (the highest court in Montenegro at the time). Bogišić commended them in his reports to the Russian
ministries for their exquisite knowledge of the customary legal practices in
36
Following the Congress of Berlin in 1878, these areas became part of Montenegro,
with the exception of Malesija (Tuzi, Hoti and Grude areas east of Podgorica), which
were to be incorporated into Montenegro after the Balkan War of 191. See Martinović
1958, 63.
37
Montenegrin Codes III, 335.
M. Luković, Domestic and Foreign Associates of Valtazar Bogišić
183
Montenegro, although only Gavro Vuković was a trained jurist.38 Prince
Nikola himself took part in the final reading of the draft.39
Bogišić’s domestic associates did not only include authorities on customary law. Once his concept of the Code was accepted in 1875, he decided
to call in philologists to help resolve issues of terminology. Several philologists from the South-Slavic areas, also knowledgeable about folk life,
answered the call.40 Their contribution to his codifying work is less known
even though at the end of his unfinished manuscript “Method and System
of Codifying Property Law in Montenegro”, Bogišić expresses his gratitude to those who helped him resolve problems of terminology, mentioning
by name: Fran Miklosich, professor at Vienna University; Vatroslav Jagić,
university professor in Saint Petersburg; Stojan Novaković, professor at the
Great School in Belgrade (“presently a minister”); Jovan Pavlović, former
assistant professor at the Belgrade Great School; Laza Kostić, former secretary of the Serbian diplomatic mission to St Petersburg; professor Pero
Budmani from Zagreb; professors Luko Zore and F. Kastrapeli from Dubrovnik; and “the late Vuk Vrčević, vice-consul [resting] in peace in Dubrovnik”.41
3.2. Foreign associates
Least known, however, is the contribution made by Bogišić’s foreign associates. In two texts, one of which was published posthumously, Bogišić
expresses his gratitude to the five foreign legal experts who helped him with
the preparation of the Code and cites their names and posts: R. Dareste,
advisor to the Court of Appeals and member of the Institut de France,
Paris; C. Glasson, professor of law and member of the Institut de France,
Paris; C. Bluntschli, professor of law in Heidelberg during the last years of
his academic career; J. Neubauer, advisor to the Appeals Committee for the
editing of the German civil code; K. Dickel, professor of law in Berlin. The
first time that Bogišić expressed gratitude to his foreign associates, as well
as friends who helped him with technical terms, was in a text published in
Brussels in 1901 by the Révue de Droit international et Législation compare.
These names of Bogišić’s helpers are also mentioned in his uncompleted
38
Ibid., 46, 47.
On discussions of the two drafts of the code, see Bojović 199; Luković 004.
40
Hence the epistolary form of Bogišić’s text “Stručno nazivlje u zakonima” [Technical
Terminology in Laws] and its subtitle: A Letter to a Philologist Friend. The text was
contributed to the magazine Pravo (published in Split) in 1876, see Bogišić 1967, 15,
153, and 1986, 87–99.
41
Bogišić 1967, 15–153.
39
184
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study, edited and published by T. Nikčević in 1967 under the title Method
and System of Codifying Property Law in Montenegro.
Most information on Bogišić’s collaboration with “foreign” legal experts can be found in W. Zimmermann4 and S. Pupovci,43 who have done
most to reconstruct his biography from the archival material. This particular
issue is best elucidated from documents kept in the Russian archives, as
Bogišić sent the Russian ministries detailed progress reports.44
Zimmermann notes a “surprising connection” between the Montenegrin Code, the historical school of law and the Privatrechtliches Gesetzbuch
für den Kanton Zürich of 1854–5645 drawn up by Bluntschli46 as a continuation of F. L. Keller’s work of 1840. Bluntschli’s Code was the greatest
contribution to Swiss nineteenth-century legislation, succeeding as it did in
bridging the gap between Swiss legal tradition and contemporary civil law.
It is devoid of abstractions and couched in simple language, which is also
characteristic of Bogišić’s Code. From 1877 to 1879, Bluntschli was a member of an expert committee for Swiss contractual law. In April 1881, Bogišić
met with Bluntschli for three days of consultation on “some important and
contentious issues”.47 However, Bluntschli’s death in October the same year
deprived Bogišić of further assistance of this acknowledged expert.
Bogišić had a longstanding collaboration with Wilhelm C. Neubauer,
a member of the German Appeals Court and secretary to the commission
working on the German civil code. The possibility of collaboration was discussed in Berlin as early as July 1878, as Bogišić wished to be kept informed
on the progress of the German commission.48 In May 1880, he revisited
Berlin for a fortnight to consult with Neubauer. The following year, there
were further three-day consultations “on some important and contentious
issues”. He then left for Prague, spent four days there consulting with the
professor of civil law Anton Randa, and then travelled to Vienna for four
4
See Zimmermann 196.
See Pupovci 004.
44
Cf. Montenegrin Codes III, 449-451; Pupovci 004, 55-79.
45
Zimmermann 196, 5.
46
Johann Caspar Bluntschli (1808–1881), a practising lawyer and university professor
(Zurich, Munich, Heidelberg), advocated the introduction of “local” (German) law in
place of Roman law which had held precedence until then; cf. Deutsche Biographische
Enzyklopädie. Bogišić attended Bluntschli’s lectures in Munich for a semester, which
greatly helped to crystalize the main direction of his studies, cf. Zimmermann 196,
38.
47
Montenegrin Codes III, 450; Zimmermann 196, 189, 471.
48
Montenegrin Codes III, 450.
43
M. Luković, Domestic and Foreign Associates of Valtazar Bogišić
185
days of “negotiations” with professor L. von Stein,49 whose student he had
been in Vienna.50
While in Montenegro to discuss the first draft of the Code, sometime
between May 1881 and February 188 Bogišić received the first chapters of
the draft of the German civil code from Neubauer.51 He returned to Paris
in February 188, and in May he was again in Berlin in order to “confer
on some issues that had arisen during discussion of the first Montenegrin
code” with Neubauer and other members of the German codification commission.5 In October 188, Bogišić had separate consultations with highranking officials of the Russian ministries on his further work on the Montenegrin Code, at which time a special protocol was adopted. According to
it, Bogišić undertook to translate the final version into German or French,
and to discuss the draft with distinguished European lawyers.53
Bogišić designates Neubauer as his chief consultant. In March 1883,
on Bogišić’s return voyage from Saint Petersburg to Paris, the two of them
met in Berlin so as to “set the time and place for discussing the draft”.54 At
the end of April, Bogišić hurried off to Vienna, where he engaged three
students from the South-Slavic regions for the purpose of translating his
draft of the Code into German.55 The German codification commission
commended Bogišić’s draft.56 However, that year Neubauer was only able to
spare “two weeks” for him in late August and early September. Immediately
prior and subsequent to his consultations with Neubauer, Bogišić discussed
the draft in Berlin with “a judge engaged in theoretical work”.57 The judge
was Karl Dickel.58 When the Code came into force in 1888, Dickel gave its
49
Lorenz von Stein (1815–1890), jurist, politician, university professor, lectured in the
national economy; opposed to the integration of Schleswig-Holstein into the Kingdom of Denmark; actively involved in the German nationalist movement 1848/49 in
Kiel, his hometown, but, deprived of professorship, left his homeland; for some years a
journalist in Augsburg, moved in 1855 to Vienna, where he taught as a very influential
university professor for more than thirty years; cf. Deutsche Biographische Enzyklopädie.
50
Zimmermann 196, 189, 471.
51
Montenegrin Codes III, 431, 43.
5
Ibid., 433, 455.
53
Pupovci 004, 64.
54
Montenegrin Codes III, 439.
55
Ibid., 440.
56
Martinović 1958, 19; Zimmermann 196, 498; Montenegrin Codes III, 44.
57
Montenegrin Codes III, 440–441.
58
Karl Philipp Dickel (1853–190), a judge in the area of civil law in various types of
courts in Berlin; from 1890, senior lecturer at the Forst-Akademie in Eberswalde, and
186
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detailed presentation before the Society of Jurists (Juristenverein) in Berlin
in early 1889.59
Upon his return to Paris, Bogišić spent the time until July 1884 putting the finishing touches to the Code, visiting Berlin for five-day consultations on “some issues which have not been resolved in correspondence”.60
In September he visited Budapest for four days, where he received the complete draft of the new Hungarian civil code, the result of the fifteen-year
work of a special commission. According to Bogišić, it did not provide “anything of interest to his task”.61
Although Bogišić’s official reports to the Russian ministries make no
specific reference to his collaboration with French law experts, in January
1875 he announces his choice of Paris as the place of his further residence
since it “provides the best working conditions.” Apart from the rich National Library and the specialized library of the Société de la Législation
comparée, there also were “several acquaintances among the good professors
of law”.6 Bogišić was indeed in lively contact with French law experts, of
whom, however, he mentions only two by name: Dareste63 and Glasson.64
Legal experts in Paris had been following Bogišić’s work on the Code
and he himself wrote of his work. He published a booklet in French On the
Montenegrin Civil Code — A Few Words on the Principles and Methods Used
in Drafting, subtitled: A Letter to a Friend,65 first in Paris in 1886 and then
from 1899 professor of German civil and procedural law at the Univerity of Berlin; cf.
Deutsche Biographische Enzyklopädie.
59
Pupovci 004, 300, 388.
60
Montenegrin Codes III, 451, 457.
61
Ibid., 451, 457.
6
Ibid., 355.
63
Rodolphe-Madeleine Cléophas Dareste de la Chavanne (184–1911), lawyer and
philologist by education, author of numerous works in the field of law; in 1847–1877
worked as a lawyer, in 1877–1899 as counsellor and judge of the Court of Appeals in
Paris; very active in barristers’ and legal associations, president of the Société de législation comparée and member and president of the Académie des sciences morales et
politiques of the Institut de France in Paris;.cf. Notices biographiques 1907.
64
Ernest Désiré Glasson (1839–1907), lawyer 1860–1865; subsitute professor (suppléant) at the Faculty of Law and the lycée in Strasbourg; in 1865–1907, he practised
law and lectured at the Faculty of Law in Nancy, and in 1867–1907 was professor of
civil and procedural law and the history of law at the University of Paris; for a time he
was a professor at the Ecole libre des sciences politiques; he was a member of the Conseil supérieur de l’instruction publique and member and president of the Académie des
sciences morales et politiques of the Institut de France; cf. Notices biographiques 1907.
65
The “friend” was in fact Dareste, at the time secretary to the Société de la législation
comparée in Paris, of which Bogišić was a foreign member.
M. Luković, Domestic and Foreign Associates of Valtazar Bogišić
187
in Brussels in 1888.66 Another study published in Brussels was devoted to
a section of the Code: “On the rural family type known as Inokosna among
the Serbs and Croats”.67 In 1884, he became a corresponding member of the
Académie des sciences morales et politiques68 of the distinguished Institut
de France and his reputation grew in that country. Thus in May 1888 we
find Dareste reading a report on the Montenegrin Code before the Institut de France and expressing himself very favourably on Bogišić’s work.69
In 189, Dareste and Albert Rivière published a French translation of the
Code.70
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The paper results from the research project no 147047 funded by the Ministry of Science of the Republic of Serbia.