Veselin Čajkanović

Veselin Čajkanović (Serbian Cyrillic: Веселин Чајкановић; 1881-1946) was a Serbian classical scholar, religious history scholar, and Greek and Latin translator.

Biography

Čajkanović studied classical philology at the Great School (which became the University of Belgrade), and later at the University of Leipzig and University of Munich (where he took his Master of Arts degree). In 1908 he became a Latin lecturer at the Belgrade University School of Philosophy and published his MA dissertation, "Quaestionum paroemiographicarum capita selecta", in Tübingen.

Čajkanović fought in both Balkan Wars and in World War I. He retreated with the Serbian Army through Albania in face of the 1915 anti-Serbian offensive of the Central Powers. Later he was at the Thessaloniki Front, where he described his activities in his "Autobiography" as "defending, together with other Balkan Christians, his country from foreign conquerors." Čajkanović was awarded the Order of the White Eagle with Swords and the Légion d'honneur.

From 1921 on he taught the comparative history of religion at the Faculty of Theology in Belgrade.

He authored several books, while numerous studies and articles remained scattered in various publications. His texts were published mainly in Serbian, Latin, and German and include:
*"The folklore and religion studies" (1924)
*"Vergil and his contemporaries" (1930)
*"A survey of Roman literature" (1932)
*"Florilegium latinum in usum schoiarfum" (1940)
*"On Serbian Highest Deity" (1941)

Čajkanović's collected works, edited by Vojislav Đurić, were published in five volumes in 1994 in Belgrade.

External links

* [http://condor.depaul.edu/~rrotenbe/aeer/aeer14_1/zivkovic.html Magical Sitting by Veselin Cajkanovic] (in English)
* [http://www.svevlad.org.yu/knjige_files/cajkanovic_mitreligijasrbi.html Myth and Religion within Serbs by Veselin Čajkanović] (in Serbian)