Theodor Jankowitsch de Miriewo

Theodor Jankowitsch de Miriewo

Theodor Jankowitsch de Miriewo ( serb. : Teodor Janković-Mirijevski , Russian Федор Иванович Янкович де Мириево , translit .: Fyodor Ivanovich Jankowitsch de Mirijewo * 1741 Kamenitz, today Novi Sad , † 1814 in Saint Petersburg ) was a reconnaissance and educational reformer, first in Austrian service, later in the Russian Empire.

youth

Theodor Jankowitsch was in the then to the Habsburg Kingdom of Hungary belonging to Vojvodina in the village Kamenitz (Serbian: Sremska Kamenica , clothes. : Kamanc ) near Petrovaradin born. His family was Serbian and came from Mirijevo , near Belgrade . He first attended the trivial school in his home village and later the Latin school in Syrmisch-Karlowitz . Then he went to Vienna , where he was in the service of Colonel Feketija. He attended the University of Vienna and studied "Police and Camera Studies" with Professor Joseph von Sonnenfels . This brought him into the circle of those officials who reformed the Austrian school system under the sign of the Enlightenment during the reign of Maria Theresa and later under Emperor Joseph II .

Educational reformer in Austrian service

During this time the Austrian administration tried to gain control over the school system in the sense of absolutism . Before that, almost all schools were denominational. With this in mind, the Jesuit order was dissolved in 1773 and in 1774 Maria Theresa introduced compulsory schooling in the Habsburg crown lands. In the spirit of rationalism , this new school system was intended to increase the education of the broad masses.

Theodor Jankowitsch first entered the service of the Orthodox Bishop of Timisoara in 1773 and was appointed head of the non-Uniate schools in the Banat , i.e. all ecclesiastical Serbian and Romanian schools , by decision of the Illyrian Deputation . In the following year, Johann Ignaz von Felbiger wrote his “ General School Regulations for German Normal, Secondary and Trivial Schools ”, with which a state three-tier school system was to be established. The basis was a comprehensive network of trivial schools (later called elementary schools ) with six years of compulsory schooling. Secondary schools were established in larger market towns and cities and the top were normal schools , which also served for teacher training. Jankowitsch visited Felbiger in Vienna in 1776 and was commissioned to carry out this school reform in the Banat, which was part of the Kingdom of Hungary. To do this, however, the German-language school documents had to be translated into Slavonian and Romanian for the Orthodox schools. Together with his Romanian-speaking colleague Mihai Roşu, he got to work.

In 1776 the “ Handbook for Masters of the Illyrian, not uniate small schools ” appeared. Jankowtisch used the Cyrillic spelling for the first time in a state Austrian school book. In the following year he translated Felbiger's mathematical textbook “ Instructions for arithmetic ” into Slavonian / Serbian, while his colleague Gheorghe Şincai created the Romanian version. For his services, he is then raised to the nobility with the addition of "de Miriewo", after the place of origin of his family. In 1781 he wrote a book comparing the Cyrillic script in the Serbian language to the Latin script. In the same year half of the male Serbian-speaking children in the Banat attended one of the trivial schools.

Educational reformer in the Russian Empire

The Russian Tsarina Katherina II became aware of the Austrian educational reforms and entered into correspondence with the court in Vienna. Emperor Joseph II, who has ruled since 1780, traveled to Russia in the same year he took office and met the Tsarina in Mogilev on June 4th . Through her advisor Franz Ulrich Theodor Aepinus , Katherina II had been very well informed about the new Austrian school system and asked for the schoolbooks written for the Slavic subjects of the emperor to be sent. Joseph II immediately complied with the request, which made Jankowitsch's works known in Russia.

Russian school book by Theodor Jankowitsch

The Tsarina, however, had great reservations about building a state school system in Russia against the state-supporting Orthodox Church. In particular, she wanted to avoid bringing in Catholic or Protestant advisers who could train the first generation of new Russian teachers. In 1782, Catherine II asked the Austrian Emperor to send her a suitable adviser from among his Orthodox subjects. The choice fell through Felbiger's recommendation on the already distinguished "director of the Illyrian schools" Theodor Jankowitsch. He accepted the offer and traveled to Russia in September 1782. In Saint Petersburg the year before, seven schools had already been built using the normal method, in which 26 teachers taught and which were attended by 426 non-aristocratic children. Jankowitsch found 14 of these qualified to become teachers themselves. A commission was immediately set up in the Saint Petersburg Governorate to test the new school system (Commission for the Establishment of Elementary Schools - комиссия об учреждении народных училищ). Members were Petr A. Zavodovskij, a priest's son and briefly favorite of the tsarina, Petr I. Pastuchov, member of the imperial cabinet, and Franz Ulrich Theodor Aepinus. Subjects were writing and reading, catechism and arithmetic . From the third grade onwards, history , geography and church history should be added, as well as natural history , mechanics , physics , drawing , calligraphy and German as a foreign language in the fourth grade . From the beginning, the Russian system was more oriented towards the natural sciences than the Austrian model. For the districts of Kiev , Azov and New Russia was Greek planned as a foreign language, Chinese in Irkutsk Governorate , as well as Arabic and Tatar in Islamic regions.

In 1783 Jankowitsch was appointed director of the elementary schools in the Saint Petersburg governorate until he was replaced in 1785 by Ossip Petrovich Kozodavlev. In 1786 he participated in the constitution of precise statutes for this type of school and also built up teacher training. In 1802 he was involved in the establishment of the first Ministry of Education and in 1804 he was appointed head of the educational seminar. For his services he was appointed a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences. He also translated school books from German into Russian, including the ABC booklet by Johann Balthasar Antesperg . During this time about half of the Russian school books had been written or translated by himself.

Finally, under Tsar Alexander I , his influence on Russian educational policy waned. Compared to the general school model based on the Austrian model for all sections of the population, classical training was preferred again in the course of the Napoleonic wars , with military training for young aristocrats. Jankowitsch stayed in Russia and died on May 23, 1814 in Saint Petersburg. He was buried in the Alexander Nevsky Convent in Saint Petersburg.

literature

• Constantin von Wurzbach : Janković von Miryevo, Theodor . In: Biographisches Lexikon des Kaiserthums Oesterreich . 10th part. Imperial-Royal Court and State Printing Office, Vienna 1863, p. 78 f. ( Digitized version ).
• Peter Polz: Theodor Jankovic Mirjevski and the Theresian school reform among Serbs and in Russia, dissertation University of Graz 1970, University Library Graz Sign. II 366.038
• Peter Polz: Theodor Janković and the school reform in Russia , in: Erna Lesky u. a. (Ed.): The Enlightenment in Eastern and Southeastern Europe: Essays, Lectures, Documentations . Cologne: Böhlau, 1972, pp. 119–174

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Андреǐ Степанович Воронов: Федор Иванович Янкович де Мириево, или Народныя училища, коронов . Едуарда Праца, 1858
2. ↑ Jan Kusber: Education for the Elites and the People in the Tsarist Empire during the 18th and first half of the 19th century , Franz Steiner Verlag, 2004 ISBN 9783515085526 (p. 184)
3. ↑ Yearbook of the Federal German Institute for Culture and History of the Germans in Eastern Europe: Reports and Research 11/2003 , Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag, ISBN 9783486567427 , (p. 189)
4. ↑ Jan Kusber : Education for the elite and the people in the Tsarist Empire during the 18th and first half of the 19th centuries , Franz Steiner Verlag, 2004 ISBN 9783515085526 (p. 189)
5. ↑ Jan Kusber: Education for the elites and the people in the Tsarist Empire during the 18th and first half of the 19th century , Franz Steiner Verlag, 2004 ISBN 9783515085526 (p. 183)
6. ↑ hrono.ru: Янкович де Мириево Федор Иванович
7. ↑ rulex.ru (Russian Biographical Dictionary): Янкович Федор Иванович (де Мириево)