Cvijic, Jovan

Cvijić, Jovan 

Born Oct. 12, 1865, in Loznica; died Jan. 16, 1927, in Belgrade. Serbian geographer, geologist, and ethnologist. President of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts from 1921.

Cvijić became a professor at the University of Belgrade in 1893. He was the rector of the university in 1907 and in 1919. In 1894 he founded the Geographical Institute in Belgrade. His main research dealt with the geomorphology and geology of the Balkan Peninsula (especially the karst and the Quaternary glaciation) and with the peninsula’s landscapes and population.

Cvijić was the leading figure in the anthropogeographic school in Serbian and Yugoslav ethnology. His historical and ethnologic research is summarized in The Balkan Peninsula (in French, 1918; in Serbian, vols. 1–2, 1922–31). In this work, Cvijić investigated the “zones of civilization”—that is, the historical and ethnologic regions—of the peninsula, the influence of geographic and historical factors, secondary human migrations, and the effect of such migrations on culture. Cvijić also provided a classification of settlements and structures and attempted to classify the “psychological types” of the population.

WORKS

Das Karstphänomen. Vienna, 1893.
Grundlinien der Geographie und Geologie von Mazedonien und Altserbien, part 1. Gotha, 1908.
“Bildung und Dislozierung der Dinarischen Rumpffiäche.” Petermanns Mitteilungen, 1909, vol. 55, parts 6–8.
Geomorfologija, vols. 1–2. Belgrade, 1924–26.

REFERENCE

Tokarev, S. A. “Prof. I. Tsviiich.” In the collection Slavianskii arkhiv. Moscow, 1962.