Milan Budimir ( sr-cyr, Милан Будимир; 2 November 1891 – 17 October 1975) was a distinguished

Serbia Serbia (, ; Serbian: , , ), officially the Republic of Serbia ( Serbian: , , ), is a landlocked country in Southeastern and Central Europe, situated at the crossroads of the Pannonian Basin and the Balkans. It shares land borders with Hu ...

classical scholar Classics or classical studies is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, classics traditionally refers to the study of Classical Greek and Roman literature and their related original languages, Ancient Greek and Latin. Classics ...

, professor, Serbian philosopher and Chair of the Department of Classical Philology.

Life

Budimir was born in Mrkonjić Grad,

Austria-Hungary Austria-Hungary, often referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire,, the Dual Monarchy, or Austria, was a constitutional monarchy and great power in Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. It was formed with the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of ...

(now in

Republika Srpska Republika Srpska ( sr-Cyrl, Република Српска, lit=Serb Republic, also known as Republic of Srpska, ) is one of the two entities of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the other being the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is located ...

Bosnia and Herzegovina Bosnia and Herzegovina ( sh, / , ), abbreviated BiH () or B&H, sometimes called Bosnia–Herzegovina and often known informally as Bosnia, is a country at the crossroads of south and southeast Europe, located in the Balkans. Bosnia and ...

). He was educated in

Sarajevo Sarajevo ( ; cyrl, Сарајево, ; ''see names in other languages'') is the capital and largest city of Bosnia and Herzegovina, with a population of 275,524 in its administrative limits. The Sarajevo metropolitan area including Sarajevo ...

and studied Classical Philology at the

University of Vienna The University of Vienna (german: Universität Wien) is a public research university located in Vienna, Austria. It was founded by Duke Rudolph IV in 1365 and is the oldest university in the German-speaking world. With its long and rich hi ...

, where he received his PhD in 1920. He was appointed the assistant the same year and soon the assistant professor at the Department of the University of Belgrade Faculty of Philosophy, than he was appointed Senior lecturer in 1928 and full professor in 1938. As the professor and the head of the Department of the Classical Philology, he worked until retirement in 1962, with interruptions during the German occupation in

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

. As a researcher of high rank, he was elected a corresponding member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Art in 1948 and became a regular member of the same Academy in 1955. Budimir died in Belgrade on 17 October 1975. Milan Budimir did research in the field of classical philology in all its branches: history of classical languages, especially Old Greek, history of Old Greek and

Roman literature Latin literature includes the essays, histories, poems, plays, and other writings written in the Latin language. The beginning of formal Latin literature dates to 240 BC, when the first stage play in Latin was performed in Rome. Latin literature ...

. He also did research of the Old Balkan and

Slavic languages The Slavic languages, also known as the Slavonic languages, are Indo-European languages spoken primarily by the Slavic peoples and their descendants. They are thought to descend from a proto-language called Proto-Slavic, spoken during the ...

, the history of religion, the heritage of the classical period in Serbia and Balkans, especially in language, literature and

folklore Folklore is shared by a particular group of people; it encompasses the traditions common to that culture, subculture or group. This includes oral traditions such as tales, legends, proverbs and jokes. They include material culture, rangin ...

, as well as the research in the field of

linguistics Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Ling ...

. He started and edited the Balkan magazine ''Revue internationale des Études balkaniques'' along with Petar Skok between the wars. Budimir was a founder and co-editor of the former main journal of Yugoslav philologists
The Living Classical Periods
' with the most distinguished Yugoslav classical philologists. The library of this blind scholar is at the Serbian Academy of Sciences and the Arts, Belgrade, where it is accorded a separate division among the special collection

The special library for the blind in Belgrade is named for Milan Budimir.

Currents of pre-Indo-European Researches

The scientific opus of Milan Budimir includes several hundreds of works, books, studies, treatises and articles which may be divided into five big groups. The first group consists of the works dealing with the research of pre-classical languages and cultures in the

Balkans The Balkans ( ), also known as the Balkan Peninsula, is a geographical area in southeastern Europe with various geographical and historical definitions. The region takes its name from the Balkan Mountains that stretch throughout the who ...

Asia Minor Anatolia, tr, Anadolu Yarımadası), and the Anatolian plateau, also known as Asia Minor, is a large peninsula in Western Asia and the westernmost protrusion of the Asian continent. It constitutes the major part of modern-day Turkey. The re ...

and the

Apennines The Apennines or Apennine Mountains (; grc-gre, links=no, Ἀπέννινα ὄρη or Ἀπέννινον ὄρος; la, Appenninus or – a singular with plural meaning;''Apenninus'' (Greek or ) has the form of an adjective, which wou ...

. Milan Budimir's chief merit in this field relates to the gathering and explaining of the voluminous lexical material of the languages of the pre-Greek Indo- Europeans, as well as to the establishing of the phonetic laws of these languages. According to the literary tradition, these, pre- Greek ancients are called the

Pelasgians The name Pelasgians ( grc, Πελασγοί, ''Pelasgoí'', singular: Πελασγός, ''Pelasgós'') was used by classical Greek writers to refer either to the predecessors of the Greeks, or to all the inhabitants of Greece before the emergenc ...

(Πελασγοί), but Milan Budimir calls them (Πελάσται), proceeding from the form Πελαστικέ (which appears in the scholias of

Homer Homer (; grc, Ὅμηρος , ''Hómēros'') (born ) was a Greek poet who is credited as the author of the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'', two epic poems that are foundational works of ancient Greek literature. Homer is considered one of the ...

's ''

Iliad The ''Iliad'' (; grc, Ἰλιάς, Iliás, ; "a poem about Ilium") is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still widely read by modern audiences. As with the ''Ody ...

'' 16, 223), from the onomastic material in the field (Παλαιστή, toponym in

Epirus sq, Epiri rup, Epiru , native_name_lang = , settlement_type = Historical region , image_map = Epirus antiquus tabula.jpg , map_alt = , map_caption = Map of ancient Epirus by Heinri ...

; Palaestinus, older name for Strymon etc.), as well as from some common nouns proved by evidence (Πενέσται, name for the conquered population in classical

Thessaly Thessaly ( el, Θεσσαλία, translit=Thessalía, ; ancient Thessalian: , ) is a traditional geographic and modern administrative region of Greece, comprising most of the ancient region of the same name. Before the Greek Dark Ages, Thes ...

; Πελάσται, name for the farmers bound to the land in

Attic An attic (sometimes referred to as a ''loft'') is a space found directly below the pitched roof of a house or other building; an attic may also be called a ''sky parlor'' or a garret. Because attics fill the space between the ceiling of the ...

). The second group consists of the works presenting the research concerning special relations between the pre-Greek idioms and the

Slavonic languages The Slavic languages, also known as the Slavonic languages, are Indo-European languages spoken primarily by the Slavic peoples and their descendants. They are thought to descend from a proto-language called Proto-Slavic, spoken during the Ea ...

; more precisely, the ProtoSlavonic language. The third group consists of the works dealing with the research of the general phonetic laws of the

Indo-European languages The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, D ...

, especially of the languages in contact. The fourth group consists of the works dealing with the research in the field of classical literature, with special emphasis on the pre-Greek origin of some literary genres and the European scene. The fifth group consists of the works researching the cultural relations in the folklore of the

South Slavs South Slavs are Slavic peoples who speak South Slavic languages and inhabit a contiguous region of Southeast Europe comprising the eastern Alps and the Balkan Peninsula. Geographically separated from the West Slavs and East Slavs by Austri ...

and the classical peoples; these works are in close connection with the second group of Budimir's works. ''(Currents of pre-Indo-European Researches - Source: Pelastian Proto-Slavonic Reletions According to the Researches of Milan Budinir by Ljiljana Crepajac, PhD.)''

Selected works

Milan Budimir presented and published results of his research which entered the best-known dictionaries and reference books in more than two hundred articles, discussions, studies and books with the following being the most important (titles given in English do not necessarily mean that an actual English translation has been published): *From the Classical and Contemporary Aloglotty (1933) *On the

and its Poet (1940) *''Grci i Pelasgi'' ("The Greeks and the Pelasgians"), Serbian Academy of Arts and Sciences, Department of Literature and Language, book 2, Belgrade (1950) *The Problem of Beech and Protoslav Homeland (1951) *Pelasto - Slavica (1956) *Die Sprache als Schopfoung und Entwicklung (1957) *Protoslavica (1958) *Zur psychologischen Einheit unserer Ilias (1963) *From the Balkan Sources (1969)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Budimir, Milan Serbian classical scholars Linguists from Serbia Historical linguists Linguists of Indo-European languages 1891 births 1975 deaths People from Mrkonjić Grad University of Belgrade Faculty of Philosophy alumni Linguists from Yugoslavia