Sazvežđa Pavla Solarića. U potrazi za savršenom prošlošću Slovena

The monograph Sazvežđa Pavla Solarića. U potrazi sa savršenom prošlošću (Pavle Solarić’s constellations. In search of the perfect past of the Slavs) analyzes the approach of the Serbian educator, philologist, writer and poet Pavle Solarić (1779–1821) to the past of the Slavs and the Serbs, in particular, to the development of their language. Solarić’s work has generally been overshadowed by that of Dositej Obradović (1739/42–1811), the main figure of the Serbian Enlightenment. Scholarly treatment of Solarić was occasional and superficial; he attracted little attention, and what little attention he did receive was often influenced by Jovan Skerlić’s judgment of which characterized Solarić as “unsettled” in his ideas and writing. This “unsettledness” must have discouraged many from venturing into the vast sea of Solarić’s writings. Those who did however venture into its depths, emerged with the knowledge that Solarić was by no means unsettled. On the contrary the extensiveness and comprehensiveness of his theories has required patient efforts to correlate and interpret the impressive amount of data Solarić has left us. His work invites scholars to re-examine their previously held convictions regarding the Slavs and the Serbs in order to gain a better understanding of the Slavic and Serbian cultural and linguistic histories past. Solarić, like Obradović, believed that the concept of “utility” was fundamental to an understanding of cultural and linguistic development but his elaboration of the concept differs from that of Obradović. This study is divided into three main units or chapters, which follow the evolution of Solarić’s philological thought and which are labeled as “constellations” because that is what they were: Solarić was certainly not the recluse that Nikola Andrić (1902) depicted him to be. Proof of this can be found in that fact that each of his stages were marked by relationships with a role model or role models and relationships with scholars involving discussions of contemporary philological issues.