Tadija Smičiklas—his Life and Work

Autor u radu donosi životopis Tadije Smičiklasa, te razmatra njegovu djelatnost u temeljnim znanstvenim i društvenim ustanovama Hrvatske, u XIX. stoljeću: Jugoslavenskoj akademiji znanosti i umjetnosti, Matici hrvatskoj i Filozofskom fakultetu u Zagrebu.In his introductory paper, the author states that Tadija Smičiklas was born in the village of Reštovo (in the Žumberak region) in 1843, and that he died in Zagreb on 8 May 1914. After finishing his studies in historical sciences at the universities of Prague and Vienna, Smičiklas was, for several years, a lecturer at the Rijeka gymnasium and thereafter at the gymnasium in Zagreb. For many years, Smičiklas worked with the organisation Matica hrvatska, of which he was the president from 1889 to 1901. Matica was the publisher of his famous two-volume work Poviest hrvatska [Croatian history] (1879-1882), which is the oldest comprehensive synthesis of the history of the Croatian people. Smičiklas was for a long time professor in the department of Croatian history and auxiliary sciences at the Faculty of Arts in Zagreb. He was elected a regular member of the Yugoslav Academy of Sciences and Arts in 1883, and was later its president from 1900 to 1914. His scientific, professional and organisational work left a profound impression on the Croatian people, because he knew how to make his works close also to the wider public, strengthening in that manner the ideas of Croatian national unity and state continuity