When we Google “born to be”, the first search suggestions that appear are “wild“, “chic“ and “alive”. The first suggestion, “Born to Be Wild”, is a famous song by Steppenwolf, which was the theme song of the legendary movie “Easy Rider”. The other phrases beginning with “born to be” probably originate from the abovementioned song name and so does the title of this blog. The question is, however: How can someone be born to be forgotten? The construction is absurd in itself. If one is born to be forgotten, then the fact that they were ever even born is, by default, forgotten as well. This labyrinth of absurdity is resolved when we come to the realisation that a person can be forgotten or unknown to the general public, even though they are remembered by some people who mark their birth and death anniversaries. This is precisely the case with Božidar Knežević (1862–1905), who was the protagonist of the first episode of “Forgotten Minds of Serbia” (“Zaboravljeni umovi Srbije”), a documentary series produced by the Radio Television of Serbia in 2006.
Božidar Knežević was one of the most significant Serbian philosophers at the turn of the 20th century, just like Branislav Petronijević (1875–1954). Curiously, they were both born in Ub, a little Serbian town located some 60 km southwest of Belgrade. Most prominent Serbian 19th-century intellectuals, including Petronijević, studied abroad. Petronijević, who was somewhat younger than Knežević, obtained a doctorate in philosophy at the University of Leipzig. He worked as a philosophy professor at the University of Belgrade and founded the Serbian Philosophical Society. On the other hand, Božidar Knežević had a completely different life path. Having lost his father as an infant, he was raised by his mother and stepfather, who was a petty trader, just like his biological father. Knežević attended high school and the Great School (which then became a university in 1905) in Belgrade. In 1884, he graduated from the Department for History and Philology. During his studies, he made a living by offering private tutoring to children of wealthy parents. After graduating, he worked as a high school teacher in various provincial towns (Užice, Niš, Čačak, Kragujevac, Šabac). Gradually, in 1902, he managed to reach “the biggest provincial town in Serbia” – Belgrade. He took part in the Serbian – Bulgarian War of 1885, where he obtained a chronic lung disease, which ultimately caused his death (he passed away in Belgrade in 1905).
During his studies, he taught himself English in a country like Serbia where the literacy rate was merely 20% at the time and the predominant foreign languages were German, French and Russian. His translation work is significant in that he acquainted the Serbian educated public with contemporary British historiographic works. Some of them are the History of Civilization in England by Henry Thomas Buckle (published in five volumes), On Heroes, Hero-Worship and The Heroic in History by Thomas Carlyle, and Essays on Milton and Bacon from Thomas Babington Macaulay.
Although he was a historian by vocation, he is also considered a philosopher, thanks to his best-known work, The Principles of History (Principi istorije), published in two volumes: Succession in History (Red u istoriji), from 1898 and Proportion in History (Proporcija u istoriji), from 1901. This extensive work, over 600-pages-long, was, in the author’s own words, poorly received. Following Petronijević’s advice, Knežević tried to promote his work through aphorisms published in the work named Thoughts (Misli). Since the work was well-received by both critics and the general public, it had multiple editions. Even though this publication cannot be considered an abridged edition of The Principles of History, thanks to it, The Principles have not been completely forgotten. The two works differ by structure and content, as well as the intended purpose. While The Principles follow a determined order of information to present a coherent philosophical analysis, the Thoughts are a set of aphorisms listed in no particular order and covering diverse subjects.
History is the basis of Knežević’s philosophy. He sees it not just as an account of various stages of humanity but also as the supreme scientific discipline encompassing the history of the universe and nature since its creation. Man is a constituent part of the cosmos, so the history of mankind cannot be understood separately from the history of nature. Building on Darwin’s and Spencer’s evolutionary theories, Knežević introduced two main principles – the “law of order” and the “law of proportion”. According to the “law of order”, once every item is in order and harmony and takes up exactly as much space as required, everything will cease to exist. This is opposed to the order of creation. Therefore, the world and everything else can be created and can disappear only once. Therefore, there is no going back to the beginning. Everything exists and disappears only once. The principle of the “necessity of things” is crucial – things come into existence because they are needed and in the order in which they become needed. Knežević used various repetitive examples to explain his main principles. He used some of them as chapter titles in The Principles of History. Hereby, we will provide a shortlist of some of them: the material and the sensual have priority over the non-material and the abstract; the personal has priority over the impersonal; the inner over the outer, the direct over the indirect, the subconscious over the conscious, space has priority over time, the simple over the complex, the general over the individual and a whole consisting of many parts has priority over a single item. Knežević dedicated special attention to the process of distinguishing between the individual and the general. He provided an abundance of examples for this, including the distinction between galaxies and the cosmos, the organic and the inorganic, a subject and an object, an individual and society, etc. During the separation, there is a struggle leading to destruction. The stabilisation occurs when every item takes its place according to the law of proportion and all items are tied into a great organic whole. Knežević called this process “the path from discontinuity toward continuity, and from disproportion toward proportion”. The earlier the process occurs, the greater the influence it has on everything that takes place afterwards. Thus, the history of humanity can be taken stock of only at the end of the entire world’s history. Likewise, the later something is created, the lesser the need for it, which means it will disappear sooner. A great example to illustrate this is the author’s claim that early inventions, such as fire or writing, are far more important than the later ones, as they laid the foundation for the development of human civilization. Also, the need for them is far greater than the need for any other later inventions.
This short, incomplete, fragmented and utterly simplified presentation of Knežević’s philosophy can provide insight into his main philosophical thoughts. After his death, he remained known only thanks to his somewhat popular work Thoughts, while The Principles were gradually completely forgotten. The Principles were only mentioned during the commemoration of his birth and death anniversaries. Initially, his work was fiercely disputed and underestimated, particularly by his colleague Petronijević and some historians who paid attention to his work, such as Nikola Vulić. However, the public gradually understood the importance of his work. Still, it has never obtained a coherent evaluation. The analysis of his work has been twofold. Some wondered if he was an original philosopher, who his role models were and what the nature of his philosophy was. The majority of analysts agree that his work is fundamentally original, but they cannot agree on the importance and extent of other philosophers’ and historians’ influence. In addition to the authors whose works he translated, it is speculated that his work was influenced by the evolutionist Herbert Spencer, the philosophers of history Giambattista Vico and Johann Gottfried Herder and the philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Some even went so far as to claim that Knežević anticipated the ideas of the historian Arnold Toynbee. There is an even greater confusion regarding the nature of his philosophy, which was influenced by what other people wrote about him. Therefore, he was deemed a religious philosopher, a metaphysical idealist, a pantheist, a deist, a theist and a materialist.
The National Library of Serbia possesses several manuscripts of the author and, also, his daughter Milka’s manuscript. They were written in black ink or graphite pencil on sheets of ordinary paper or in cheap notebooks. “Thoughts” and “Writings on History” (“Spisi o istoriji”) were both written simultaneously. The “Writings” were most likely created by adapting parts of “The Principles”, which were then transformed into “Thoughts”. The manuscript called “The Notebook” is particularly important, and so is Milka’s manuscript titled “My Parents’ Life”. In “The Notebook”, Knežević describes his travels through southern Serbia and villages nearby Leskovac and Vranje in 1896, as well as his visit to Rijeka and Opatija, where he spent an entire month at the end of 1897. These travels remained unknown to the majority of authors who wrote about Knežević, so the popular opinion was that Knežević didn’t travel outside Serbia. His daughter Milka gave a touching account of the tough life of her family. Thanks to her, we now have information about Knežević’s private life. The manuscripts (except for the “Writings on History”) were partially published by the Library of Ub (which carries his name). However, they lack an appropriate scientific analysis.
From this short informative review, in which we haven’t listed all the works and translations, it is easy to see that Božidar Knežević is a philosopher who far exceeds the local framework and deserves the attention of experts, both in Serbia and abroad. His works were first presented abroad thanks to the efforts of George Vid Tomashevich who translated the abridged edition of The Principles of History into English in New York in 1980. To include as many experts interested in the analysis of Knezević’s philosophy, it is necessary to fully translate at least his two main works (The Principles of History and Thoughts) into English. This intriguing philosopher from the previous century, from a country such as Serbia, deserves far more than short entries in encyclopaedias. If his work was studied in more detail, he would certainly be given a more significant place in the history of philosophy.
