(Franz Ritter von Mikloschitsch, 1813-1891)
Mikloschitsch represented one of the most respected Slovene philologists of the nineteenth century that emphasized the special study of languages in the Balkans. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Graz where he worked for a while as a professor of philosophy. There are clear indications that Mikloschitsch studied classical and Modern Greek (even passed a few exams from the classic) in Graz. In the year of 1838, he moved to Vienna and after a while received his doctorate in law. Although he had a doctorate from two entirely different disciplines, he mostly directed his research toward the study of Slavic languages. Due to his research, he got a job in the Imperial Library in Vienna, where he worked from 1844 until 1862. It is most likely that during this period he was studying Romanian language. In linguistics he appeared in a critical edition of comparative grammar of Indo-European languages by Franz Bop, German and Indo-Europeanist etymologist. During this period, Mikloschitsch paved the way for further and more detailed study of Slavic philology.
After the death of Jernej Kopitar, Mikloschitsch became a lector of Greek, Slovenian and Romanian books. From Kopitar’s rich legacy, he prepared a special book of unpublished articles and papers. For a new and honorary member of the newly formed society united Slovenia he was elected in 1848, along with the acceptance of MP function in the upper house of the Austrian parliament. He held the Department of Slavic philology at the University of Vienna from 1849 until 1886. As a representative of a cultural movement of Slovenes, he was also one of the participants in the literary agreement between Serbs and Croats in Vienna in 1850. He was elected as a member of the Vienna Academy, where he acted as the secretary of its historical and philosophical divisions.
His works are not numerous, but they include the first study of the Vlachos (Romanian) language, Albanian and Romani languages. In the Slavic studies, he paid special attention to modern Romanian where he has observed a great number of Slavic words. A collection of Cyrillic sources Monumenta Serbica spectantia HISTÓRIA Serbiae, Bisiae, Ragusii were published in Vienna in 1855, and nowadays represent very useful chrestomathy for Bosnian medieval sources. For Slavic Philology, Mikloschitsch following works are far more important:
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A comparative grammar of Slavic languages (in 4 books),
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Etymological dictionary of Slavic languages (which is still considered indispensable as a starting base for further etymological research),
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Old Slavic - Greek - Latin dictionary (comparative vocabulary which is the first of its kind in terms of Slavic philology).
His wholehearted and thrall study of the Balkan languages enabled him to be the first to notice and try to interpret the existence of common features in these languages. He was the first one to describe all the features, classify and name them as Balkanism. Mikloschitsch performed his conclusions primarily relying on the Vlachos (Romanian) language, and all the observations are worthy today, making the basic foundation for the rests of Balkan linguistics. Many Slavic philologists were his students and followers; among them the highly distinguished ones are Đuro Daničić and Vatroslav Jagić.
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