On Friday, the 29^th of October, 2021, Dr Uroš Stanković of the University of Novi Sad Faculty of Law held a guest lecture at the Forvm, entitled “The Student who Got the Job Done: Pavle Šeroglić, the First Critic of the Serbian Civil Code, and More…”. Pointing out that Šeroglić is known to most lawyers only as the first critic of our Civil Code, Dr Stanković first described his search of press articles and archive material for biographical data on Šeroglić, and then the results of that search. We found out that he was born in Sremski Karlovci, where he attended the Gymnasium (grammar school) – to which he will later leave his entire property – that he studied law in Sárospatak, and then in Vienna, before settling down in Petrovaradin, where he worked as a lawyer for a long time. He told us of the language and style that Šeroglić used in his writing (it’s worth noting that he knew Vuk Karadžić), of the kind of lawyer he was (not shying away from some illegal and unethical actions), and of his many clients – Prince Miloš himself included. Of course, he paid special attention to Šeroglić’s criticism of the Civil code, and the reasons behind Hadžić’s casual dismissal of it as a “student’s business”. He pointed out that Šeroglić’s response to Hadžić contains an unusually high number of citations for the period, displaying the author’s thorough knowledge of Roman, Austrian and French law. Finally, he spoke of Šeroglić’s less known work – his commentary of the Austrian Civil Code in Serbian, the (lost) commentary of the Serbian Civil Code in German, and the review of Prince Danilo’s Code. The commentary of the Austrian Civil Code is preserved as a manuscript (it was probably kept at first by Šeroglić’s nephew, Patriarch German Anđelić); it contains an impressive 900 pages, and it leans heavily on the commentary by Joseph Ellinger. Speaking volumes of Šeroglić’s stature is the fact that 16 church officials held the service at his funeral, three of which were archimandrites of the Fruška Gora Monasteries, and that so many people attended the funeral that some of them had to stand outside of the church. The lecture was followed by an interesting discussion.

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