ЗАДУЖБИНЕ КАО ФАКТОР ОЧУВАЊA НАЦИОНАЛНОГ ИДЕНТИТЕТА СРБА У ОСИЈЕКУ
ENDOWMENTS AS A FACTOR IN CONSERVATION OF SERBIAN NATIONAL IDENTITY IN OSIJEK

Summary/Abstract: The endowments of Serbs in Osijek were first noted in the second half of the 19th century when Osijek was dominated by the German-Hungarian influence, which contributed to assimilation. According to the achive belonging to Serbian Orthodox Church in Osijek and private arhive of a Serbian orhodox priest (protojerej-stavrofor194) Lazar Mišković, there have been 16 endowments of the Osijek Serbs from the middle of the 19th century up to now. The first endowment was established by Osijek trader Đorđe Kostić in 1873 and it was dedicated to the Serbian Orthodox chapel at the cemetery and scholarships for the local Serbian elementary school students. Among other endowments, cultural-religious elements were predominant and the founders established them in order to help the students and poor Serbs and to strenghten the cultural-religious work of the Serbian Orthodox Church in Osijek. With the help of these endowments, the Serbian Orthodox Church municipality had the access to funds needed to invest in the Serbian elementary school, for scholarships for its students and to help Serbian cultural societies in Osijek. In this way, the national, religious and cultural identity of the Serbian society was preserved in a city were Serbs were minority. After the Independent State of Croatia was established in 1941, all endowments of the Serbian Orthodox Church in Osijek were confiscated and in this way the process of elimination of the Serbian Orthodox Church municipality and its cultural-educational activities had begun. After the Second World War, the communist government granted tenant rights for the properties from the Jovan Lalošević, Olga Nikolić and Jelisaveta Vukašinović endowments. In that way, the Church had lost full access to these properties. After the war from 1991 to 1995, the new political system did not accelerate the return of nationalized Church property. Today, only the property-legal relationships of the Jelisaveta Vukašinović endowment are resolved and currently it is now and again being managed by the Serbian Orthodox Church in Osijek.

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