Viktor Novak was a Yugoslav Croat historian, professor at the University of Belgrade and full member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, and a corresponding member of the Yugoslav Academy of Sciences and Arts.
13 Facts About Viktor Novak
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Viktor Novak left his position there in 1924 to go to the University of Belgrade.
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Viktor Novak dedicated many years to the extensive research of clericalism and extreme nationalism among Roman Catholic Croats in Croatia, Slavonia and Dalmatia.
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Viktor Novak did extensive research on the cultural and political foundations of the Yugoslav movement in the nineteenth century, as well as on the relations between the reformer of the Serbian alphabet Vuk Stefanovic Karadzic and members of the Croatian Illyrian movement.
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In Belgrade Viktor Novak's writings represented a strict Yugoslav unitary concept.
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Viktor Novak would write: The future generations, freed of atavistic woes, with the aid of conscious national education, can bear in their hearts one great and holy idea, which will safeguard the people from external and internal enemies.
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In Belgrade Viktor Novak was a member of the Yugoslav Cultural Club and wrote in its unofficial journal Vidici.
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Viktor Novak would write in Serbian ekavian while working in Belgrade.
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Viktor Novak authored Magnum Tempus, Magnum Sacerdos and Magnum Crimen, a trilogy about the Roman Catholic Church in Yugoslavia and its relation to the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, the Roman Curia, and the Croatian clerical nationalism including Ustashe supporters and World War II.
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Viktor Novak was later elected to membership of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts and was made head of the Department for Social Sciences of the Academy.
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Viktor Novak was among founders and first director of the History Institute of SANU from 1947 to 1954.
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Viktor Novak was praised for his books on Latin paleography, which are considered to be seminal works on the subject in Serbian historiography.
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Viktor Novak was decorated with the Order of St Sava bestowed by the Serbian Orthodox Church.