Life road of Josif Pancic

Pancic’s ancestors, according to oral history, are from Herzegovina by decent. It is unknown when they moved to Ugrine, a village on the slopes of Mt Velebit, within the municipality Bribor, where towards the end of the 18^th century three brothers Grgur, Mate and Pavel lived. Josif, the fourth child of Pavel, was born on April 5^th (17^th), 1814. He finished Elementary School in Gospic and the care of  his further education was taken by his uncle Grgur, vicar in Gospic, who took him to Zagreb and enrolled him to Secondary School in Rijeka. In then six-class Secondary School, in which teaching was performed in Latin, Josip, in addition to gaining solid knowledge in all the subjects, completely mastered Latin and German and was self-taught in French, English and Italian as well as a bit in Spanish. After completing Secondary School, he enrolled to the High School REGIA ACADEMICA SCIENTIARUM (1830) in Zagreb, at the Faculty of Philosophy. However, given that natural sciences, for which Pancic has particular propensity, were of secondary importance at that Faculty, he enrolled to the Faculty of Medicine in Pesta, at which courses in natural sciences were also offered. Uncle Grgur supported him financially by giving him 15 forints a month. In addition to other courses, Pancic attended  Botany courses, taught by the then renowned botanist Sadler. He completed his studies by defending his doctoral thesis (in BotanyIZ) under the title Taxilogia botanica, which he dedicated to his uncle Grgur. He won the doctor of medicine title on September 7^th, 1843. Pancic’s first post was not in the state sector. He worked in Rukberg (Banat) as a tutor and physician with the annual pay of 400 forints and flat free of charge. After Rukberg he returned to his native land/? and after some time, (by uncle’s help,IZ) went to Vienna. During the course of one year, spent in the Natural History Museum, he studied and determined till that time collected plants and parallelly attended the lectures of the famous botanist Endler. During his stay in Vienna he got to know Miklošic and Vuk Karadžic. As advised by Vuk he went to Serbia reaching Belgrade in the second half of May, l846, during the reign of Alexander Karadjordjevic. In 1847 he was first employed as contractual physician of Jagodina county. In the same year he asked to denounce his Austro-Hungarian citizenship to accept Serbian one. At the end of the year (November 12^th) he was transferred to Kragujevac and appointed to be the temporary county physician. During his stay in Jagodina Pancic also visited cuprija where he met Ljudmila, baron Kordon’s daughter, whom he betrothed and married in the Orthodox Church in cuprija in January 1849. Four years later Pancic was appointed to be a professor of natural sciences in the Lycée, first under the contract, and after obtaining the Serbian citizenship he got the post as a full professor in the Lycée. At the Lycée, and later at “Great School”, Pancic has been working till his death. By his work, personality and way of life he exerted  great educational influence on many classes of students of the Lycée and “Great School”.  His scientific work and research results won him highest recognitions and international reputation and ensured to his people high place among other cultural people. In this way Pancic’s life  has been linked to Serbia for good.