Abstract: This paper provides a critical analysis of the memorandum submitted by Dr. Tihomir Ostojić, Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy in Skopje, to the Rector of the University of Belgrade and the Ministry of Education of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes in April 1921. The document outlines the educational, national, and government objectives of the newly established faculty, as well as expectations for its institutional contributions. It also underscores the early difficulties encountered by the faculty and outlines the strategies for addressing them. While the faculty's history is well-documented in historiography, this previously unpublished memorandum offers insights into the expectations placed upon the institution and the difficulties it encountered from its inception.

Keywords: Tihomir Ostojić, Faculty of Philosophy in Skopje, Southern Serbia, educators, students, national objective, cultural mission, national awareness, assimilation

Summary

The Faculty of Philosophy in Skopje was founded in February 1920. The first school year began in December 1920 with 60 students. Skopje was the administrative and economic center of the province of Southern Serbia (Vardar Macedonia, Kosovo and parts of Metohija and Sandžak), which Serbia aquired following the Balkan Wars and which became part of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes in 1918. It was an area that had been under Turkish authority for a long time, with a lack of educational and cultural development and an illiteracy rate exceeding 80%. Similarly, it was a region where the population's national identity had not evolved and Serbian and Bulgarian influences collided. That is why the newly established Faculty of Philosophy in Skopje had essential goals and objectives in education and raising the population's cultural level, but also the dissemination of state policy, the development of national awareness, and the prevention of Bulgarian influence. In April 1921, after the end of the first semester, the first dean of the faculty, a historian of literature from Vojvodina, Dr. Tihomir Ostojić submitted a memorandum to the rector of Belgrade University, which oversaw the Skopje faculty, as well as to the Ministry of Education of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes. The memorandum precisely outlined the tasks and expectations of the new faculty under the current conditions, which included educational and cultural, and national and political, aspects. Ostojić identified challenges faced by the faculty at the beginning its work and offered solutions for overcoming them. Ostojić died in October 1921, and only a few of his recommendations were adopted. The challenges he noticed in the faculty's work throughout the interwar period frequently called into question its very existence. Skopje's Faculty of Philosophy suspended its activities in April 1941, with the start of Bulgarian occupation in the Second World War.