Count Čedomilj Mijatović (; 17 October 1842 – May 14, 1932) was a Serbian statesman, economist, historian, writer and diplomat.
Mijatović served as the Minister of Finance six times between 1873 and 1894 and as the Minister of Foreign Affairs between 1880 and 1881 and again from 1888 to 1889. He was one of the leaders of the liberal Serbian Progressive Party. He also served as the Minister plenipotentiary of Serbia to the Court of St James's (1884–1885; 1895–1900, and 1902/1903), to Romania (1894), and the Ottoman Empire (1900).
Biography Early life and education His father Milan (1805–1852) was a lawyer who came to Serbia from the southern part of the Austrian Empire and became a teacher of Latin, history, and geography in Belgrade's First Gymnasium (Grammar School). However, Čedomilj Mijatović was primarily influenced by his mother, Rakila Kristina (1826–1901), who was of mixed Serbian-Spanish origin.
Mijatović studied a combination of economic courses and sciences in Munich, Zurich and Leipzig between 1863 and 1865 and completed his education by gaining experience from the National Bank of Austria and Kredit Anstalt in Vienna. He was a student of Lorenz von Stein and Karl Heinrich Rau and also accepted in his book theses the influences of Frédéric Bastiat and Henry Charles Carey. During his studies in Germany, he met his future British wife Elodie Lawton (1825–1908), previously a dedicated abolitionist in Boston, who influenced him significantly, and turned him into a devoted Anglophile. She was the first English-speaking female historian in Serbia and she published The History of Modern Serbia in 1872. Later she published a collection of Serbian folk short stories and a collection of Serbian epic poems.Elodie Lawton Mijatovics, The History of Modern Serbia (London: William Tweedie, 1872); (Elodie Lawton Mijatovics), Serbian Folk-lore. Popular tales selected and translated by Madam Csedomilj Mijatovics (London: W. Isbister & Co, 1874); Madame Elodie Lawton Mijatovics, Kosovo: an Attempt to bring Serbian National Songs, about the Fall of the Serbian Empire at the Battle of Kosovo, into one Poem (London: W. Isbister, 1881).
At the age of 23, he became a professor at the Belgrade's Velika škola, the highest educational institution in Serbia of that age. He taught political economy and wrote three very influential textbooks, two of which were based on Lorenz von Stein. In these works, he demonstrated his affinity for the liberal economy and influenced many later Serbian economists to take similar positions. As a professor, he started campaigning in favor of building a railway through Serbia. He gained many supporters among merchants and educated men for this idea, but many opposed him in Serbia during this campaign. He was also the earliest critic of communist and socialist utopian ideas in Serbia. His translation of Henry Thomas Buckle's book History of Civilisation in England, was published in Serbian in 1871 and influenced several generations of pro-Western Serbs.
Efforts to reform the Serbian Orthodox Church
Mijatović's wife was a member of the Wesleyan Church and was able to imbue her husband with nonconformist religious devotion. However, he always remained faithful to the Serbian Orthodox Church but wanted to bring some religious zeal into it. That was not a very popular task in Serbia of his time. He found a collaborator in this endeavor in the person of a Belgrade priest Aleksa Ilić who established a religious monthly Hrishchanski Vesnik (Christian Messenger, in Serbian Cyrillic: Хришћански весник), the first journal dedicated to a religious revival in Serbia. A Scottish philanthropist Francis Mackenzie who settled in Belgrade helped this project materially and Mijatović remained one of the main contributors of the journal.
He was the most active and influential Serbian translator from English during the 19th century. The bibliography of his translations includes about a dozen titles. Most of them deal with religious topics. That was his effort to contribute to a religious revival. His translations into Serbian include sermons of well-known British preachers such as Dr. Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Canon Henry Parry Liddon and Dr. Macduff. He also translated John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress and Dr. David Brown's Commentaries to the Gospels.
Mijatović as cabinet minister
At the age of thirty-one, he was already Minister of Finance at the end of 1873. He started his career as a protégé of the leader of the subsequent Liberal Party, Jovan Ristić, but soon joined the club of so-called young conservatives who turned into a kind of the personal party of the Serbian ruler, Prince Milan Obrenović (Prince from 1868, and King from 1882 till 1889). In the Government of Jovan Marinović, from November 1873 till December 1874 he was Minister of Finance for the second time and in that capacity, he was instrumental in bringing important reforms. He introduced the metric system to Serbia. Serbia joined the Latin Monetary Union and he christened the new domestic currency, the dinar, after Serbia's medieval silver currency. He always considered his most important achievement in this government the law stipulating the amount of property that had to be left to peasants, and could not be confiscated to cover their debts. This minimal amount included peasant's house, a yoke of oxen, the plow, and five acres of land. He was elected for the third time as Minister of Finance in the Government of Danilo Stefanović in 1875. Mijatović along with Dimitrije Matić, Konstantin Cukić, Mihailo Vujić and a couple of others were among the top economists of the last decade of the Constitutionalist period.
The group of young conservatives he joined established the newspaper Videlo and soon came to power in October 1880. In the Government of Milan Piroćanac, Mijatović got two tenures. He was Minister of Foreign Affairs for the fourth time and Minister of Finance. Being a close friend of the ruler and in control of the two key ministries, he was considered by many diplomats as the most influential person of this Cabinet. Prince Milan used him for the most significant missions. The two decisions that shaped Serbia's history for many years were carried out by Mijatović.
When modern political parties were created in Serbia, in 1881, the Progressive Party turned out to be the only of the three Serbian parties (the other two being the mostly pro-Russian Liberal Party and very pro-Russian Radical Party) that was ready to make an agreement with Austria-Hungary, which became the most influential country in Serbia after the Congress of Berlin in 1878. The ruler decided to open a new page in Serbian foreign policy and arranged that a secret convention should be signed with the Habsburg monarchy. Mijatović was gradually entrusted by the ruler to complete this task and on June 28, 1881, he signed the Secret Convention by which Serbia got the diplomatic and political backing of the Habsburg Empire but abandoned her independence in the field of Foreign Policy. When the two other most prominent members of the Cabinet, Prime Minister Piroćanac and Home Minister Garašanin learned about the exact contents of the Convention they decided to resign but had to accept the new reality in the end. In return, Mijatović had to resign his post as Minister of Foreign Affairs and kept only his tenure at the Ministry of Finance. His last act as Minister of Foreign Affairs was to sign a Consular Convention and a Commercial Agreement with the United States of America on October 14. 1881. During talks that preceded the signing of the Secret Convention Mijatović was well received in Vienna by the Emperor Francis Joseph and other dignitaries of the Empire. The Emperor later decorated him with the first class of the Order of the Iron Crown, which entitled its bearer to become an Austro-Hungarian count. Serbian citizens were banned by the Serbian constitution to accept any nobility titles. It is not clear if Mijatović ever officially submitted an application to become an Austro-Hungarian count, yet he used this title openly since 1915, being the only Serb from the Kingdom of Serbia who did it.
Affair with Union Général
As the Minister of Finance Mijatović had to secure Serbia's commitments from the Berlin Treaty by which she undertook to build the part of the Vienna-Constantinople railway line that went through Serbia. Since Serbia could not finance the project herself a proper foreign creditor had to be found and a Parisian financial society called Union Général was selected in 1881. Unfortunately, it faced bankruptcy as soon as the beginning of 1882, which brought the already shaky state of Serbian finances very close to complete disaster. Learning of the bankruptcy Mijatović urgently traveled to Paris and there supported by Austro-Hungarian diplomacy found a way out. Another financial house Comptoir national d'escompte de Paris (CNEP) took on the projects without detriment to Serbia. In spite of this success, the reputation of Mijatović's party suffered a serious blow and never recovered. It turned out that the agents of the Union Général in Belgrade had tried to bribe many MPs and politicians and the reputation of the Progressivists suffered the most from this. He took personal part in preparing a law on the establishment of the National Bank of Serbia that was passed by the Serbian Parliament in January 1883. He advocated the establishment of such an institution long before and had an opportunity to establish it during his tenure. The Government of the Progressivists resigned in October 1883.
Negotiator of the Peace Treaty at Bucharest
Being a lonely Serbian Anglophile Mijatović wished to be appointed as the first Serbian Minister in London, but had to wait until October 1884 when he became the second Serbian Minister at the Court of St James's. During this tenure, he came into contact with many influential persons but his diplomatic post in London soon ended since he was appointed to be the sole Serbian negotiator in Bucharest where peace negotiations were scheduled following the Serbo-Bulgarian War. Serbia attacked Bulgaria on November 14, 1885, and within two weeks suffered a humiliating defeat. It was thanks to the Secret Convention signed with Austria-Hungary that Serbia was able to get out of the war without suffering more serious consequences. In Bucharest Mijatović and the Bulgarian representative Ivan Evstratiev Geshov concluded, on March 3, 1886, one of the shortest treaties in diplomatic history with one article only: Article seul et unique. – L’état de paix qui a cessé d’exister entre le Royaume de Serbie et la Principauté du Bulgarie le 2–14 Novembre, 1885, est rétabli à partir de l’échange de ratification du present traité qui aura lieu à Bucharest. Mijatović proved to be a peacemaker since he had ignored instructions from Belgrade that were prepared in such a way that he was supposed to find an excuse for a new war. Apparently, Mijatović was more worried about what sort of reputation he would have in England if negotiations failed than about criticism from Belgrade for his conciliatory approach.
First self exile to London
Having returned from Bucharest Mijatović became for the fifth time Finance Minister in the Government of Milutin Garašanin in 1886/1887. Finally, in 1887/1889 he was for the second time Foreign Minister in the Government of Nikola Hristić (Hristić). In this capacity, he signed a renewal of the Secret Convention. However, the decision of King Milan to abdicate on March 6, 1889, effectively ended his special position at the Court. The new government encouraged persecution of the members of the Progressive Party. Faced with all these failures he decided to leave Serbia and withdrew to Britain in September 1889.