Gymnasium of Karlovci

The Karlovci Gymnasium is the high school (gymnasium) located in the town of Sremski Karlovci. It is the oldest secondary school in Serbia. This type of school is comparable to U.S. college preparatory schools or English grammar schools. History Under foreign rule After the Treaty of Karlowitz, the early eighteenth century was a difficult time for the Serbs in their northern lands (particularly in the region now called Vojvodina) under the new yoke of the Habsburg monarchy. The principle Cuius regio, eius religio was still in force throughout central Europe, though now pointing at members of the Eastern Orthodox Church instead of the Protestants. Judicial torture and cruel methods of execution were part of the legal process in the Holy Roman Empire until at least the nineteenth century. Despite the hardships and uncertainty of Ottoman rule, it is doubtful whether the many Serbs in Turkish-occupied Serbia would have preferred the life of millions of their Eastern Orthodox faithful who lived as serfs or feudal tenants in the Austrian Empire. Families were often forcefully removed from the feudal lands, deported, tortured and even executed at the whim of feudal landlords. Many Serbian families in the 1740s left for Imperial Russia to settle and start a new life among neighboring Zaporozhian Cossacks by founding New Serbia (historical province) and Slavo-Serbia. Enlightened Serbian bishops sent their students to Imperial Russia to study at the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy (now the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy) and Moscow Academy with instructions to return home and teach in their newly founded institutions of learning. Revulsion against the nature of Turkish rule should be measured against the standards prevailing in Christian central Europe during the eighteenth century. Schools of higher learning under the Habsburg empresses or emperors for Slavs in general and Serbs in particular were at a premium. Perhaps this explains the late flowering of educational institutions in territories under western European occupation, not to mention the territories of neighboring Serbs whose lot fared no better under Turkish domination.