SOURCE: Lencek, Rado L. “Kopitar's Share in the Evolution of Slavic Philology.” Papers in Slavic Philology 2 (1982): 1-24.

In the following essay, Lencek summarizes Kopitar's theories and accomplishments as a seminal figure of early nineteenth-century Slavic philology.

My subject is one of which I think my first teacher in slavicis, Rajko Nahtigal, would have approved. He would have applauded my topic not only because he himself belonged to that line of Slavic philologists who came from the small world at the edge of the Eastern Alps—who does not know, to paraphrase the Book of Generations, that Kopitar begat Miklosich, and Miklosich Jagić, and Jagić Nahtigal and his brothers? But he would have been pleased primarily because my discussion is conceived in the spirit of his own evaluation of Jernej Kopitar as a philologist, recognizing his particular role in the history of Slavic studies (Nahtigal 1944: IX-XXIX). And let us...