University of Virginia Library

Serbs Charge Harris
With Sarajevo Stomp

Magda Gellish, Josep Princip
Professor of Serbo-Croatian
Languages at the University,
charged yesterday that Dean of
the Faculty Robert J. Harris has
tried to purge his department.

Mr. Gellish, a hirsute Slav
known for his support of Barry
Goldwater in 1964 and William
McKinley in 1900, charged "professional
jealousy" on Dean
Harris's part was the reason he
had failed to have his research
assistant Tula Garou promoted
and paid the federal minimum
wage.

"There is a conspiracy on the
part of the faculty not to give
my department its due," Mr.
Gellish said. "They are still bitter
about what happened to
Archduke Ferdinand."

Mr. Gellish elaborated that
Mr. Garou had come up for
promotion three years in a row—
in vain. He defended Mr.
Garou's reputation as a scholar
and cited the volume they had
collaborated on, "Indo-Aryan
Influences in the Dactylic Dilemma,
Or, Can the Serbs Be
Taught To Read?"

The controversy arose when
the Serbo-Croatian Graduate
Club sent a letter to The Cavalier
Daily attacking Dean Harris
as the "Tito of the administration."
They cited his supposed
hostility to the "Sarajevo School"
of which Mr. Gellish is a member.
This interpretation of Slavic
linguistics is best known for its
practitioners in Chicago's Serbian
quarter.

Dean Harris, recuperating in
the University Hospital from
knife wounds in the back, could
not be reached for comment.