SUMMARY For most of its history, the Franciscan Province of Bosnia Argentina (Bosna Srebrena) operated in the context of low tolerance within the Ottoman Empire. In the 18th century, the empire found itself in a growing crisis that particularly aff ected its Christian and Jewish subjects. In this situation, the Bosnian Franciscans devoted most of their energy to the pastoral care of Catholics who lived scattered throughout Bosnia, mixed with members of the Orthodox and Islamic religious communities. At that time, the Franciscans had three monasteries in which they trained candidates for their order, but their education was not of a particularly high quality. It mainly consisted of religious instruction, training literacy, and acquiring the basics of the Latin language. For further education, the young men who took their vows – clerics – had to go abroad, usually somewhere in Italy. However, the penetration of Enlightenment ideas there led to various restrictions, so Bosnia Argentina sought more sustainable solutions elsewhere. Since Joseph II had conquest plans for the Bosnian area, he was personally interested in infl uencing its ecclesiastical situation. Th us, in 1785 a foundation was established to fi nance the education of the Bosnian clergy. It should be pointed out that Joseph’s original intention was for the clergy to be secular rather than monastic, and the fi rst scholarship holders who arrived in Zagreb had not taken religious vows. Th is plan was burdened with unfavourable circumstances from the beginning. Th e scholarship holders had little or no prior knowledge and had to start their education from the scratch. Since they spoke only Croatian, they had to be accommodated somewhere in Croatia and the fi rst choice was the Franciscan monastery in Zagreb. Moreover, the Habsburg-Ottoman War (1788-1791) ended in Habsburg failure, and Joseph II died without seeing its end. For these reasons, the training of secular priests lost its purpose. Th e foundation survived, however, and the Franciscan clerics became its benefi ciaries. Th e second problematic aspect was the internal shortcomings of the entire process. Joseph II had entrusted the management to the Locotenential Counil (Consilium Regium Locumtenentiale Hungaricum), which initially took a conservative stance that Bosnian scholarship holders had to complete the entire course of education. However, due to the defeats suff ered by the Monarchy in its wars against France, the material situation deteriorated and the amount of scholarships was not suffi cient to cover all the living expenses of Bosnian clerics. For this reasons, various confl icts broke out between them and the local Franciscans. Th e Council authorized Maksimilijan Vrhovac, Bishop of Zagreb, to mediate in this matter and his eff orts proved crucial for the successful organization of the process. During a relatively long period between 1795 and 1810, he constantly advocated the reorganization of scholarships following two principles: dispersion and dispensation. Vrhovac’s idea of dispersion was to distribute the Bosnian clerics among BOSANSKI UGRI 514 as many monasteries in Hungary as possible, in smaller groups. In addition, they could be transferred from one monastery to another at the end of each school year as needed. Dispensation was aimed at shortening the duration of stay on scholarship to 6 or a maximum of 8 years, instead of the original 12. Vrhovac planned to achieve this by freeing (dispensing) clerics from attending the classes in subjects that would not be of much use to them in Bosnia, but also by making Bosnia Argentina itself improve the quality of its Latin teaching. Th ese ideas were gradually accepted and implemented, and aft er 1810 the educational process became much better and faster. Over time, four Franciscan provinces operating in the Hungarian-Croatian part of the Monarchy were included: those of St Ladislaus, St John of Capistrano, St Mary, and the Holy Saviour. Th e most important monasteries that accommodated scholarship holders were located in Zagreb, Požega, Pécs, Baja, Szombathely, Varaždin, and Subotica. Of course, Vrhovac’s reforms did not eliminate the problems. Due to the diff erence in mentalities and various prejudices, confl icts of a disciplinary nature continued to erupt. Also, many clerics were uninterested in returning to the insecure Bosnia, so they looked for ways to stay in Hungary, even at the cost of leaving the priesthood. Finally, many were also struck by diseases, most commonly tuberculosis, and numerous deaths were reported. Nevertheless, it was the internal strives in Bosnia itself that proved crucial for the foundation’s closure in the mid-1840s. Th ere, the Apostolic Vicariate had been operating along with the Franciscan Province since the mid-18th century. Although the vicars were regularly Franciscans, many of them sought to impose their episcopal rights on Bosnia Argentina. Th is led to various confl icts, which culminated in the socalled Barišić Aff air, named aft er the apostolic vicar Rafo Barišić. At the time when he was elected vicar in 1832, internal polarization according to the place of foreign training could already be felt among the Franciscans. Two groups were formed: the “Italians”, whose numbers were steadily declining, and the “Hungarians”. Barišić belonged to the fi rst group and even before his appointment he showed strong personal prejudice against the “Hungarians” and the scholarship process in general. However, the parties for and against Barišić did not follow the same principle of division according to the place of training and many of the “Hungarians” addressed in this study were in fact supporters of the Apostolic Vicar. However, due to his oft en unfounded and even exaggerated accusations, the Habsburg side wanted to distance itself from the whole situation in Bosnia for a while. As a result, in 1844 the last sending of scholarship holders was recorded, one of whom was still studying theology in Zagreb in 1849. Th is study, based mainly on archival sources, seeks to reconstruct all phases of the said process and especially the total number of scholarship holders: their destinations, the course and duration of their education, and the date of their return to Bosnia or leaving the Franciscan order. Th e fi rst part presents the situation in Bosnia, especially in terms of education, before the foundation was established, as well as the circumstances of its establishment and the sending of the fi rst scholarship holders. Special attention has been paid to the original Habsburg plans for the training of secular clergy, and how the funds SUMMARY 515 were repurposed in favour of Bosnia Argentina. Th e second part focuses on the role of Maksimilijan Vrhovac in the whole process, whereby the implementation of his ideas on dispersion and dispensation has been shown on specifi c examples. Th e structure of the host provinces and the time of their involvement in the activities of the foundation have also been briefl y addressed. Th e third part deals with the challenges faced by the parties involved, especially those situations in which, due to various circumstances, individual trainings were suddenly discontinued. Finally, the end of the foundation’s activities is described, i.e. the events that led to it. Th e Catalogue lists all the scholarship holders identifi ed so far, with their basic biographical data and all the information on their training that could be obtained. Th ese data are also presented in tabular form. Eventually, all the monasteries in which the clerics stayed have been listed according to their provincial affi liation. Although the foundation’s operation cannot be considered an issue that historiography has never dealt with so far, the entire process has here been traced from beginning to end for the fi rst time, accompanied by the identifi cation of all its participants. Since these include names such as Franjo Jukić, Ilija Starčević, Marijan Šunjić, Martin Nedić, or Grga Martić, writing their collective biography as “Hungarians” was meant to open the way for more accurate and systematic research, providing a deeper insight into their role not only in the ecclesiastical, but also in the social and political life of 19th-century Bosnia, especially with regard to the spreading ideas of the Illyrian Movement.