Professional Autonomy in Modern Society, Academics and Culture. Introduc-tion

The paper discusses autonomy as a factor that greatly determines the history and function of occupations and professions; and the discourse thereof in the 19th-20th century. The transition to modernity necessitated the transformation of societal and institutional conditions. These determined the directions of academic and artistic professions’ autonomous actions. Academic and artistic professions never justified the modern history of constantly conflict-laden individual and collective struggles for autonomy merely by generalised concepts of autonomy. Even though the professions in this era were united in their striving to disestablish heteronomy and claim autonomy, examining the professionalisation of various professions we find rather different forms of the process. The paper highlights these complex situations by systematically introducing different examples as well as discussing, in addition to academic professions, the unique paths of certain artistic fields towards their autonomy.