Sir Thomas More was born on 6th of February of 1477 or 1478 in London in a family which climbed the social ladder through the successful practice of law. He attended a Latin school, served as a page of archbishop Morton, who was then Lord High Chancellor of England, and studied the trivium at Oxford University. It is there where he became closely associated with English humanists Grocyn, Linacre and Colet and, following their example, studied Greek and wrote a number of humanist works. Respecting his father's wishes, he studied law and later became a successful lawyer. As a well educated lawyer and a respectable citizen, he started to work in the public service and became the undersheriff of London in 1510. After a period of vacillation, he started to serve at the court of Henry VIII, where his primary role was that of his personal adviser. In 1529, a major turning point of his career occurred when Henry VIII named him Lord High Chancellor of England and, thereby, the head of his advisers. Thomas More and Erasmus of Rotterdam were close friends and also the main representatives of the northern Renaissance and Christian humanism, one of the four basic currents of political thought during the Renaissance. Both of them were supporters of a Church reform which was supposed to be achieved through a practical Christian approach, based on piety and rationalism, rather than violence and persecution. As it was for the rest of the humanists, the English Reformation represented a major change in his life. In 1532, alleging health problems, he left his office because he did not support the king in his conflict with the pope on the matters of the royal divorce and the separation of Church of England. After refusing to take the oath which acknowledged Henry VIII as the supreme ruler of the English Church, he was imprisoned in the London Tower. On the basis of one false accusation, he was sentenced to death for high treason and executed on 6th of July of 1535, together with bishop John Fisher. Pope Leo XIII beatified him in 1886 and he was subsequently canonised in 1935 because of the sacrifice he made in defence of Catholicism, the holy, apostolic Roman Church and st. Peter's primacy. Thomas More lived during the period of Renaissance and humanism, when traditional medieval formulations and outdated dogmas were consciously being abandoned and the foundations of a new relationship towards nature and life being created. In the base of this spiritual and cultural revolution is socio-economic life. During More's life the feudal economic system was disappearing and new urban-capitalist economic relations were developing. The capitalist mode of production in England first developed in the agricultural sector because of high quality of English wool which became the most wanted raw material in the textile industry. Wool trade replaced fixed class positions and traditional working relations with workers' mobility and monetary exchange, bringing the newly freed serfs in a risky situation, while giving the capitalist lessees and land owners the opportunity to accumulate wealth rapidly at the expense of others. This resulted with the process of land enclosure in England, especially during the 16th century. The main consequences of enclosure were depopulation, the destruction of common pastures, pauperisation of farmers and the migration of the poor to the cities. On the one hand, the number of poor people, the homeless, thieves and beggars was increasing rapidly, and on the other, a monopoly of the wealthy living in luxury was being created. The unfavourable consequences of the capitalist mode of production and the general state of the economy inspired More to think of possible solutions. In his most famous work, Utopia, he proposes a new mode of production which is a socialist, planned and rational mode of production, distribution and consumption which represents a certain reaction to capitalism of the day. More's Utopia was written under the influence of humanist and reformist schools of thought in Britain and it represents the model for utopian literature. As soon as it was published, it provoked a great interest of the reading audience since its political literary character contains something unreal – something which challenges reality and inspires readers to take a different approach in understanding the world. More structured it in the form of freely connected dialogues and wrote it in two tomes in 1516, partially in Flanders and partially in London. In the first tome, More severely criticises key social issues in England, such as capital punishment and the politics of land enclosure and condemns the ruling feudal class for striving for wealth and luxury without wanting to work. He also discusses whether philosophers should advise rulers on political matters. In the second tome, More describes the political and social structure of Utopia where happiness, prosperity and justice rule and poverty and inequality are non-existent. The main idea of Utopia is the functioning of a planned society where there is no private property: all goods are communal. Since the goods belong to the community, and the society is divided in families, the social structure is egalitarian. The main dilemma which arises in the interpretation of this work is the following: should Utopia be seen as a satirical and allegorical literary piece or a serious political work? The supporters of the conservative interpretation think of Utopia as a stern satire of the socio-economic situation of the day and deny that it contains any communist ideas. On the other hand, socialist and communist interpreters consider it to be a serious real-political program. One of the main proponents of the latter approach is Karl Kautsky who proclaims More to be the first representative of modern socialism and communism. The third group of interpreters includes both protestant and catholic writers. The protestant and Anglican theologians try to demonstrate the inconsistencies of More's political theory, while the catholic interpretors try to prove there are no contradictions in the work. As we can see, in the history of political theory, many respected interpreters expressed conflicted interpretations and that is precisely what demonstrates the topicality of More's Utopia. As for the reception of More's Utopia in Croatia and the neighbouring countries, the Marxist interpretation which claims that the abolishment of private property would result with the disappearance of the class divisions as long as the distribution of resources was done by the communist principle: to everyone according to their needs is supported by the Belgradian sociologist Vojin Milić and Juraj Kolaković. The interpretation of Vladimir Filipović is the first attempt in Croatia to put emphasis on the philosophical part of More's writing in which he argues that the purpose of state and social organisation is in the ancient stoic ideal of happiness which can be reached by the path of virtue. Although we encounter different opinions on how modern More's Utopia is, it's important to emphasise that this work opens a new way of thinking which transcends reality and creates a new political and social ideal. This kind of utopian thinking represents a new form of political thought which is characteristic of the Modern Age philosophy. Even though More was trying to fulfil the longings of a newly forming middle class, consisting of humanist thinkers and the enlightened clergy in his “best social organisation”, his model was not spared of contradictions. Utopia may contain a mixture of eutopic and dystopic elements, but it remains one of the best works of humanism, which reached the status of a global historical classic of enduring topicality.