Croatian History

Zwischen Ravenna und Konstantinopel entstehen im 6. Jh. zahlreiche Militäranlagen, davon einige schon an früher befestigten Plätzen. Hier werden nur drei am Eisernen Tor, drei an der Krka in Slowenien, zwei in Kärnten, eine in Bosnien, fünf an der dalmatinischen Küste und eine an der unteren Donau näher behandelt. Sie besitzen eine günstige strategische Lage, meist an wichtigen Verkehrswegen. Die Mauern sind je nach dem natürlichen Schutz ab 70 cm breit und als Zweischalenmauerwerk ausgeführt. Türme, Contreforts, Schießscharten und ein breiter Eingang nebst einigen schmalen charakterisieren die Befestigungen.
Die Innenbauten sind zumeist als Kasematten ausgeführt, in denen sich auch Werkstätten finden, sonst beschränkt sich die innere Verbauung meist auf Zisternen und Kirchen mit ihren Nebengebäuden. Die Größen der Kirchen entsprechen der von der Befestigung umschlossenen Fläche, ihr Typ als einschiffige Anlagen mit Apsis ist sehr einheitlich. Gelegentlich sind nicht dauerhafte Bauten (Hütten) nachgewiesen.
Als Beispiele werden Velike Malence, Korinjski hrib und Zidani gaber in Slowenien, Gradina und Gustjerna auf Zirje, Sv. Damjan auf Rab, Korintija auf Krk, Svetojanj auf Pag, Veliki Gradac, Boljetin und Čezava in Djerdap, Čarakovo in Bosnien und Golemanovo Kale an der unteren Donau angefürt. Die etwas unterschiedlichen beispiele aus Kärnten - Duel und Hoischhügel – waren schon früher in Gebrauch und wurden im 6. Jh. nur ausgebaut, was sich auch in den Kirchentypen zeigt.

Humanism launched a new attitude towards man and the world, bringing history to the fore of the Renaissance thought. Most of the treatises on historiography dealt with the question of the purpose and form of history. Such a stream of thought induced a number of methodological changes in the historiographical practice, but failed to establish a new theory for a discipline which, having abandoned the medieval ideal of history of salvation, found itself void of theoretical foundation. Frane Petrić was also to examine the relationship between historical comprehension and the political authorities, further deepening his research in quest of philosophical foundations of historical writing. Cognition was, in Petrić’s opinion, the principal beneficial value contributed to history (utilità dell’ historia) and was thus to become one of the major disciplines forming his integral system of cognition. He endorsed the empirical dimension of history in correlation with philosophical speculation, as a unique pattern of knowing of man and cosmos. Petrić has, therefore, centred upon the very bases of the discipline with the aim of determining its essence, scope and cognitive faculties. In his pursuit of the Platonic ideal of absolute knowledge, he has expressed his doubts about all the previously recognized views, questioning the category of knowledge, he has expressed his doubt about all the previously recognized views, questioning the category of knowledge and drifting away from his model for the sake of freedom of thought. The questions he has posed on the nature of human knowledge in the field of history have remained open for discussion to the present day. He elaborated on the subject matter of history, the category of time, truth, relation between history and the past, the role of a historian, subjectivity and objectivity, the nature of sources and the methodology of research. History, according to Petrić, is to interpret human life as a whole, from the common everyday life, to “great events”, seeking patterns of understanding in the accidental and singular occurrences of the historical events. Petrić has also inquired into the formal aspect of historical expression, interrelating it with rhetoric and poetics. Word is the link between man and cosmos, bringing together history, poetry and philosophy into a unique epistemological system. Although constructed on observable facts and restrained by a considerable number of rules, history, too, can contribute to the creative aspect of the humanity. According to Petrić, history, with its freedom of thought, is to seek the essence of things, having thus pointed to its cognitive possibilities. With the idea of events being articulated by an individual, a historian, Petrić has granted history the freedom comparable to that of art. Owing to his advocacy of the freedom of thought, methodological and theoretical issues, as well as his insistence upon philosophical, ethical and aesthetical qualities, Petrić’s work has continued to encourage discussion on the essence of history to our own day.

The convent of St. Jerome in Martinšćica, on the Croatian Island of Cres, that belonged to the Franciscan order of Glagolitic Tertiaries was founded in 1474. The books of revenues and expenses (Datja i prijatja) written from 1578 to 1920 in Glagolitic script are kept there. The first book (1578 -1618) was transcribed and published by p. dr. sc. Anđelko Badurina in 1995. Seemingly meager notes on the income and expenses reveal a great deal about the monastic community in the convent of St. Jerome, the other convents of the Third Order and the lay people from the Island of Cres who lived close to the friars. In addition to the date important for the history of the Third Franciscan Order, the economic history of the Island of Cres and the surrounding region of Kvarner, Istria and Dalmatia, these books uncover many other interesting details. They depict the everyday life in the convent and coexistence of the Tertiaries with inhabitants of Martinšćica, peasants and townsmen from Cres and the region, nobles and authorities as weel as with other friars of the Third Order.

Since the late 1970s, the historical changes concerning battlefield experience, including various types of behaviour, attitudes and motivation, have been treated by military historians like John Keegan and Richard Holmes. Converging with a social and cultural history approach promoted by e. g. István Deák and Peter Burke, the so-called “view from below” – largely based on autobiographic writings, correspondence and popular press – has also been applied by First World War researchers such as Eric J. Leed, Wolfram Wette, Leonard V. Smith, Oto Luthar and Frédéric Rousseau. Their conclusions tell us of suffering, short-term psychological shock, and long-term cultural trauma inflicted on the mostly conscripted combatants by the hitherto mostly unknown advances of military technology and social engineering, but also of the strong dedication towards the war goals of one’s nation, resulting in a strong will to persevere, which warfare sociologist Siniša Malešević situates within broader modernizational trends of “cumulative organisation of coercion” and “centrifugal ideologization”. Within that scope, and based on autobiographies, official military manuals, regimental histories and a selection of propaganda literature of widely defined Croatian origin, the author strives to reconstruct the experience of common soldiers, NCOs and officers up to the rank of major (i.e. a partially representative sample of “ordinary people”) concerning the gradually redefined notions of honour, revenge, hate and atrocities. Although incomplete, the sources suggest a conclusion that the 1914–1918 Croatian perspective in that field is similar to other European perspectives – surely, neither of them should be misunderstood as a uniform whole – but also characterized by interesting differences, arguably being a result of various political, social and cultural backgrounds.

The author discusses the wider conditions under which scholarly work of Dominik Mandić took place attempting to reconstruct the ideas behind his narrative of the Croatian national history as it unfolds in his works. The basic postulate of the paper is that it is impossible to understand the works of Mandić outside the context of the installment of a totalitarian societal project in Yugoslavia, and within that framework, in Croatia as well. Viewed from that context, the numerous works of Mandić reveal themselves as an attempt to formulate alternative discourse of the Croatian national history outside the totalitarian framework projected in Yugoslavia after 1945. His main concern was to demonstrate that in the middle ages the land of Bosnia and Herzegovina was part of Croatia while its population was of the Croatian origin. In order to corroborate his findings the author tries to pinpoint positions Mandić took vis-à-vis Yugoslav/Croatian historiography through the only public discussion Mandić engaged in with a Croatian historian, namely, with the historian Nada Klaić.

"Др Пол Исаак Хагоуел
Успомена и сјећање на Јасщювац имају кључну улогу
у изградњи трајног мира и пријатељства међу народима и државама Балкана. Научене лекције имају високу цијену, цијену губитка толико много живота невиних људи. Било која врста предрасуда и/или вјеровања у вјерску супериорност су, нажалост, фактори који могу довести до геноцида. Обавезно морамо водити рачуна о образовању и васпитању, као и вриједностима хуманости и толеранције, како би се заштитиле будусће генерације. Сјесћање на Јасен овац је наша обавеза и оно је свј ети о ник цијелом човјечанству. Испред нас је још дуг пут, али напредак је евидентан.
Кључне ријечи: Јасеновац, Независна Држава Хрватска, усташа, Други свјетски рат, холокауст, Католичка црква, Ватикан, папа, Грчка, Њемачки Рајх, Хрвати, Срби, Јевреји, Роми, европска историја 19. и 20. вијека."