Croatia Rediviva (translated as ''Revived Croatia'', or ''Croatia Reborn'') is a work by
Pavao Ritter Vitezović
Pavao Ritter Vitezović (; 7 January 1652 – 20 January 1713) was a Habsburg-Croatian polymath, variously described as a historian, linguist, publisher, poet, political theorist, diplomat, printmaker, draughtsman, cartographer, writer and print ...
published in 1700. Although the main intent of Vitezović was to prove that the borders of
Croatia
, image_flag = Flag of Croatia.svg
, image_coat = Coat of arms of Croatia.svg
, anthem = "Lijepa naša domovino"("Our Beautiful Homeland")
, image_map =
, map_caption =
, capit ...
(back then part of the
Habsburg monarchy
The Habsburg monarchy (german: Habsburgermonarchie, ), also known as the Danubian monarchy (german: Donaumonarchie, ), or Habsburg Empire (german: Habsburgerreich, ), was the collection of empires, kingdoms, duchies, counties and other polities ...
) were originally considerably larger, it grew into a political program based on a separate pan-South Slavic identity, related to the rebirth of the Croatian national idea, called the
Illyrian movement
The Illyrian movement ( sh-Latn-Cyrl, Ilirski pokret, Илирски покрет; sl, Ilirsko gibanje) was a pan-South-Slavic cultural and political campaign with roots in the early modern period, and revived by a group of young Croatian inte ...
. It is Vitezović's best known historiographical work, which had an immense influence on the later Illyrian movement.
Background
Following the 1699
treaty of Karlowitz
The Treaty of Karlowitz was signed in Karlowitz, Military Frontier of Archduchy of Austria (present-day Sremski Karlovci, Serbia), on 26 January 1699, concluding the Great Turkish War of 1683–1697 in which the Ottoman Empire was defeated by the ...
, a commission was set up led by
Luigi Ferdinando Marsili
Count Luigi Ferdinando Marsili (or Marsigli, Lat. ''Marsilius''; 10 July 1658 – 1 November 1730) was an Italian scholar and eminent natural scientist, who also served as an emissary and soldier.
Biography
Born in Bologna, he was a member ...
meant to establish the borders between the
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University) ...
and the territories of the Habsburg Monarchy. Pavao Ritter Vitezović became part of this commission in various roles to fulfill, which subsequently was the main cause and inspiration for writing this work.
[Oživljena Hrvatska Pavla Rittera Vitezovića]
Zrinka Perković Its precursor was a memorandum Vitezović presented to Marsili, as a protest to this treaty.
[The Redivived Croatia of Pavao Ritter Vitezović]
Ivo Banac, Harvard Ukrainian Studies, Vol. 10, No. 3/4, Concepts of Nationhood in Early Modern Eastern Europe (December 1986), pp. 492-507[Whose Love of Which Country?: Composite States, National Histories and Patriotic Discourses in Early Modern East Central Europe]
Sandor Bene, pp. 367
Publication history
The work was published by Vitezović in
Zagreb
Zagreb ( , , , ) is the capital (political), capital and List of cities and towns in Croatia#List of cities and towns, largest city of Croatia. It is in the Northern Croatia, northwest of the country, along the Sava river, at the southern slop ...
, and there are currently only three copies preserved. One originated from the inheritance of Marsili at
Bologna
Bologna (, , ; egl, label= Emilian, Bulåggna ; lat, Bononia) is the capital and largest city of the Emilia-Romagna region in Northern Italy. It is the seventh most populous city in Italy with about 400,000 inhabitants and 150 different nat ...
, others are kept in the Croatian State Archives.
Description
The work is actually a brochure numbering only 32 pages. It was intended as a draft for a much larger work which the author never managed to realize.
[
It begins with a dedication to ]Emperor Leopold
Leopold I (Leopold Ignaz Joseph Balthasar Franz Felician; hu, I. Lipót; 9 June 1640 – 5 May 1705) was Holy Roman Emperor, King of Hungary, Croatia, and Bohemia. The second son of Ferdinand III, Holy Roman Emperor, by his first wife, Maria An ...
, naming him, among other, "king of all Croatia", as a reflection of political ambitions outlined in this book. This is followed by an introductory in verse ''Monitio ad Prodromum'', where goals and ideas of the work are laid out. In the same poem, consisting of 9 couplets, he encourages the reader to send him more material such as sources and coats of arms. The whole introductory part is meticulously structured, thoroughly stylized (demonstrating Vitezović abilities as a printer), and using rhetorical devices such as puns, litotes
In rhetoric, litotes (, or ), also known classically as ''antenantiosis'' or ''moderatour'', is a figures of speech, figure of speech and form of verbal irony in which understatement is used to emphasize a point by stating a negative to further a ...
, homeoteleuton
Homeoteleuton, also spelled homoeoteleuton and homoioteleuton (from the Greek ,Silva Rhetoricae (2006)Rhetorical Figures for Shakespeare and the Scriptures/ref> ''homoioteleuton'', "like ending"), is the repetition of endings in words. Homeoteleuto ...
, etc.[
In ''Croatia Rediviva'', Vitezović sets out to first establish the origin of the Croat name (ethnogenesis), and then the extent of boundaries of Croatia, trying to reconcile contradictions in various sources ranging from chronicles such as ]Chronicle of the Priest of Duklja
The ''Chronicle of the Priest of Dioclea or Duklja'' ( sh, Ljetopis popa Dukljanina) is the usual name given to a purportedly medieval chronicle written in the late 13th century by an anonymous priest from Duklja. Its oldest preserved copy is in La ...
to historians Mavro Orbini
Mavro Orbini (1563–1614) was a Ragusan chronicler, notable for his work '' The Realm of the Slavs'' (1601) which influenced Slavic ideology and historiography in the later centuries.
Life
Orbini was born in Ragusa (now Dubrovnik), the capital ...
and Johannes Lucius
Johannes Lucius ( hr, Ivan Lučić; it, Giovanni Lucio; September 1604 – 11 January 1679) was a Dalmatian historian, whose greatest work is ''De regno Dalmatiae et Croatiae'' ("On the Kingdom of Dalmatia and Croatia"), which includes valu ...
.[ Using ]White Croatia
White Croatia (also Great Croatia or Chrobatia; hr, Bijela Hrvatska, also ) is the region from which part of the White Croats emigrated to the Balkans#Western Balkans, Western Balkans. Some historians believe that, after the migration of the Whit ...
, White Croats
White Croats ( hr, Bijeli Hrvati; pl, Biali Chorwaci; cz, Bílí Chorvati; uk, Білі хорвати, Bili khorvaty), or simply known as Croats, were a group of Early Slavic tribes who lived among other West and East Slavic tribes in the are ...
and the Legend of Lech, Czech and Rus as basis, Vitezović declared all Western and Eastern Slavs as Croats.[ The second part is a polemic against those who view Croats as different to Slavs and Illyrians. He maintains Slavs and Croats are synonyms, holding the term "Illyrian" as merely a ]Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
and Latin name for Slavs. By denouncing Lucius as a Venetian
Venetian often means from or related to:
* Venice, a city in Italy
* Veneto, a region of Italy
* Republic of Venice (697–1797), a historical nation in that area
Venetian and the like may also refer to:
* Venetian language, a Romance language s ...
apologist, he negates Venetian claim to Dalmatia
Dalmatia (; hr, Dalmacija ; it, Dalmazia; see #Name, names in other languages) is one of the four historical region, historical regions of Croatia, alongside Croatia proper, Slavonia, and Istria. Dalmatia is a narrow belt of the east shore of ...
.
Finishing the book with the newly attained belief that all Slavs held the Croat name, he views all the Slavic lands as being divided in two main parts: Northern Croatia (''Croatia Septemtrionalis'', which included Hungary
Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia a ...
) and Southern Croatia (''Croatia Meridionalis''), the latter being further divided into Red Croatia and White Croatia.[
White Croatia he divided in four regions:
*Maritime Croatia
*]Mediterranean
The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the e ...
Croatia
*Mesopotamian Croatia
*Alpine
Alpine may refer to any mountainous region. It may also refer to:
Places Europe
* Alps, a European mountain range
** Alpine states, which overlap with the European range
Australia
* Alpine, New South Wales, a Northern Village
* Alpine National Pa ...
Croatia
These newly coined terms corresponded to actual region of Dalmatia, Slavonia
Slavonia (; hr, Slavonija) is, with Dalmatia, Croatia proper, and Istria, one of the four historical regions of Croatia. Taking up the east of the country, it roughly corresponds with five Croatian counties: Brod-Posavina, Osijek-Baranja ...
, Noricum
Noricum () is the Latin name for the Celts, Celtic kingdom or federation of tribes that included most of modern Austria and part of Slovenia. In the first century AD, it became a Roman province, province of the Roman Empire. Its borders were th ...
, whereas Red Croatia consisted of Serbia
Serbia (, ; Serbian language, Serbian: , , ), officially the Republic of Serbia (Serbian language, Serbian: , , ), is a landlocked country in Southeast Europe, Southeastern and Central Europe, situated at the crossroads of the Pannonian Bas ...
, Macedonia, Bulgaria
Bulgaria (; bg, България, Bǎlgariya), officially the Republic of Bulgaria,, ) is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern flank of the Balkans, and is bordered by Romania to the north, Serbia and North Macedon ...
and Odryssia.[
]
Interpretations and influence
According to historian Ivo Banac
Ivo Banac (; 1 March 1947 – 30 June 2020) was a Croatian-American historian, a professor of European history at Yale University and a politician of the former Liberal Party in Croatia, known as the Great Bard of Croatian historiography. , Banac ...
, Vitezović treated his "pan-Croatianism" both as a historical construct and as a political programme, originating as an outrage against the centuries long fragmentation of Croatian lands and the whole Slavic south. The work is also a polemic against Venetian territorial pretensions and in favor of legitimising Habsburg expansionism. However, Vitezović did not treat his Greater Croatia
Greater Croatia ( hr, Velika Hrvatska) is a term applied to certain currents within Croatian nationalism. In one sense, it refers to the territorial scope of the Croatian people, emphasising the ethnicity of those Croats living outside Croatia. I ...
as a unified whole, acknowledging different customs, names and emblems of territories included. Although, he maintained these were not important for the common nationhood and lineage of the Croats. Banac also argued against treating this work as a case of national exclusivism, stating that this work also influenced the national movement of the Serbs
The Serbs ( sr-Cyr, Срби, Srbi, ) are the most numerous South Slavic ethnic group native to the Balkans in Southeastern Europe, who share a common Serbian ancestry, culture, history and language.
The majority of Serbs live in their na ...
and Bulgarians
Bulgarians ( bg, българи, Bǎlgari, ) are a nation and South Slavic ethnic group native to Bulgaria and the rest of Southeast Europe.
Etymology
Bulgarians derive their ethnonym from the Bulgars. Their name is not completely understo ...
.[ ]Ferdo Šišić
Ferdo Šišić (9 March 1869 – 21 January 1940) was a Croatian historian, the founding figure of the Croatian historiography of the 20th century. He made his most important contributions in the area of the Medieval Croatian state (disambiguation) ...
once regarded the work as a "Bible of Croat national policy in the 19th century", inspiring such individuals as Ljudevit Gaj
Ljudevit Gaj (; born Ludwig Gay; hu, Gáj Lajos; 8 August 1809 – 20 April 1872) was a Croatian Linguistics, linguist, politician, journalist and writer. He was one of the central figures of the pan-Slavist Illyrian movement.
Biography
Origi ...
, Eugen Kvaternik
Eugen Kvaternik (31 October 1825 – 11 October 1871) was a Croatian nationalist politician and one of the founders of the Party of Rights, alongside Ante Starčević. Kvaternik was the leader of the 1871 Rakovica Revolt which was an attempt ...
and Ante Starčević
Ante Starčević (; 23 May 1823 – 28 February 1896) was a Croatian politician and writer. His policies centered around Croatian state law, the integrity of Croatian lands, and the right of his people to self-determination. As an important memb ...
. Vitezović anticipated the Romanticist movement with his treatment of "nationhood".[ As was common for nationalist writers of that period, he speculated on the origins his people, drawing on a variety of historical sources. His work is in some ways a precursor to modern nationalist ideology.Nationalism as Ideology: Was Paul Ritter Vitezović a National Thinker or an Ideologist?]
Martina Topić He manipulated and misrepresented sources, perhaps deliberately, in order to support his own political intention in the book.
References
{{reflist, 2
External links
Croatia Rediviva
on Google Books
Google Books (previously known as Google Book Search, Google Print, and by its code-name Project Ocean) is a service from Google Inc. that searches the full text of books and magazines that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical c ...
1700 books
Illyrian movement
Croatian non-fiction literature
17th-century Latin books