Aloysius "Lujo" Marun (born Stipe Marun 11 December 1857 – 15 January 1939) was a Croatian
Franciscan
The Franciscans are a group of related Mendicant orders, mendicant Christianity, Christian Catholic religious order, religious orders within the Catholic Church. Founded in 1209 by Italian Catholic friar Francis of Assisi, these orders include t ...
priest, who is known as the pioneer of Croatian
archeology
Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landscap ...
.
Biography
He was born as Stipe Marun in the town of
Skradin, northern
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 ...
.
After finishing primary school in
Sinj, he went to
Visovac Monastery
The Visovac Monastery ( hr, Samostan Visovac), part of the Franciscan Province of the Most Holy Redeemer based in Split (city), Split, is a Roman Catholic Church, Catholic (Roman Rite) monastery on the island of Visovac in the Krka National Park, ...
where he studied to become a
Franciscan
The Franciscans are a group of related Mendicant orders, mendicant Christianity, Christian Catholic religious order, religious orders within the Catholic Church. Founded in 1209 by Italian Catholic friar Francis of Assisi, these orders include t ...
, taking the monastic name Aloysius (shortened to Lujo).
Even before entering the priesthood, Marun's teachers had instilled in him an awakened national consciousness which turned him to research Croatian monuments.
He knew that the medieval
Croatian kingdom was concentrated in northern Dalmatia, which would be where most of his life's work would take him. Although he was not trained in archeology, he nevertheless participated in excavations in Knin in the early 1880s, and eventually managed to get transferred there in 1885.
He died in
Knin in 1939.
Legacy
In 2016, the "Fr. Lujo Marun" Student Residence Hall was opened near the Polytechnic "Marko Marulić" in Knin.
There are several streets named after him throughout Croatia, including
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 ...
, Split,
Zadar
Zadar ( , ; historically known as Zara (from Venetian and Italian: ); see also other names), is the oldest continuously inhabited Croatian city. It is situated on the Adriatic Sea, at the northwestern part of Ravni Kotari region. Zadar serv ...
, Skradin, Knin, and
Slavonski Brod
Slavonski Brod (), commonly shortened to simply Brod, is a city in eastern Croatia, near the border with Bosnia and Herzegovina. Being one of the principal cities in the historical regions of Slavonia and Posavina, Slavonski Brod was the 7th large ...
.
See also
*
Frane Bulić
Frane Bulić (October 4, 1846 - July 29, 1934) was a Croatian priest, archaeologist, and historian.
Biography
Bulić was born in Vranjic (now part of Solin), and studied theology in Zadar and then classical philology and archeology in Vienna ...
References
Sources
*
External links
City of Knin: Lujo Marun
{{DEFAULTSORT:Marun, Lujo
1857 births
1955 deaths
19th-century Croatian Roman Catholic priests
Croatian archaeologists
Croatian Franciscans
People from Dalmatia
20th-century Croatian Roman Catholic priests