Pavao Ritter Vitezovid; defining national identity in the baroque age. Catherine Anne Simpson The School of Slavonic Thesis submitted for the degree and East European Studies, of Doctor of Philosophy. The University of London. April 1991. -1- cýýýý. ,.,.: [1 Paginated blank pages are scanned as found in original thesis No information is missing , -2- Abstract This thesis is intended as a contribution to the understanding of national identity construction by national dlites in early modern Europe. It examines the development of national identity among the Croats and concentrates upon the life and work of the Croatian writer and scholar Pavao Ritter Vitezovit (1652-1713). His work in the fields of national history, linguistics and genealogy is treated as typical of the type of early modern scholar concerned with national identity, here termed identity constructor. The phenomenon of identity construction among the early modern Croats is set in the context of current debates over western and eastern models of national development. This is followed by an account of the development of a Croatian identity in the fields of politics and culture during the early modern period. Chapter Two is concerned with the social and intellectual forces which led early modern scholars to address questions of national identity. It examines VitezoviU's intellectual and moral world, in particular the character of his patriotism and its origins in humanist learning and in chivalry. Chapter Three looks at ideas of national renewal in Vitezovld's work. It discusses his analysis of the threats facing the Croats in terms of external enemies, namely the Turks and the lack of coherence among the Christian alliance, and internal enemies, namely the Croats' own decadence and indifference to their national identity. -3- The next three chapters examine aspects of the identity which Vitezovit presented-to the Croats in order to halt their decline into obsolescence. Chapter Four uses Vitezovid's ethnographic writings to examine how national identities are fashioned from existing material to suit current circumstances. It discusses his use of Slav and Illyrian literature to inspire the Croats with nostalgia for their former period of greatness. This longing would rouse the Croats from their present state of apathy and direct them towards the task of national self- renewal. Chapters Five and Six look at the importance of statehood for Croatian national identity. Chapter Five examines how Vitezovid set the existing political institutions of the Kingdom of Croatia within the context of the Croats' national history and defined the relations between the Croats and their king, the Habsburg Emperor. The following chapter looks at Vitezovit's grand scheme for an enlarged Kingdom of Croatia to be built under the aegis of the Emperor after the Ottoman withdrawal from the Balkans. It considers how historical and ethnic arguments are used to invest territory with national content. The concluding chapter examines problems of change and continuity within national identities. A brief survey of developments-in Croatian national identity in the half century after Vitezovit's death and before the rise of the romantic movement is followed by a general conclusion on the constraints which determine how a nation creates its identity. -4- Contents Abstract 3 Acknowledgments 7 Frontispiece (plate 1) 9 Chapters 1. Problem of identity 11 2. The caking of a patriot 39 3. Croatia in decline 60 4. Croatia reds vi va the genius of the nation 84 5. The Kingdom of Croatia: institutions 109 6. The Kingdom of Croatia: national boundaries 138 7. Change and continuity 161 Abbreviations 182 Footnotes 183 Appendices 1. Chronology 271 2. The extent of the Illyrian-Slav world 278 3. The works of Pavao Ritter Vitezovit 283 Plates 301 2. Coat-of-arms of Croatia 303 3. Coat-of-arcs of Illfricu. 305 Maps 307 1. The extent of the Illyrian-Slav world 309 2. The Ki ngdoe of Croatia 311 Bibliography 313 -5- -6- Acknowlodgn®nts The subject of this sally into current debates over national identity and nation-building has been reached by an indirect route. First a classicist's enthusiasm for the history and culture of the east Mediterranean developed into a particular interest in epic poetry and the oral tradition. This led to a curiosity as to how these traditions had continued among the inhabitants of the Balkan peninsula under Ottoman occupation. At London University, these interests, nurtured under one half of the Oxford 'Greats' course, combined with a willingness to pursue further the problems of identity to which I had been introduced during my undergraduate studies of philosophy. I accordingly express my gratitude to all the tutors and lecturers who have inspired, assisted and encouraged me in my interests throughout my time as a university student. My greatest debt is to my supervisor at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, Dr Wendy Bracewell. She has undertaken the task of teaching me the historian's discipline with patience and goodwill. I an grateful to her for bringing me to -appreciate the richness, variety and excitement of history. I must also thank Professor No Banac of Yale University who introduced as to the writings of Pavao Ritter Vitezovit and who has taken a keen interest in this project throughout its long gestation. I thank Dr must also Mark Wheeler and the staff and librarians at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies. -7- I thank the people of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia whose government provided me with two nine month fellowships to carry out my research under the aegis of the Yugoslav Academy of Arts and Science at Zagreb. I should like to record my gratitude to the many scholars, and librarians who helped me in the libraries and archives during my time there. Professor Miroslav Kurelac was most generous in the time he gave to discussion and in rescuing me from a variety of difficulties. In the National Library, I remember with gratitude and affection the staff and regular visitors of the Department of Rare Books ( itaonica Rijetkosti> who befriended me and thereby did far more than they realize to assist and encourage. Among their number particular thanks are due to Mr Draten Budita, Father Vladimir Magid and Mr Zlatko Plede, with his family. In England, I must thank Dr Robert Cockcroft of the Department of English at the University of Nottingham who sent me much information on anagrams and acrostics. I am also obliged to Mr Michael Ivory for his assistance in translating various Italian articles and texts. Pavao Ritter Vitezovid was beset throughout his career by a shortage of patronage. I have not been so troubled. My greatest debt is to my father, Mr John Simpson, patri, maecenati, amicoque meritissimo. Quanto magis nobila atque decorum est vera suae propaginis initia.......... tote ianu re, onstraret How much more noble and fitting it is t6-demonstrate hand with .e generous the true beginnings of a nation! . e. Pavao Ritter Vitezovit Preface to Serbiae Illustrates I Iibri octo -Io- CHAPTER ONE Problems of identity A nags is worthless without a backing of descriptions which can be produced on demand to explain its application. This is a study of national identity in the early modern era, before the rise of modern nationalise. More precisely it is a study of processes of identity construction among the Croats as perceived through the work of one Croatian writer of that period, Pavao- Ritter Vitezovit (1652-1713). Nations existed and were recognized long before the awareness of nationality became the fomenter of political ideologies. What creates this self-awareness, this national consciousness, is the perception of- a distinct identity which invests one's own community with its peculiar character and which in turn distinguishes it from other communities. The identities by which nations are distinguished from one another have never been immutable matters of fact, although they have at time been perceived as such. Rather national identities exist in a state of flux. Some identities persist while -others disappears. their, nations sometimes remembered only as a name. Within those identities which persist, the combination of identifying particulars is subject to change, making it a matter of debate whether any national identity can truly be said to persist. National identities do not evolve through processes of natural, unassisted development. In the Old Testament, Leviticus embodies an -11- t= early attempt by a nation to define its identity through drawing up a code of conduct. Not all nations have been so emphatic in the construction of their identities as the Jewish nation has proved itself to be. It is, nevertheless, difficult to look at the history of any nation, or indeed any social group, without finding some evidence of the deliberate nurturing of those identifying particulars which explain the application of their collective new. In this thesis, the life and work of Pavao Ritter Vitezovld provide a focus for studying the phenomenon of identity construction. The choice of a seventeenth century Croatian intellectual for a case-study sets this investigation amid the controversies surrounding the East European experiences of nation-building in the early modern period. The conventional historical view regards the early modern period in the west as a time-of consolidation in the processes of nation-building but in the east as `a period of confusion and stagnation. Nationalist rhetoric in turn fosters this outlook when it speaks of the era of nationalism in terns of rebirth, awakening and resurrection as if nations had been sleeping or dead "`` during the early modern, pre-nationalist age. `ýY`This tendency to exalt the significance of the modern age of nationalism in Eastern Europe at the expense of the early modern period, has its origins identification in .'too close an of the -terms state- and nation.