Research Objectives
Research and Review of Core Secondary Literature
During the first year of the project, researchers will identify and review key secondary literature on various aspects of the Enlightenment in the Croatian lands. They will analyse interpretative models and assess how Enlightenment figures have been characterised in previous research.
Collaborators will conduct literature research in libraries in Croatia and abroad, as well as through online journal and book databases. Reports on the secondary literature, including annotated bibliographies, will be presented at the first workshop titled What is Enlightenment? and will also be published and made publicly accessible on the project’s website.
Research topics
Researchers will focus on selected case studies:
– Dr Teodora Shek Brnardić: Enlightened nobility through the examples of Bohemian Count Franz Joseph Kinsky (1739–1805), author of pedagogical works and an epistolary travelogue through the Croatian lands (1788), and Dubrovnik nobleman and reformist writer Toma Basegli (1756–1806);
– Asst. Prof. Stipe Ledić: Court agent Josip Keresturi (1739–1794) and Zagreb Bishop Maksimilijan Vrhovac (1752–1827). The aim is to examine the influence of Enlightenment ideas, including those of the Catholic Enlightenment, on their views and public activities within the context of social networks in the Habsburg Monarchy;
– Dr Stipe Kljaić: (Anti-)Enlightenment and (anti-)revolutionary thought and activity of the Dalmatian Franciscan Andrija Dorotić (1761–1837);
– Dr Zrinko Novosel: The reception of Enlightenment ideas and the circulation of knowledge among professors of the Royal Academy of Sciences in Zagreb, with a focus on Vinko Kalafatić (1747–1792) and his network of correspondents;
– Asst. Prof. Goranka Šutalo: The oeuvre of the Slavonian Enlightenment writer and Viennese court chaplain Joso Krmpotić (between 1750 and 1755 – after 1797) in the context of Catholic Enlightenment;
– Assoc. Prof. Katja Radoš-Perković: The non-musical works of the Split polymath Julije Bajamonti (1744–1800) in the context of his Enlightenment role in Dalmatia and Italy;
– Dr Maja Perić: The ideas behind the investments of Flemish and Dutch merchants in the Croatian lands during the 18th century
– Marta Jurković: The role of libraries in the production, circulation, and censorship of Enlightenment knowledge in Croatian Lands in the “long” eighteenth century.
Archival and Library Research
In the second year of the project, we will focus on locating and examining materials held in archival and library collections. Research will be conducted in domestic archives (Zagreb, Požega, Zadar, Split, and Dubrovnik) as well as in foreign institutions, including Hungary (Budapest), Austria (Vienna), the Czech Republic (Prague), and Italy (Venice, Padua, and Rome).
Special emphasis will be placed on uncovering correspondence and mapping the intellectual networks of Enlightenment actors. The findings will be presented at the second workshop, provisionally titled Agents of the Croatian Enlightenment, and the reports will be published and made publicly available on the project’s website.
Creation of the First Digital Reader of Croatian Enlightenment Texts
In the third and final year of the project, we will curate a selection of texts by key Croatian Enlightenment figures. The reader will cover a range of topics central to Enlightenment discourse, including religion, philosophy, natural law, political economy and thought, medicine, education, and science.
The texts will be edited from both printed and archival sources, published in their original language, and accompanied by scholarly commentary. This digital reader will be presented at the third workshop titled Enlightenment Texts and made publicly available on the project website.
Example: Letter by Ruđer Bošković on the upcoming transit of Venus across the Sun, read before the Royal Society in London on 19 June 1760. (© Neven Jovanović, Eclogai. Anthologia lectionum Graecarum et Latinarum)
We find it appropriate […] to promote the establishment of a Trading Company, which, by uniting its strength, knowledge, and care, will strive […] to develop the various branches of a necessary and profitable commerce.
