engleski

Whose culture? Perceptions of Croatian cultural identity in the late 19th century

After the breakup of socialist Yugoslavia, it became an ideological and political imperative to (re)position Croatia as a Central European country. The Yugoslav period of Croatian history emerged as a historical deviation, an ‘unnatural’ dislocation of (Central) European Croatia into its internal Other, the Balkans. All that was perceived as negative in the development of Croatian society could simply be attributed to the devastating influence of the wildness and backwardness of the Balkans. The devious and double- faced Yugoslav modernism, especially that of the socialist Yugoslavia, was to be held accountable for the destruction of the innocent and gullible Croatian Central European cultural utopia. Yet, if we look at the second half of the 19th century, the formative period for Croatian national ideologies, the perceptions of Croatian regional and cultural identity seem more complex. Both the Yugoslavism and the pravaštvo (the exclusivist Croatian national ideology) worked within the South-European, i.e. Balkan and Yugoslav framework, while at the same time appropriating German and French national models, cultural, philosophical and scientific influences, and Habsburg political traditions. It is especially interesting to explore these questions with regard to the late 19th century polemics between the modernists and the traditionalists, as it was largely based on differing conceptions of the relationship between Croatian culture and Europe. Is it possible to adopt modern cultural ideas without jeopardizing dominant national traditions? How can we discern between modern German cultural and political influence (the Drang)? What is the best model for modernizing (Yugo)Slav culture? In this paper I wish to address these questions that troubled the Croatian intelligentsia at the end of the 19th century.

culture ; cultural identity ; modernism ; traditionalism

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