Pavao Ritter Vitezović | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | Paulo Ritter[1] (1652-01-07)7 January 1652 Senj,Croatian Military Frontier,Habsburg monarchy |
| Died | 20 January 1713(1713-01-20) (aged 61) Vienna, Habsburg Monarchy |
| Pen name | Paul Vitezović |
| Occupation | Historian, linguist, publisher, poet, political theorist, diplomat, printmaker, draughtsman, cartographer, writer, printer. |
| Language | Latin, Croatian |
| Notable works | |
Pavao Ritter Vitezović (Croatian pronunciation:[pâʋaorîterʋitěːzoʋitɕ]; 7 January 1652 – 20 January 1713)[2] was aHabsburg-Croatianpolymath, variously described as ahistorian,linguist,publisher,poet,[3] political theorist, diplomat,printmaker, draughtsman,cartographer, writer andprinter.[4][5]
Pavao Ritter Vitezović was born as Pavao Ritter inSenj, the son of afrontier soldier.[1][6] His father, Antun Ritter, was a descendant of an ethnicGerman immigrant fromAlsace, while his mother, Dorotea Lučkinić, was a native Senj woman.[1]
He finished six grades of theJesuit-run gymnasium inZagreb before moving toRome, where he stayed at theIllyrian College and met the renowned Dalmatian historianIvan Lučić.[7] He then moved to the castle ofBogenšperk (German:Wagensberg) near the town ofLitija inCarniola (now inSlovenia), where natural historianJohann Weikhard von Valvasor influenced him to study his national history and geography. There he also learnedGerman and the skills ofprinting andetching.[8][better source needed]
In 1677 he wrote a treatise on theGusić clan, published in 1681, the same year he wrote a number of poems for Father Aleksandar Mikulić, a Zagrebcanon. As he developed a reputation of a learned man, his native town ofSenj elected him as their representative in the various parliaments inSopron, Požun andVienna.[10] On 19 April 1683, due to the efforts of Ritter Vitezović, the Austrian Imperial chancellary proclaimed a charter granting the town of Senj their ancient rights, protecting them from the local military commander captain Herberstein who had terrorised the citizens at the time.[11][clarification needed]
Because of theOttoman wars he was enlisted and stationed in theMeđimurjetabor (garrison) underbanNicholas Erdödy. In 1683, when theGreat Turkish War started, he participated in the capture of the forts ofLendava andSzigetvar. After the war, ban Erdödy employed him as an officer of his court, where he also metAdam Zrinski, the son ofNikola Zrinski. He was initially named thepodžupan ofLika a purely honourable title with no actual significance.[12]
ThenCroatian Parliament named him as their representative in theImperial commission for thedelimitation withVenice andTurkey, but despite his contribution, the borderlines were drawn against Croatian interests, which greatly frustrated Ritter Vitezović. During his work at the royal and imperial diets inVienna andBratislava, Vitezović met many dignitaries from Croatia, and at one point wished to return home to live in Zagreb.[citation needed]
Sometime in the early 1690s, he returned to Croatia,[13] where he found out that there was a printing house in the Bishop's Palace in the city of Zagreb, acquired in 1663, but long since abandoned.[14] He asked his long-time friend Aleksandar Mikulić, who had by that time been named Bishop, to let him put it to use. He was soon in business, printing calendars and leaflets, and he appealed to theCroatian Parliament to give that printing house an official capacity. On 11 November 1694, the Parliament did indeed appoint him as the manager of the facility.[15] He then proceeded to move it from the Vlaška street to his house onGrič, and then travelled to Vienna, where he bought a newprinting press and everything else necessary for the printing of books. He named the new printing office the "Museum" (like Valvasor before him), and printed the first books inLatin and inCroatian.
The printing house was in operation between 1695 and 1706, and his best known workCroatia Rediviva ("Croatia Revived") was printed there in 1700. On 14 June 1706, the press was largely destroyed in a great fire, and Vitezović's wife died two years later, rendering him entirely distraught.[8][better source needed]
In 1710 he moved to Vienna, where he continued to publish, and was awarded an honorary title of a baron at the Austrian court. This however did not help his material status before he died in 1713.[8][better source needed]
His first work, a tractate abouth the dukes ofKrbava,Gusić, was written in 1677, and subsequently published in 1684, Ljubljana.
Upon establishing his printing press in Zagreb, he published a didactic work in CroatianKronika aliti spomen vsega svieta vikov (1696), which was essentially a compilation of works from Antun Vramec (1578). In it he argued thatDalmatia had always been part of Croatia. He continued to advocate for such stances in an unpublished critique ofJohannes Lucius'De regno Croatia et Dalmatiae.
In 1700, he published his most significant work,Croatia Rediviva, in which he worked out an idea of equating Croats with allSouth Slavs, a concept which he expanded in a large unfinished workDe aris et focis Illyriorum (On Illyrian altars and hearths).
By the end of his life, he published a history ofBosnia (1712, Bosna captiva) and a lineage ofLadislaus I of Hungary (1704), in which he attempted to prove that Ladislaus did not originate from theArpads, but from theTrpimirović. He also wrote a number of shorter texts, remaining only in manuscript; biographies Saint Vladimir andSkanderbeg, a history of theBan of Croatia (Banologia), a lost text about the Hungarian acquisition of Croatia during the Middle Ages, and histories of Serbia.
His only linguistical work, a Latin-Croatian dictionaryLexicon Latino-Illyricum, was preserved in manuscript. When writing in Croatian, he initially used his nativeChakavian regiolect, but subsequently also embracedShtokavian andKajkavian elements, similar to the Ozalj literary circle.
Vitezović contributed between 54 and 60 prints to Valvasor'sTopographia Ducatus Carnioliae Modernae (1679) andGlory of the Duchy of Carniola (1689), both asdraftsman andengraver.[16][17] These were typically cities and places ofCroatia andCarniola, which according toVjekoslav Klaić, he "visited carrying a sketchbook, drew them, transcribing them later onto copper plates".[16] His abilities as a graphic artist were later used in his 1701 heraldic bookStemmatografia. He studied cartography under AustrianGeorg Matthäus Vischer, whose maps of Austria influenced his later works, which he used in his 1700 work Croatia rediviva.[16]
As a skilled cartographer, he became a member of the Austrian military commission for the demarcation of the Croatian lands and theOttoman Empire (1699), under Ferdinand Luigi Marsigli. He, along with other contributors sketched the neighbouring areas, much of which is preserved in theNational Archives of Austria. A total of five maps are preserved in theCroatian State Archives, which are attributed to him.[18][19]
He wrote his poems both inLatin andCroatian.[20] His first major poetical workOdiljenje sigetsko (The Separation ofSiget) was first published in 1679, inLinz. The third edition of the work was later self-published in Zagreb in 1695.[21] It is variously described as an epic poem centered on the aforementioned siege (similar toVazetje Sigeta Grada) or a lyrical commentary ofPetar Zrinski'sAdrianskoga mora Sirena[22] (Siren of the Adriatic Sea), all written in doubly rhymed dodecasyllable, typical rhyming scheme in Croatia at the time.[20] He wrote Latinepistles to a number of Croatian, Austrian and Hungarian dignitaries and friends, numbering roughly 9000 lines of verse. In 1703, he self-published (Zagreb)Plorantis Croatiae Saecula Duo (Two Centuries of Croatia in Mourning), a work which is described as a poeticized chronicle[23] framed as a pseudo-autobiography, and an allegory to the baroqueStabat Mater topos.[24] It is centered on first-person narration by a personified Croatia (presented as mother-homeland), which tells its tale as a personal history of suffering with detailedpsychosomatic manifestations. This was followed by a vernacular poemSenjčica (1704), which demonstrates Vitezović was primarily motivated by patriotism, making him a precursor of such Croatian poets of the 19th century.[25] He wrote another similar work, Novljančica, which was lost.
Overall reception to Vitezović's poetry has been mixed. While the historian Violeta Moretti praised hisepistolaries as "mainly rich, well formed and fluent", she criticized his other Latin poems as being elusive in their meaning.[20] Zrinka Blažević of theUniversity of Zagreb praised his workTwo Centuries of Croatia in Mourning as among the best Croatian poetical works in Latin, containing great aesthetic qualities and an unusual narrative structure.[26] Conversely,Mihovil Kombol [hr] regarded his workOdiljenje sigetsko as lacking great poetic invention, instead treating its value primarily in historiographical terms. This interpretation was criticized by literary historian and writerPavao Pavličić, stating Vitezović had excellent knowledge of language and skill in versification, managing to create great and inventive poetry in certain places within the work. Pavličić claimed this negative view stemmed from misinterpretation of Vitezović's intentions, which is not to create an epic, but a lyrical collection intended to expand the existing aspects of the Siege of Siget.[27]
Literary historians such as Branko Vodnik, Mihovil Kombol regard him as a major figure of his age, particularly important for his ideas, using his vast energy and considerable talent to produce more works than perhaps all other individuals combined within Croatia proper during the 18th century. They also describe him as the most visionary and complete Croatian author of his time. In his literary works, he was traditional and innovative on one hand drawing parallels withIgnjat Đurđević, and on the other strove to bring his books to the masses and those less educated, which brought him closer to theAge of Enlightenment. He wrote his works in Latin and Croatian, covering a great variety of genres and themes, which included his many interests in historiography, heraldry, poetry, copper engraving, publishing and printing monthly periodicals, proverbs, puzzles,poetics, linguistics and geography.[25]
Ritter Vitezović proposed an idea for orthography solution for theCroatian language that every sound should have only one letter, and this idea later inspired the linguistLjudevit Gaj to reform the Croatian variant of Latin script and createGaj's Latin alphabet.[8][better source needed]
He created the Croatianexclusivist discourse within the early Illyrian movement and introduced the 'historical appropriation' concept to the Balkans which is actually an idea to claim national territory on the basis of the past conquests.[28][29] He was the first ideologist of Croatian nation who proclaimed that allSlavs areCroats.[30] The foundations of the concept ofGreater Croatia are laid in Vitezović's works.[31] His works were used to legitimize the expansionism of theHabsburg Empire insoutheastern Europe by asserting its historical rights to claim Illyria.[30][32] "Illyria" as Slavic territory projected by Vitezović would eventually incorporate not only most of southeastern Europe but also Hungary.[33] Vitezović defined Croatian territory, as including, besides Illyria and all Slavic-populated territory, the territory between theAdriatic,Black andBaltic seas.[32]Ferdo Šišić consequently regarded "Croatia Rediviva" as a "Bible of Croat national policy in the 19th century", inspiring such individuals asLjudevit Gaj,Eugen Kvaternik andAnte Starčević.[34]
His heraldic works influenced Balkan nationalistic iconography of the 19th century inSerbia,Bulgaria andRomania. He also wrote the firsthistory of the Serbs, which remains in manuscript.[28] He skillfully fabricated numerous genealogies and forged most of theTrophaeum nobilissimae domus Estorasianae (a genealogical treatise ordered byPál Esterházy).[35]
In Latin:
| In Croatian:
Unpublished (in manuscript):[37]
|
Ironically, the idea of claiming of national territory based on past occupation or conquest was originally a Croatian one. Pavao Ritter Vitezović [...] would introduce the concept of 'historical appropriation' to the Balkans, and then use it to expand the geographical size of Croatia.
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