Scientific Department of Early Modern History
The Department’s scientific and research activities are focused on Croatian history in the period from the fall of Constantinople in 1453 to the Congress of Vienna in 1815. This is a period that, from a European, and therefore Croatian, perspective, begins with the “Renaissance man”, who discovered that it is necessary to “seize the day”, and ends with the “revolutionaries” and “reactionaries”, who prioritized the realization of their political ideals at all costs. This was a period of reason and enlightenment, the invention of the printing press, microscopes and telescopes, but also bloody religious wars and mass persecutions of witches.
The Croatian early modern period began with turbulent changes caused by the expansion of the Ottoman Empire. The fall of Constantinople in 1453 and the defeat of the Croatian army on the Krbava Field in 1493 marked the end of medieval stability and the beginning of constant Ottoman incursions into Croatian territory. Croatia lost two-thirds of its medieval territory, many inhabitants fled, creating a diaspora in areas such as Burgenland and Slovakia. However, the Kingdom of Croatia survived, albeit in the form of a “remnant of remnants” covering only 23,375 km2. Its territory was geopolitically divided between the Habsburg Monarchy and the Venetian Republic. Croatian lands under Habsburg rule (from 1527) were divided into Civil Croatia and the Croatian-Slavonian Military Frontier, while Istria and Dalmatia were ruled from Venice. Only the Republic of Dubrovnik, despite its small territorial size, managed to preserve its political independence thanks to diplomatic skill and neutrality. Recognizing Ottoman “protection” in exchange for autonomy, Dubrovnik developed trade ties throughout the Mediterranean and managed to stay out of major military conflicts. The two-century-long “suffering” Croatian Kingdom was “revived” thanks to the great war of liberation that followed the second failed Turkish siege of Vienna in 1683. In successful military operations in the areas of Dalmatia, Lika and Krbava, Banovina, and Slavonia, an area of a total of 34,825 km2 was liberated. The Croatian lands remained geopolitically divided, and at the beginning of the 19th century, the Transsava territory was temporarily integrated into Napoleon’s French Empire as part of the Illyrian Provinces. Croatia’s turbulent early modern era ended with the Congress of Vienna in 1815, when all Croatian lands, including Istria, Dalmatia, and Dubrovnik, were placed under Habsburg rule.
Given that the official language in Venetian Dalmatia was Italian, in Civil Croatia Latin, and in the Military Border German, all relevant archival material on which the research in this Department is based is written in these languages, and the material created by institutions at the highest state level is stored, in addition to the Croatian State Archives, in archives in Venice, Vienna, Graz, Budapest, and Ljubljana.
The Department’s staff conducts scientific research on the institutional project Government is Us: Social Networks and Governance Structures in the Croatian Modern Age (VTSM), which is funded through the Program Agreement through the NextGenerationEU fund, and through work on the project Between Knowledge and Ignorance: Ideas, Practices and Heritage of the Enlightenment in Croatian Countries, which is funded by the Croatian Science Foundation.
Department employees:
- Ph.D. Alexander Buczynski, Head of Department
