History for Everyone 1/2006

Author:

Stanislav JUŽNIČ

Damir GLOBOČNIK

Janez POLAJNAR

Marina GRADIŠNIK

Martin MOLL

Vida ROŽAC DAROVEC

Mario STRECHA

Article:

COPERNICUS AMONG THE SLOVENIANS

PREŠEREN’S CEMETERY MONUMENT – THE FIRST SLOVENIAN PUBLIC MONUMENT

PERNICIOUS AND FILTHY PRINTED MATTER

»BURGHERS, SIEVE AND POTTERY MAKERS…«

CHARITY EVENTS, FLAGS AND BRASS BANDS

“IN THE OLD DAYS IT WAS DIFFICULT BUT NICE”

»I WROTE THIS BOOK WITH LOVE, IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE LAWS GOVERNING THE ART OF HISTORY FOR HISTORY WRITTEN FOR THE PEOPLE«

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Stanislav JUŽNIČ

COPERNICUS AMONG THE SLOVENIANS

In his text, the author describes the early Copernican ideas noted in the catalogues of Ljubljana libraries and bookstores.

The library of the Ljubljana Lords of Auersperg, Mayr’s Sales Catalogue of 1678, and the books of the Ljubljana Jesuits are discussed. Although most of the sources cited belong to the era after the trial of Galileo, they nevertheless prove that Ljubljana scholars indeed participated in the exchange of ideas that took place in those days.

Research was conducted in the astronomy section of the Auersperg’s library and the contents and meaning of particular books were analysed. The material gathered from this library became the foundation for the author’s assessment of the Auerspergs’ scientific ideas, and most importantly their opinion on Copernicus.

The Ljubljana Jesuits and their library were also supported by the Auerspergs. The narration culminates at the previously unknown fact that the Ljubljana Jesuits owned the famous second edition of Copernicus (1566), which today can be found in the National and University Library of Ljubljana.


Damir GLOBOČNIK

PREŠEREN’S CEMETERY MONUMENT – THE FIRST SLOVENIAN PUBLIC MONUMENT

The cemetery monument to the poet France Prešeren in Kranj was the first Slovenian public memorial to be erected as a result of a massive public awareness initiative that arose at the time of his death in February 1849. A special Committee of the Slovenian Association was founded at the funeral reception, and entrusted with the construction of the memorial and maintenance of the poet’s grave. The papers Novice and Laibacher Zeitung both published news of the Committee’s fundraising drive and the names of all benefactors. The fundraising drive took place in all the Slovenian provinces. The greatest amount of contributions was made in Carniola, and some of the funds raised even came from Croatia.

The cemetery monument in the form of a simple relief image carved into a column was carved by the Ljubljana stonemason Ignacij Toman Jr., following the plans of an unknown Viennese architect.

As the memorial needed to be located in an open space, the Committee applied for permission to exhume the poet’s mortal remains, and Prešeren’s coffin was subsequently moved from its original unremarkable resting place by the wall of the cemetery to a much more prestigious location. The memorial was unveiled on July 3, 1852. The opinion voiced by the authorities regarding the ceremony was that it had no political overtones.


Janez POLAJNAR

PERNICIOUS AND FILTHY PRINTED MATTER

Endeavours for »better« prints before WWI

Blaming the novel and other »inappropriate« literature as one of the main factors contributing towards the corruption of Slovenia’s youth was a constant amongst the moralists and their efforts to keep the nature of the general public pure. In the second half of the 19th century, printed matter of all genres became far more readily available to the population. The moralists saw this as a potential problem – particularly in the case of penny-dreadfuls and other forms of light reading, which held the fascination of a large number of readers. Their main objection was that such works roused the imagination of the readers far too much and corrupted their morals, as, in their opinion, such literature popularised relationships without any proper objective backgrounds and decent intent. The treatment of delicate moral issues in the works that were accessible to the greater public was also considered undesirable in »serious« literature and elicited a negative response from the majority of the critics – not just the moralists. The moralists appealed to the national authorities to provide them with assistance in controlling the content of all such publications. However, the authorities were concerned primarily with violations of a political nature, and since this was where their primary focus lay, relatively few works that were the subject of such debates can be found amongst the confiscated printed matter kept by the Public Prosecutor’s Office.


Marina GRADIŠNIK

»BURGHERS, SIEVE AND POTTERY MAKERS…«

A contribution towards the history of the dry goods market town of Ribnica

Drawing upon various sources and literature, the author portrays the way of life in the market town of Ribnica at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century. Located in the southwest of Slovenia, Ribnica is a typical Carniolan market town which, like all such towns, required a strongly organised Church presence, as well as a castle with nobles or »purgerje« as the burghers were called, who elevated the town to a higher level of importance by dint of their status. However, unlike all other such towns, Ribnica had one additional characteristic: dry goods. This feature brought renown to the little town well beyond the borders of Slovenia; although to be precise, the goods were crafted in the countryside surrounding Ribnica, i.e. in the town’s hinterland and not the town itself. The inhabitants of Ribnica were well aware of the special importance of this specific characteristic and would often decorate their town with these wooden dry goods for important events, not only on market days. Although the market town of Ribnica exuded the same, ordinary life of any other market town in Carniola, the colour added by the special wares it produced and by the townfolk’s good sense of humour conferred it a special status of its own.


Martin MOLL

CHARITY EVENTS, FLAGS AND BRASS BANDS

The battles for space in the public arena in Styria circa 1900

Around the year 1900, Styria was a bilingual province, inhabited by a little under a million German Styrians and 400,000 Slovenes. During the years before WWI, the atmosphere was fraught with conflicts between the two nations. The events of the time were punctuated by heated debates on the allocation of public offices and the equal status of the Slovene language in the administrative offices, courts and schools. Both nations had a tendency to link their unrealised nationalist ambitions with more far-reaching concepts – the German Styrians with the idea of a Greater Germany, and the Slovenes with Pan-Slavism. The loyal government officials, permeated with Hapsburg patriotism, often found themselves in the unenviable position where they were forced, on behalf of the state administration and in the name of loyalty to the Austrian Royal Family, to deal strictly with all exaggerated outbursts of support for such super-state ideas.


Vida ROŽAC DAROVEC

“IN THE OLD DAYS IT WAS DIFFICULT BUT NICE”

The economics of rural Istria between tradition and modernisation based on a case study of the village of Rakitovec (during the first half of the 20th century)

The article discusses the economics of the Istrian countryside based on a case study of the village of Rakitovec during the first half of the 20th century, with particular emphasis on the activities of agriculture and animal husbandry. The study took shape based on oral testimonies of the witnesses of those times. Agriculture of the extensive type was the primary industrial activity on the edge of Slovenian Istria in the first half of the 20th century. The fields were tilled by hand with the use of simple technology. Small-scale family holdings measuring 3 hectares on average were the predominant type of property. Owned by one family, they sufficed only to meet the needs of the family members. Trade of a limited scope was done in the markets of the nearby towns with items such as hay, eggs, milk, wool, sheep’s milk cheese, lambs, etc., while more extensive trading took place in the Trieste marketplace. From the above, we can conclude that the economy of Rakitovec still showed many of the characteristics of a pre-industrial agricultural economy, and could also be termed a subsistence economy. This means that, despite the relatively close proximity of Trieste, the traditional social and economical patterns of survival remained alive in Istria well into the 20th century. Its inhabitants only began changing them after WWII, when the Communist authorities began to forcefully introduce changes into the traditional social structures of the Istrians.


Mario STRECHA

»I WROTE THIS BOOK WITH LOVE, IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE LAWS GOVERNING THE ART OF HISTORY FOR HISTORY WRITTEN FOR THE PEOPLE«

On the emergence and development of modern Croatian historiography in the 19th century

In his paper, the author presents the development of Croatian historiography in the 19th century. Beginning with an outline of its development and the emergence of a need for knowledge of Croatian history in the first half of the 19th century, the author then continues with a more detailed look at the formative process of shaping Croatian historiography into a modern scientific discipline, which began after 1850. The author concludes that Croatian historiography developed in keeping with the different ways of understanding German historicism. However, it did not produce only narrow political histories focused on the state, and clearly evinces efforts made to research the various areas of social life in the past. Despite this, Croatian historiography nevertheless still had the characteristics of a political and event-based history, which remained its main defining feature well into the 20th century.