Liječnički vjesnik, Vol. 134 No. 5-6, 2012.
Pregledni rad
THE LOWER NERETVA BASIN AS A PATHOLOGICAL TOPOS: PRESS REPORTS AND POLITICIZATION OF THE MEMORIES OF THE AGE OF CHOLERA IN 1886
Stella Fatović-Ferenčić
Mario Wokaunn
Sažetak
The lower Neretva basin as a space that has undergone historical transformation into a myth of a pathological topos has been analyzed. Starting from the fact that temporality is essential for understanding of the elements that partake in conceptualization of a myth, we have analyzed the state of this area as it was during its exposure to an epidemic of cholera in 1886. There is evidence that at this time exactly a step forward was made in comprehension of the etiology of the disease, which resulted in the change of centuries-long concepts of the Neretva basin as an unhealthy area. In this paper the Neretva basin was understood and presented as a field of unfolding of all kinds of transformations, a habitat exposed to manifold social arrangements, lushly documented in newspapers and other printed material. The arguments about the natural disaster in these texts are ethically and politically coloured, which to a large extent corresponds to the vocabulary of current print media on similar occasions. Thus, the area of the Neretva basin imposes itself as a multilayered anthropological concept, a multi-semantic ecologically and socially constituted reality, within which history functions as a valuable source of knowledge pliable to contemporary usage.
Ključne riječi
Cholera – history, epidemiology; Topography, medical – history; Croatia – epidemiology; History, 19th century; Politics
Hrčak ID:
172430
URI
Datum izdavanja:
25.6.2012.
Posjeta: 1.560 *