Izvorni znanstveni članak
How to ‘rectify’ the past: the construction of memory on the fifteenth-century gravestones
Mladen Ančić
; Zavod za povijesne znanosti HAZU u Zadru
Sažetak
The author discusses the text of the epitaph to Viganj Milošević and places it in the social context in which it was written. The internal and external characteristics of the epitaph point to the conclusion that it is a narrative originating in the collective memory of the local (Hum) community. That narrative was at a certain point of time formulated into a written text. The author furthermore attempts to establish
basic data on the life of Viganj Milošević, and compares the realistic descriptions of historical events, based on the contemporary sources, with the text of the epitaph. It is concluded that the epitaph offers an ‘imagined history’ construed by manipulating historical facts. The goal of this manipulation becomes clear when placed into the context of social turbulences of the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries. That period saw the rise of a group of noblemen who succeeded in extending their rule over entire regions of the Kingdom of Bosnia.
The making of the epitaph may, thus, be interpreted as an attempt to resist the establishment of a new province, or as a strategy geared at maintaining the old social order and the reputation of the kin to which the deceased had belonged.
A similar manoeuvre may be observed in an epitaph on the necropolis of the noble kindred of Komlinović, written at the approximately same time and in the proximity of the tombstone of Viganj Milošević. The custom of serving the lord of the region
(rather than the monarch) is here integrated into the narrative as a normal and universally accepted matter. Here too the history was adapted to suit the needs of the family of the deceased.
Ključne riječi
Viganj Milošević; epigraphy; Kingdom of Bosnia; written culture; nobility
Hrčak ID:
27795
URI
Datum izdavanja:
15.7.2008.
Posjeta: 2.913 *