Review article
https://doi.org/10.17234/RadoviZHP.56.13
Remembering Ante Starčević in Lika (Summary)
Željko Holjevac
orcid.org/0000-0002-4558-8042
Abstract
Ante Starčević, born in 1823 on May 23 in Veliki Žitnik near Gospić, established himself during his lifetime as a promoter of modern Croatian national thought. For this reason, even after his death in Zagreb on February 28, 1896, he remained recognizable in the collective memory. Generations of Lika residents, in and outside of Lika, kept a vivid imagination of his work and importance. Today, a lot is known about Starčević, but little is known about what was written about him by newspapers published in his native Lika and Lika media outside Lika. Thus, the Pravaški Hrvat, a newspaper for education, economy and politics published in Gospić, highlighted already on March 5, 1896 the news of Starčević’s death on its front page. From January 1907 to May 1908, Starčevićanac, the newspaper of Starčević’s party in Gospić, was published. The Hrvatska sokolska župa Ante Starčević, founded in 1909 in Gospić, held a gathering in Otočac in August 1910. Members of the Sokol movement from Gospić, Otok and Senj came to the gathering. The centenary of Ante Starčević’s birth was also celebrated in Lika during May 1923, primarily in Perušić. Lički Hrvat, the publication of the Lika-Krbava organizations of the Croatian Republican Peasant Party, dedicated a special issue to that anniversary. In May 1936, a memorial plaque to Ante Starčević was unveiled in Klanac on the parish church where he was baptized, on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of his death, which was also reported on in Zagreb’s Lička sloga, the most important publication focused on Lika between the two world wars. Ličke novine and Lički vjesnik did not particularly promote Anta Starčević during the period of socialism, although from time to time there were scant references to him in the regional periodicals (e.g. the article “Notable and Prominent Ličani” in the Lički kalendar for 1958) or his works (e.g. the article “Something about wedding customs in Lika” in the Lički kalendar for 1978). On the day of the Lika-Senj County on 23 May 1998, the President of the Republic Franjo Tuđman opened the Ante Starčević Memorial in Veliki Žitnik. “Ante Starčević’s thought is in the foundations of the present Croatian state”, Tuđman’s words were quoted by Vila Velebita, then a monthly newspaper of Lika and the Velebit area. In December 2006, on the occasion of the 110th anniversary of Starčević’s death, a special issue of the Vila Velebit magazine about his life, thoughts and creativity was published by the native Association Udruga Ličana Vila Velebita from Zagreb. Apologetic mythologizing during the first half of the 20th century and the almost monumental canonization of Starčević in Lika on the eve of the Second World War gave way to dominant ignoring and complete silence or extremely reduced public circulation during the second half of the 20th century to continue with affirmation and stabilization in the collective memory at the end of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st century.
Keywords
Ante Starčević, Lika, Gospić, Klanac, Otočac, Perušić, Veliki Žitnik, 20. stoljeće
Hrčak ID:
330246
URI
Publication date:
22.12.2024.
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