Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.17234/RadoviZHP.56.19
Marten fur as special-purpose money in the mediaeval period in the territory of modern Croatia and its role in the creation of the national monetary narrative (Summary)
Tomislav Bilić
orcid.org/0000-0001-6587-2561
Abstract
Although the introduction of the euro as legal tender in 2023 might finally bring an end to the polemics on the status of the kuna (Croatian for ‘marten’) as the name of Croatian currency, a full account of the role of the animal’s fur and its resonances in Croatian monetary history remains to be written. It seems permitted to claim that Croatian historiography is almost unanimous in its adherence to the national monetary narrative (here for the first time analytically conceptualized, defined and articulated), itself a segment of national historical narrative, despite the fact that it simplifies and approaches selectively the information from historical sources. There are two causes for this situation: the scholarship’s gradual failing to keep up with modern approaches to the concept of money and its functions on one side, and lack of interest for the historical and social context in which the national historical narrative was composed on the other.
In order to challenge this untenable position, historical sources that are traditionally understood as testifying to the use of marten fur in monetary contexts should be scrutinised in the light of modern methodological tools developed for a better understanding of the functions of money in different societies. The analysis of available literary sources allows the understanding of marten fur functioning as ‘special-purpose money’ in the mediaeval societies in the territory of modern Croatia.
The apparent coherency of the national monetary narrative conditioned the selection and acceptance of the kuna as the name of Croatian currency on several occasions during the 20th c. However, in reality this was merely a self-fulfilling prophecy, since the national monetary narrative was itself the decisive factor in the process of legitimation of the kuna. Therefore, the kuna as currency is an invented tradition, whereby its institutionalisation is extrapolated from a constructed continuity with the past and is thus legitimised by a historical narrative created and institutionalised by the professional elite.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
330260
URI
Publication date:
22.12.2024.
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