Preliminary communication
https://doi.org/10.31724/rihjj.52.1.24
Contemporary Readers’ Memory of Marko Marulić and Older Croatian Literature
Lovro Škopljanac
orcid.org/0000-0001-9996-6283
; Filozofski fakultet Sveučilišta u Zagrebu
Abstract
The paper utilizes an empirical research project about everyday readers of literature in order to ascertain the presence of Marko Marulić as a writer in the cultural memory of contemporary Croatian readers. It outlines the relevant results of the project before situating Marulić as one of the few (less than 3% of the total 1374) remembered authors who wrote prior to the 19th century. Snippets from the single interview in which a respondent focused on one of Marulić’s works (Judita) are presented, followed by three other groups of interview snippets in which Marulić is associated primarily with the contexts of public presence (six readers), intertextual association (five readers), and required reading (nine readers). These results and interview snippets are then analyzed, showing that “Marulić” is remembered as a cultural signifier among contemporary Croatians, although usually as part of a broader author agglutination that refers to a number of older literary authors and genres, which incidentally makes such associations prone to errors. In conclusion, his presence as an author in cultural memory is affirmed on a scale ranging from being a positive symbol to signifying bibliotrauma, while at the same time his literary texts are found to be all but forgotten among contemporary readers.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
343911
URI
Publication date:
1.4.2026.
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