Pro tempore, No. 20, 2025.
Professional paper
Croatia as antemurale Christianitatis: an example of the historiography of Matija Mesić (Summary)
Matija Pudić
Abstract
Today national myths serve as the foundation of national identities all over the world. Sui generis, golden age, sacred territory, and martyrdom myths all dominate public discourse and strengthen the feeling of national belonging. In the Croatian context today the myth of Croatia as the bulwark of Christianity (antemurale Christianitatis) is one of the main pillars of national identity. Alongside artists and politicians, a key contribution to constructing this myth was provided by extremely efficient mythmakers – historians. Among those historians was Matija Mesić, the first rector and full professor of Croatian history of the University of Zagreb, who combined mythmaking and historiography with his biography of Nikola IV Zrinski, the personification of the Croatian antemurale. That very relationship between myth and historiography is the main topic of this paper. The goal of the paper is to describe the national antemurale myth, in general but also in the case of Croatia, with a special focus placed on the mythologizing of the figure of Nikola IV Zrinski, and to show the unavoidable entanglement of myth and history through an analysis of Mesić’s book Nikola Zrinjski sigetski junak.
Keywords
national myths; antemurale Christianitatis; Nikola IV Zrinski; historiography; Matija Mesić
Hrčak ID:
349413
URI
Publication date:
20.9.2025.
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