Preliminary communication
Došen’s Echoes of Mountain (1767) and Seven-headed Dragon (1768) in the Context of the Catholic Renovation Context and Regarding the Aspects of the Catholic Enlightenment
Goranka Šutalo
orcid.org/0000-0002-6706-4143
; Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences University of Zagreb, Department of Croatian Studies, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
Croatian literary historiography (Matić, Kombol, Georgijević, Bogišić, et al.) described Vid Došen mostly as a religious writer, who in his writings Echoes of Mountain and Seven-headed Dragon criticized folklife and customs in Slavonia in the eighteenth century. As such Došen was predominantly perceived as an enlightenment writer, whose most prominent representative in Slavonia was Matija Antun Relković. Still, Došen’s enlightenment work, which was similar to the first edition of Relković’s Satyr or a Wild Man (1762), is not sufficiently explained. Therefore, the author of this article tries to analyze Došen’s writings from the perspective of the Catholic renovation, which was a long-term process. Moreover, Došen’s work is also contextualized within Catholic Enlightenment, since such ideas
are recognizable through Došen’s attitude that beneficial actions should contribute to the public good (i.e. benefit of a community). The latter, according to the author of the article, is especially important since these Catholic-enlightenment elements in Došen’s writings can help us to define and explain the significance of his enlightenment work. Namely, Došen as a priest should have been acquainted with Josephine and contemporary reform ideas. In Echoes of Mountain author underscores Relković’s efforts regarding the benefits of folk, which can be related to the politics of the Habsburg rulers in the eighteenth century and their concern about the advancement of the community. Thus, such an attitude reveals the author of the Echoes as a supporter of the ideas of (Austrian) Catholic enlighteners. Although Došen’s Dragon primarily is related to the issues of the Catholic renovation (the topic of seven deadly sins), it seems that the author uses this topic to criticize each one of the deadly sins and the damage these sins do to a community. Furthermore, the author emphasizes usefulness as a particular virtue that appears in all the seven reprimands to the Seven-headed Dragon, and because of that one can conclude that Došen in this work followed examples of Catholic enlighteners, who regarded usefulness (benefit of a community) as a prime maxim.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
251785
URI
Publication date:
12.8.2020.
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