Original scientific paper
Croatian Cyrillic Manuscript as a Monument of Croatian Historical Linguistic and Cultural Heritage
Ivica Vigato
; Sveučilište u Zadru
Abstract
The State Archive in Zadar keeps many manuscripts written in Croatian Cyrillic
in the Mletački Dragoman collection. Many of these writings refer to the Venetian
and Ottoman authorities’ correspondence about border incidents on the Venetian-
Turkish border. For this paper’s purposes, a file stored under box number 10, position
57/89 from the year 1680. was almost randomly selected from the mentioned
fund. In that file Gračac captain Muharem Gešain informs the Zadar general
about the kidnapping of three children and cattle from Udbina. The manuscript
also reveals the revenge for the actions of the people of Vinjerka, who had previously
killed and abducted cattle on the pastures of Velebit and in the area of Krupa
above Žegar. That is the period after the Candian War in which Venice expanded
its possessions in Dalmatia (Linea Nani). Within the Venetian Republic, there
are some places in the Zadar hinterland that are mentioned in the document.
This Croatian Cyrillic manuscript served the author to study the graphic linguistic,
phonological, morphological, syntactic, and lexical peculiarities typical in
the direct communication of the representatives of the then two states’ authorities.
The linguistic analysis allows the author to present, at least in some segments,
the cultural peculiarities of the people of the Zadar hinterland in the period of
frequent Venetian-Turkish conflicts and wars. Also, on the example of this manuscript,
the author wants to show how every document stored in the archives is
our cultural heritage. And for that heritage to indeed be ours, we must know, understand,
and learn from it.
Keywords
Zadar hinterland; Croatian Cyrillic; linguistic features; cultural features; 17th century.
Hrčak ID:
278885
URI
Publication date:
8.6.2022.
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