Original scientific paper
On the Examples of “Damnatio Memoriae” from the Croatian Heritage
Igor Fisković
; Department of History of Art, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
The phenomenon of ”damnatio memoriae” is followed on the monuments of the eastern Adriatic coast in a wide chronological arch, from the first century until the nineteenth century of Christ’s era. The selected examples, naturally, without exception corroborate the continuity of an ancient custom known in the wider world, but almost each one individually sheds light on the circumstances of its execution in the conditions of local history. Considering that only few have been clarified by documents and that they are in general not analyzed in the scholarly literature, an attempt was made at examining them within the chronology that only to a certain extent offers the framework for the reasons for the “prohibition to mention” or the methods of implementation of the “condemnation to oblivion”. The first position is reserved for the persecution of pagan signs and relics of ancient Roman culture by the Christian victors who secured the duration of the custom deep into the Middle Ages. Even though the majority of the others were prompted by transformations of ideological attitudes, primarily dependant on the decisions of ecclesiastical institutions, there are frequent consequences of state or political programs or even private encroachment or spontaneous actions. There are obviously no uniform rules and the chain of examples is followed up until the late period also as one of the aspects of culturological expression of provincial zones of urban and rural nature.
Keywords
“damnatio memoriae”; tradition; paganism; Christianity; Middle Ages; Venetian administration
Hrčak ID:
25865
URI
Publication date:
9.7.2008.
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