Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.31192/np.21.2.5
The Wretched and the Pitful: About Lunatics and the Poor in the Croatian Historic Newspapers
Ivana Zagorac
orcid.org/0000-0003-4487-2102
; University of Zagreb, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
The paper examines the way in which the status of the poor and persons who were declared mentally ill was thematized in Croatian public space during the 19th century. The research is based on the analysis of texts from the oldest preserved newspapers that were published in the Croatian language and texts from professional journals of doctors and teachers that were published during the 19th century. The basic assumption is that publications intended for a wider range of readers and dedicated to current events shape their contents according to existing trends in the public space. Authors of newspaper articles often point out prejudice and discrimination against marginalized groups, while trying to provoke an emotional reaction from the reader. Newspaper articles also indicate the specific status of certain diseases of the mind and body. Furthermore, newspaper editors, as well as doctors and teachers in their professional newsletters, clearly see the connection between living in poverty and the physical and spiritual deterioration of the population. Great hopes were placed on education, which, according to the understanding of the time, had the power to prevent feeble-mindedness.
Keywords
education; mental illness; newspapers; poverty; syphilis
Hrčak ID:
306163
URI
Publication date:
17.7.2023.
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