Review article
https://doi.org/10.34075/sb.63.4.3
500th Anniversary of Marko Marulić’s Death: Marul’s Spiritual Legacy
Mladen Parlov
orcid.org/0000-0002-7248-3959
; Catholic Faculty of Theology in Split
Abstract
Spiritual heritage in the broadest sense of the word is all that is left behind by a person, generation, or nation, regardless of the value judgment about that heritage. In that sense, material achievements can be also called spiritual heritage since they are the fruit of the human mind, that is, the human spirit. In the narrower sense of the word, we can say that a person’s spiritual heritage is a legacy that is inspired by the culture in which the person lived and that has influenced the culture of future generations. In this narrower sense, the very example of life is presented as heritage because someone can be a challenge and a source of inspiration for new generations with the example of his life. The lives of prominent persons, for example the persons that Christians call saints, are an example of this kind of heritage. We can apply all three mentioned types of spiritual heritage to Marko Marulić (1450-1524). Namely, he left behind numerous works, some of which we could not count as spiritual heritage, at least of the Christian type in the narrower sense of the word (for example, part of the so-called Glasgow verses). At the same time, Marulić left behind the works that already served his contemporaries as a source of inspiration for a better life. Here we think especially of the Evangelistar and the Institution, but also of other works of Christian inspiration that have been published and translated into several European languages. His works were read by kings and bishops, saints and sinners, learned and less learned. For almost two centuries, Marul has inspired, challenged and encouraged entire generations of lay believers, monks and priests. In the end, as his contemporaries tell us, Marulić lived a truly saintly life, so that he not only died renowned for holiness - in fama sanctitatis - but became a challenge and inspiration for his contemporaries and future generations for a more humane and better life. Marulić’s spiritual heritage had a special echo among the people he belonged to and was proud of. In the nineteenth century he was called the “father of Croatian literature” (Ivan Kukuljević Sakcinski), and in the twentieth, under a foreign heel, Marul slowly sank into oblivion. It was to be hoped that with the establishment of the Croatian state Marulić would become for the Croats what Dante was for the Italians or Goethe for the Germans. But we don’t seem to know what to do with Marulić, so we ask ourselves: Should he be expelled from school textbooks or should he remain? We ask ourselves: What can Marulić offer to new generations, not realizing that in their history Croats, from a value point of view, have never had such a prolific and good author who raised generations of Europeans with his works and who still has something to offer to new generations, if not Europeans, then at least to his Croats.
Keywords
Marulić; spiritual heritage; opus; translations; reception; Christianity.
Hrčak ID:
316470
URI
Publication date:
20.12.2023.
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