engleski

Exhibiting Faith: Stereotypes and Potentials in Croatian Museum Practice

As faith and religion played significant role in Croatian history, they have influenced museum practice on several distinctive ways as well. Firstly, catholic institutions initiated foundation of the earliest museum collections during the late Medieval time. Secondly, the religious attitudes and esthetics are built-in numerous categories of museum artifacts, from Gothic to Baroque period. Finally, the Christian church and its representatives played significant role in Croatian national integrative processes during the 19th century when National Museum had been established. Besides, it could be said that faith on very special ways successfully performed general control upon social life even in the socialist Yugoslavia, which had formally recognized atheism as a new principal doctrine. Accordingly, existing museum practice in Croatia has developed various ways of displaying faith and religion, which is based on minimum 5 important but different criteria: (1) ethnological – mostly demonstrates variations in celebrating feasts ; (2) artistic – intends to illuminate the origin, history, iconography and aesthetics of religious items, as well as artists’ experiences of faith ; (3) historical – usually aims to specify political influences of various religious institutions and representatives in political, cultural and social life during the past ; (4) archeological - compares relicts of ancient religions that had developed (or reflected) on the Croatian territory before Christianity ; (5) ritual – expressing eternal authority of faith and religious institutions. If integrated, all possible aspects of presentation could produce an interesting museological project, inspired by long-lasting social experiences of faith and religious diversity that has been traditionally evident in Croatian areas.

faith; religion; museum types; Croatian museums; sacral collection/item; relgious artefact

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