engleski

The founders of Croatian music historiography: Music, history, politics, and ideology

Although Franjo Ksaver Kuhač (1834-1911) is usually considered the founder of Croatian musical historiography other two highly important figures shoul also be pointed out: Vjenceslav Novak (1859- 1905) and Vjekoslav Klaić (1849-1928). Kuhač’s efforts marked the beginning of systematic research in Croatia in the field of the history of music. However, it must be said that Kuhač’s conviction that music historiography, just like music itself, ought to endorse and promote national identity sometimes interfered with his scholarly objectivity in the interpretation of certain historical facts, and even led him to arbitrary and unsupported conclusions. A historian Klaić focused – like Kuhač himself - his scholarly interest mainly on the period of the Croatian National Movement of the 1830s and 1840s. Some of his biographical studies still function as relevant and respectable sources. A recognized writer, Novak was not a researcher himself but primarily a pedagogue. Among his works the most important is his general survey of music history, the first written in Croatian, which lay unpublished until 1994. Thus the first published periodization of music history in Croatian culturological space was displayed in the aesthetic system of the writer and aestheticist Franjo Marković (1845-1914). Croatian National Movement was in the focus of the researchers' interest and treated a starting point of the Croatian history of music for two reasons. Firstly, the older periods were basically unknown and secondly, the impact of national ideology on all fields of social and cultural life was extremely strong.

Croatia, 19th century, music historiography

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