engleski

Records of the Criminal Court of the Republic of Dubrovnik and Performing Theater

The records of the Criminal Court of the Dubrovnik Republic are kept in the State Archives in Dubrovnik, the study of everyday life being mainly based on the records from the period 1550-1800. Among the trial accounts of this time frame it is possible to trace authentic testimonies in Croatian, although Latin and Italian were the official languages of the then Dubrovnik Republic. The records written in Latin and Italian contain the scribe's summary of the statements given by the plaintiff, defendant and the witnesses. In lengthy processes, however, the scribe was known to automatically note down the testimonies into the register word for word. These true stories and the vivid language of their protagonists, abounding in a myriad forms of popular rhetoric and emotion, mirror the historical reality in its intimate genuinity. The accounts cast light on individual fates, their social, economic, family and love relations. The setting of these events , like a true Theatrum, most commonly were the streets and squares of Dubrovnik, shops and artisan workshops, fish market, taverns and butcher's shops, paths and roads, fishing spots and the ferry boat, but also private spaces of the Ragusan houses and palaces, villas, gardens and tenants' cottages. The central stage of these true-to-life performances was the main street, the Placa. It witnessed nobles and non-nobles, carriers pushing their way through with the goods, it staged business contracts, money counting, payments of debt, and the interception of debtors. The statements given in court, often naive yet cunningly conceived at times, tended to have a tragicomic overtone. Despite stereotyped behaviour patterns, since it concerns testimonies before the court, as well as fragmentarily portrayed protagonists who display specific attitudes, spiritual preoccupation and archaic language forms, this world of injustice, adversity and imperfection with its life stories, experience and relations (sexual configuration), with its simple unofficiality can serve as excellent dramatic inspiration either as authentication of the historic plays or as dramatic improvisations themselves.

Dubrovnik; archive; theater; records of the Criminal Court of Republic of Dubrovnik.

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