About the Project

Project Description

The project Croatian Historical Urban Landscapes aims to approach Croatian urban history from various research perspectives, through historical continuity. The conventional historiographical research approach is limited by historiographical periodisation and the resulting research methodology, which neglects elements of urban development that thematically extend beyond periodisation-defined frameworks.

The city, like any other historical phenomenon, has different forms depending on the historical circumstances in which it developed and the time period of its origin. Despite these pronounced particularities, there are elements that invariably characterise settlements as urban centres, as evidenced by the fact that the majority of Croatian urban centres have been cities throughout their entire historical period.

The research area of the proposed project is delineated by contemporary Croatian political borders. Research will be conducted using a series of case studies. Elements of urbanity will be analysed from the perspectives of intellectual history, history of education, church history, architectural history, military history, administrative history, and the history of everyday life.

Project Objectives

The main objective of the project is to provide a new scientific perspective on the characteristics and development of Croatian urbanity, to identify those elements that constitute the specificities of urban settlements with regard to various thematic and periodisation-based starting points, and to offer an answer to the question: what makes a Croatian city, throughout history, a city.

An additional objective is to initiate an interdisciplinary scholarly discussion that can be joined by researchers from other fields, such as sociology, architecture, art history, and similar disciplines.