Croatian History

Borislav Arapovic, born in Bosnia and Hercegovina in 1935, is honorary director of the Biblical Institute in Stockholm, Sweden. In 1973 he founded The Institute for Translation of The Bible into Languages of (former) Soviet Union. In 1996 the Russian Academy of Sciences conferred him a doctorate honoris causa. In 1999 he was elected foreign member of the Russian Academy of Sciences. For the creation of the Children’s Bible in 1983, Dr. Arapovic was awarded the Leo Tolstoy medal by…

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Gerardo Zerdin is a Croatian Franciscan born in 1950, and a missionary in Peru since 1975. He is living already for 32 years among Peruvian Indians as a priest, and since 2001 as a bishop appointed by the rescript of Pope John Paul II. Msgr. Zerdin learned several Indian languages, and now basic Christian prayers are available in these languages. Extremely important work is devoted to Indian children, first to teach them to read and write, both in their native…

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Ivan Stojkovic de Corvatia (1390/95-1443) Andrija Jamometic (~1420-~1486) Beniamin (15/16th centuries) Marko Antonio de Dominis (1560-1624) Juraj Krizanic (1618-1683) Ivan Pastric (1636-1708) Leopold Bogdan Mandic (1866-1942) Vladimir Soloviev (1853-1900)

Croatian Encyclopaedists Now we have come to a very rich history of the Croatian Encyclopaedia. Its origins go back to the first half of the 15th century. The earliest known lexicographic work is a handwritten book “Liber de simplicibus” (The book about medicinal herbs), prepared in Zadar and Venice between 1415 and 1453. Written by an Italian physician and Zadar protophysicist Nicolo Roccabonelli, it contains very nice drawings of various plants together with their Croatian, Latin, Greek, Arabic and in…

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Ilija Crijevic, poet, orator and lexicographer from Dubrovnik (1463 – 1520), wrote his Lexicon in 1480, a Latin encyclopaedic dictionary. This very nice handwritten book of large format, 33 x 23 cm, has 429 pages.

We know of a small Italian – Croatian dictionary Opera nuova che insegna a parlare la lingua schiavonica alli grandi, alli picoli et alle donne, containing about 300 words, written in 1527 by Pietro Lupis Valentiano in Ancona, Italy.

Pavao Skalic, photo from Zagreb Pavao Skalic, a humanist-polyhistorian (Paulus Scalichius, born in Zagreb, 1534-1575), was the first to have used the notion of ENCYCLOPAEDIA in its modern meaning, in his book Encyclopediae seu orbis disciplinarum… (Basel, 1559). He also wrote a musical tractate “Dialogus en Lyra” (Köln, 1570). He used to write his name as Pavao Skalic de Lika, thus indicating the origin of his family.

An extremely interesting biography has Bartol Gyurgieuits (Bartol Jurjevic or Gjurgjevic, born in the region of Turopolje near Zagreb, known for nice wooden churches, 1506 – 1566?), a participant of the tragic battle on the Mohac field in 1526, where he was captured by the Turks and lived as a slave in many parts of the Turkish Empire. As a captive he was a teacher of Greek in Damascus (see [Marianna D. Birnbaum, p. 252]). After 13 years of slavery…

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Another Turkish captive was Juraj Hus (Hosti), contemporary of the above mentioned Bartol Gyurgieuvits. After the defeat of Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent in the battle with the army led by famous Croatian statesman Nikola Jurisic in 1533 (the aim of Suleyman was to occupy Vienna), and after his retreat through Croatian lands, Juraj Hus was taken to slavery from his village (Rasinje) to Constantinople. Since he did not want to renounce his Catholic faith, he managed somehow to be educated…

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Faust Vrancic (or Faust Verantius, 1551-1617) from Sibenik was the author of a five language dictionary “Dictionarium quinque nobilissimarum Europeae linguarum: Latinae, Italicae, Germanicae, Dalmaticae et Hungaricae” (Venice, 1595), with more than 5000 words (i.e. altogether 25000 words), where Dalmaticae means Croatian language. Indeed, in his dictionary the words Dalmata, Dalmatia, Dalmaticae are translated as Croat, Croatian land, Croatian respectively. It is known that Vrancic was fluent in at least seven languages. See p. 13 of his Dictionarium: Faust Vrancic…

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