Print Culture in Croatia: The Canon and the Borderlands

Abstract

This theoretical paper explores the theme of periphery and the borderlands and outlines the program for a new and transnational approach to the study of book culture in Croatia. Starting with a problem of fragmentation of Central European book histories, the essay argues how this could be turned into an opportunity to apply comprehensive and comparative approaches, using cultural area and comparing isomorphism of documentary practices rather than following the commonly used linguistic criteria (the national vernacular). European identity has been central to the Croatian construction of identity, and this can provide a broader framework for resolving the problem of how to construct a national history that acknowledges its status as boundary culture. If the European periphery is to claim its own cultural discourse, this will have to be through the controversial, ideological, and difficult task of cultural revision in which it will have to ex-territorialize itself and abandon a dream in which the national vernacular assumes a major function in language and society. This will not be possible without understanding the borderlands and an acceptance of its unique role in which dualities need to be accepted as an epistemology for boundary histories to assume significance within the dominant discourses of culture. In the dualities and multiplicities of the borderlands there arise counter-hegemonic interpretations, and the periphery can be validated by revealing the patterns of the center, connection to other traditions, and its own uniqueness at the same time. The thematic program for the study of Croatian print culture as boundary cultures is outlined as well.