Grbovi hrvatskoga plemstva – činjenice kulturnog naslijeđa i identiteta
Coats of arms of Croatian nobility – facts of cultural heritage and identity

Summary/Abstract: In this article author examines two important aspects of heraldic sources from the historical Croatian lands. First one is authentic or traditional aspect that tries to explain original impulses for the use of the coats of arms and clarify the meaning of heraldry barring in mind the culture and every day life of medieval people. The second one is so called “monumental” or modern aspect which sees coats of arms as relevant facts of cultural heritage and thus expresses need of modern generation to reconstruct and interpret them, as well as to perform permanent conservation over them. Therefore, in the first part author describes some authentic coats of arms of Croatian noble families, emphasizing reasons why heraldry survived different social changes and still remained attractive for future generations. In the second part of the article author discusses the genesis, meaning and characteristics of the first heraldic collections in Croatia from the period between late Middle Ages and Early modern times. Already then, these collections represented some kind of chronicles of previous generations, as well as primary sources for genealogical research and investigation of social history. By the time authors of such collections developed scientific apparatus and thus practical heraldry evolved gradually to auxiliary historical discipline. In the third part of the article on the basis of two extent heraldic collections from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries author describes aspect of the modern interpretation of heraldic sources. One of these is collection of submarshal Rade Gerba that contains about hundred coats of arms of different persons from the Croatian political and military history from the period between the sixteenth and twentieth century. Together with other one, i.e. collection from the castle of Poznanovac, one can create a kind of paradigm regarding the first relevant heraldic collections in Croatia. Moreover, one can draw conclusion that heraldry in Croatia at the beginning of the twentieth century was regarded as valuable and had certain influence towards formation of Croatian cultural and national identity. Barring this in mind, heraldry has to be viewed in such a light even today since it shows valuable connection with European cultural tradition.

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