CROATIA REDIVIVA PAVLA RITTERA VITEZOVIĆA
CROATIA REDIVIVA BY PAVAO RITTER VITEZOVIĆ

Summary/Abstract: The written document Croatia rediviva by Pavao Ritter Vitezović results as an attempt of the author to establish the fact that the historically founded borders of Croatia were considerably wider than those drawn in his own time. It comprises of thirty two-pages and it is conceived as a preparation for future more comprehensive work. Vitezović authenticates his thesis with a number of quotations. He uses as many as fifty-six authors and sources, out of which thirty of them belong to the bibliography and twenty-six to sources. The most quoted sources are Constantinus Porphyrogenitus and Thomas Archdeacons while in the bibliography the most represented is loannes Lucius. It is good to mention that he uses the works of authors of various provenances and from various periods (antique, Byzantine, German, Bohemian and others), which he mainly correctly quotes, but he interprets the quotations in keeping with his ideological conception. In the supplement there is a facsimile and translation of the introductory part of the written document which includes an inscription to the emperors Leopold and Joseph and a poem titled "A Note for Preparation" where Vitezović briefly determines contours of his "revived" Croatia and represents himself not only as a competent historian but also as a poet, engraver and a printer. At the beginning of "The Preparation for Revived Croatia" Vitezović discusses the origin of the name Croatia. Then he goes on to the problem of her borders. By identifying Illyrians and Slavs with Croats he extends the borders of Croatia to all Slavic lands. He dedicates the other half of the document to the discussion with loannes Lucius dealing with Croatian kings, affiliation of Neretvans (people populating the banks of river Neretva) to Croats and the question of Dalmatia. By giving arguments for his theses as, according to his opinion contradictory quotations of Lucius as well as the claims of other writers, he concludes that Croats had their own kings in an uninterrupted continuity after Ostrivoius, that the people living by the Neretva are with no doubt Croatian people and that Dalmatia and especially its towns are a part of Croatia. He finishes this booklet with the conclusion that Croatia comprises Horn's "Triple Slavonia" and former Roman Illyric, except two Rhaetiae and a part of Noricum. With this work Vitezović in fact formed a political programme which will have an important influence on the members of Illyrican Movement.

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