Maciej Czerwiński, “Imagining Space and Heritage. Competing Modern National Narratives on Dalmatia”

Although Dalmatia is not at the core of the contemporary imagination of the Habsburg Empire, which has recently been idealised in scholarship, it shares several similarities with the majority of the ex-Habsburg borderlands, one of which is its complex ethnic makeup in the period of politicisation of a modern nationalist agenda (1890–1941). In this volume, the author deals with the most important Croatian, Italian and Serbian discourses that shaped the space and defined the heritage of Dalmatia. They organised spatial knowledge by bringing about competing mental maps which envisaged Dalmatia in national or regional terms. The book, focusing on prominent writers and societal actors, could also be seen as a contribution to intellectual history or the history of ideas on these Dalmatian borderlands.

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Contents

Introduction

Acknowledgements

Note on the spelling of toponyms and translations

Methodological Framework

Dalmatia from a Historical Perspective

Dalmatia in the Imagination 1890–1941

Travel Writing and the Discovery of National Dalmatia

Literature and Heritage—the Quest for Dubrovnik

Aestheticising Space

Ruptures in a Projected National Space—Croatian North and South

Chiselling a Nation

Italianity and Irredentism

A Letter to the Dalmatians. A Poet’s Voice

Dalmatia in Geographical Discourse

Discourse of Asymmetry: Dalmatia’s civiltà

Dalmatian Spirit in the Yugoslav Nationalistic Discourse

A Sea-Oriented Nation?

Conclusion

Epilogue: The Case of Esilio of Enzo Bettiza

Bibliography

Index

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Brill | V&R unipress (De Gruyter Brill)

eBook published on: November 10, 2025

eBook ISBN: 9783737019019

Edition: 1. Edition 2025

Main content: 329

Other: with 4 figures

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https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/isbn/9783737019019/html

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