Culture - Power - Identity. A comparative study of power structures in culture based on the example of the German-speaking and Croatian-speaking theater in Croatia in the 19th century
Final Report Abstract
This research project examines the role and impact of German- and Croatian-language theatre on the formation of cultural identity in Croatia in the 19th century. It deals with the complex and multi-layered relationships that existed between the dominant German-language theatre and the emerging national theatre, both of which played a decisive role in shaping the cultural identity of the multi-ethnic population. The research interest focuses on two questions: Firstly, the influence of nationalism on the status as well as the functions of theatre, and secondly, the interrelationships that developed between German- and Croatianlanguage theatre. In three case studies, the project deals with the particular significance that theatre gained as a public meeting space of urban society and as the leading mass medium in the maintenance and spread of collective identities in the 19th century. The focus lies on three Croatian theatre centres — Zagreb, Osijek, Varaždin — all of which developed out of the long tradition of professional German theatre. The political transformations that began in the Pre-March period and marked the second half of the 19th century are of central importance for the study, since political transformations also gave rise to cultural ones. The central result of the project illustrates the close connection between the emergence of the modern nation-state, its cultural foundation and the ideological homogenisation of cultural identities, in which particularly the theatre acquired a special significance. In the three case studies, the project deals intensively with the different functions of Germanand Croatian-language theatre as well as their mutual interrelationships. Here, the entertaining and artistic function of German-language theatre as well as its essential contribution to the emergence of professional theatre culture in Croatia are contrasted with the ideological instrumentalisation of Croatian theatre for the purpose of collective identity formation. In this context, particular interest is paid to the emergence of institutional cultural policy in Croatia and its task of elevating national culture to a guiding culture. The theoretical framework for the research is provided by Ernest Gellner's and Miroslav Hroch's theses on cultural nationbuilding and the findings from the field of postcolonial studies.
Publications
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2016. „24. November 1860: Vertreibung des deutschen Theaters aus Zagreb und internationale Rezeption“. In: Branko Hećimović (Hg.), Krležas Tage in Osijek 2015 [Kležini dani u Osijeku 2015], 50–60 (Zagreb - Osijek: HAZU, Philosophische Fakultät Osijek). ISBN 978-953-347-129-7
Weber-Kapusta, Danijela
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„Theater – Identität – Theaterhistoriographie“ [„Kazalište – identitet – kazališna historiografija“]. In: Lada Čale Feldman und Višnja Rogošić (Hg.), Festschrift für Boris Senker [Pozornici ususret], 223–235 (Zagreb: Philosophische Fakultät Zagreb)
Weber-Kapusta, Danijela
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„Travelling Theatre Companies and Transnational Audience. A Case Study of Croatia in the Nineteenth Century“. In: Journal of Global Theatre History, Vol. 2, No. 1 (2017), 1–21
Weber-Kapusta, Danijela
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2022. „Deutschsprachiges Theater in Zagreb und die Vielschichtigkeit der kulturellen Identität im 19. Jahrhundert“. In: Zagreber Germanistische Beiträge. Vol. 10, (2022), 127–140. ISSN 1330-3481
Weber-Kapusta, Danijela
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Migration and the Expansion of German-Language Theatre in the Habsburg Monarchy: Reflecting on Internal Colonisation and Cultural Assimilation. European Theatre Migrants in the Age of Empire, 157-172. Springer Nature Switzerland.
Weber-Kapusta, Danijela
