Teodora Shek Brnardić, Croatian Institute of History

The Seven Years War as a

Space of Enlightenment:
The Croatian Officers as Cultural
Transmitters

Rotterdam, 30th July 2015

Barry Lyndon (by Stanley Kubrick, 1975)
 The Ambiguous Nature of the Seven Years War
WAR AS A DEATHMACHINE

Different narratives

„It is undoubtedly such a nice art,

which desolates fields, demolishes
houses, and during one single year
takes 40,000 out of 100,000 human
lives.“ („War”, Voltaire’s Philosophical
Dictionary, 1764)
VOLTAIRE
(
WAR AS A SPACE FOR CIRCULATION OF BOOKS AND
CULTURAL TRANSFER

„Officers, who were dismissed

after disbanding the army, and
those who were released out of
captivity, after having paid off
their creditos, would return to the
homeland. Upon their return
home they imported into Croatia
many good and bad books.”
BALTAZAR ADAM KRČELIĆ
(1715-1778) Annuae sive historia, 1763
 WAR AS A SCHOOL

„During the last Prusian war,

which started in 1756 and ended
in 1763, and which was nothing
else than a school especially for
young people during the seven
years of its duration , an
opportunity offered itself to pass
through vilayets, countries, and
cities for free to those who could
not otherwise do it without
MATIJA ANTUN RELKOVIĆ considerable expenses.”
(1732-
The Satyre or the Wild Man,
Dresden, 1762
 LEISURE TIME IN CAPTIVITY
LEARNING LANGUAGES: a) French; B)
German

ACQUIRING CROATIAN LITERACY

Blaž Tadijanović, A Little Bit

of Everything, 1761
LEISURE TIME IN CAPTIVITY
JOINING MILITARY MASONIC LODGES
THE CULTURAL INFLUENCE OF THE
SEVEN YEARS WAR IN CROATIA

JOSIP KAZIMIR DRAŠKOVIĆ

I wish you good health, and a long, but good life, and that you
I wish you good health, a
sonn free yourself from captivity!
long and good life, and
that you free yourself
from captivity!

BLAŽATTENTION!
THANK YOU FOR YOUR TADIJANOVIĆ