1. Preparing three volumes of selected material on the history of Croatia’s school system in the 18^th and 19^th century. The volumes would comprise selected and critically analysed material for which it has been estimated, based on a comprehensive archival research, that it presents the documents that were of crucial importance for the development of Croatia’s school system as well as documents reflecting realistic potential for the implementation of legislative and normative acts. All the material would be analysed on an interdisciplinary level in a comprehensive introductory analysis and equipped with a scholarly apparatus. By individual volumes, the material would be thematically processed as follows:

Volume 1. School Legislation (2017)

Editors of the volume: Dr. Ivana Horbec, Dr. Maja Matasović and Dr. Vlasta Švoger

Participants in preparing the documents: Mislav Gregl and Dr. Dinko Župan

Volume 2. Conceptual Proposals and the School System in Croatia-Slavonia (2017)

Editors of the volume: Dr. Ivana Horbec, Dr. Vlasta Švoger

Participants in preparing the documents: Mislav Gregl

Volume 3. Reports and memorial books (2018)

Authors of the volume: Dr. Branko Ostajmer and Dr. Dinko Župan

More about the volumes

2. Internet database on students studying at higher schools in the Habsburg Monarchy. The database comprises names, surnames and time of studies for all students originating from Croatian Lands (including Dalmatia) who studied at institutions of higher learning in the Habsburg Monarchy. The objective of the database is not only to provide additional information on individuals who finished their studies abroad, but primarily to obtain data that would make possible to analyse as to what extent the established higher education system in the Monarchy had influence on the area of Croatian Lands, to do regional analyses, and to analyse the studies abroad as a medium of intellectual transfer and a means for making a successful career and fast climbing up the social ladder.

The search of the database is publicly accessible here as of 1 May 2016.

More about the database

3. Interactive Map of Educational Institutions in the Area of the Kingdoms of Croatia and Slavonia. The interactive map will present locations of all educational institutions which, as established, existed in the Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia in the 18^th and 19^th century and provide further links and some additional content, such as pictures and texts. The objective of making the interactive map is to make possible an analysis of the spread of the network of educational institutions in the Kingdoms of Croatia and Slavonia in individual periods as well as of the representation of individual types and categories of educational institutions at the territorial level. The data for drawing the map  originate from the material of central and local school administration bodies. The map and the results of the analysis will be open to public access on the project website.

4. Setting up a database of teachers and professors in the Kingdoms of Croatia and Slavonia in the 18^th and 19^th centuries. Sources for the database are preserved reports submitted by schools to executive authorities and contemporary publications.  The database will be designed and set up and the data entry will follow the progress in analysis of material. The same researchers conducting research within the framework of this project would be in charge of the necessary follow-up organised either by the Croatian Institute of History or by an international project. More about the database

The search of the database is publicly accessible here as of 1 May 2016.

5. Research papers. Each team member will write at least one research paper per one year of the project duration. The approach to the research are interdisciplinary and topics of the papers are a follow-up to the basic research carried out within the framework of the project. The main topics of the research are: hegemonic aspect of the school system (symbolic domination, language domination in a specific period, political and social lines of force related to the ideologisation of the school system, “regimes of truth” related to curricula and textbooks), the impact of education on individual careers (public administration, military, economy, professionals – engineers, physicians, midwives etc.), national and ethnical aspect of the school system (school system and national integration, Hungarian, Serbian and German schools), religious-secular aspect of the school system (religious schools, resistance of the Church to school system reforms, secularisation of school system), economic aspects of the school system (vocational and apprentice schools, Realschulen and school gardens), intellectual aspect of the school system (gymnasium/grammar school with classical languages and Universities in Vienna, Budapest, Prague and Zagreb as nurseries of Croatia’s intellectual elite, intellectual transfers), social aspects of the school system (accessibility of primary, secondary and higher education, literacy and social stratification, system of Maecenate), gender aspect of the school system (divisions of schools and school curricula by gender) and cultural-anthropological aspect of the school system (everyday life of pupils, attitude towards one’s body, hygienic measures and health protection in schools). Furthermore, team members take part in conferences dealing with the topics above, in particular international ones.

6. A workshop for doctoral students: History of the school system in Croatia in 18^th and 19^th century: sources and methology

The workshop for doctoral students dedicated to a topic from the history of the school system was held on November 16^th 2015 in the Croatian School Museum.

The workshop will include a presentation of the material and archival holdings pertaining to the history of the school system, a presentation of critical analysis of the material and lecture on methodology used in the research of the school history. Interested doctoral students will be offered with an opportunity to take part in the activities of the project implementation on a voluntary basis. They will also be encouraged to conduct independent researches into the topics from the history of the school system with the view of writing research papers and/or doctoral dissertations. More information about the workshop

7. Organising a scientific conference on the topic Being a Student in the Habsburg Monarchy (2017). The conference will cover the topics of primary schools, grammar schools/gymnasiums and faculties. Methodologically, the emphasis will be laid on the history of memory, childhood, growing up and shaping of collective and individual identities.

More information about the conference

8. Organising an exhibition in the Croatian School Museum on the topic Being a Student – School System of the 18^th and 19^th Century from a Students’ Perspective.

The exhibition is to be held before and during the conference and organized in cooperation with the Croatian School Museum.

Author of the exhibition: Dr. Dinko Župan, in cooperation with the Croatian School Museum.

School system as an educational subsystem of society touches upon and intertwines with political, economic, scientific, cultural, religious and family subsystems of society. In order to be able to understand societal development it is therefore necessary to understand school legislation and educational institutions which, through secondary socialisation, reproduced the desirable normative frameworks for the society within which they operated. Proto-modernisation and modernisation processes implemented during the 18th and 19th centuries were of key importance for forming the school system as an educational system that became an important factor in the emergence of modern civil societies. A research into the problem area of the school system requires a multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary approach that differs essentially from the researches undertaken thus far and closed within the boundaries of the discipline.

The objectives of this project are to determine, using modern methodological approaches and critically analysing archival material, factors that were of crucial importance in the process of creation and functioning of Croatia’s school system and for the influence this system exerted, to evaluate correlation of Croatia’s school system with the school system in the Habsburg Monarchy and its reflection on the network of power in the society in the period of (proto)modernisation. The project will result in three volumes of documents that were of crucial importance for the development of Croatia’s school system, internet database on students studying at higher schools in the Monarchy, interactive map of educational institutions, a workshop for doctoral students, international scientific conference and an exhibition in the Croatian School Museum. One of the objectives of the project is to create prerequisites for expanding international cooperation and including various topics of history of Croatia’s education in internationally funded projects.

The project’s results will show the incorporation of Croatian youth in the institution of Habsburg Monarchy, the trends and influences of Church and State on the education in Croatia, as well as the influence of education on the formation of civic population. We consider history researchers, in particular those researching the history of the school system and institutional history to be among potential users of the research results. Furthermore, potential users are researchers of genealogy, experts in education sciences, jurists and law historians and, in particular, sociologists, since the knowledge about the functioning and the impact of the education system is necessary for understanding development of society and socialisation. We believe that this research will represent an important step forward towards a comparative and interdisciplinary approach to the history of Croatia’s school system. Furthermore, the research will contribute to accepting some new methodological patterns in the research of the history of the school system and, based on its systematic approach, provide basic guidelines and an indispensable source for compiling a more complex synthesis paper on the history of Croatia’s school system. In this respect, introductory studies in the planned volumes of material to be published will provide a framework for further scholarly analysis and elaboration of a number of specific topics from the history of the school system. We hope that the workshop for doctoral students, the publicly accessible Internet databases, the interactive map of educational institutions and regular updating of the project website will popularise research into and individual topics from the history of the school system. Furthermore, the proposed Internet database of students who studied at institutions of higher learning in the Monarchy will serve as a basis for analysing intellectual transfers and vertical social mobility, during the key period of the modern society in Croatian Lands.

Chronologically, the research is limited to the period from the mid-18th century to the dissolution of Austria-Hungary, in other words to 1918. It has become a conventional practice to count the “long” 19th century of Croatia’s history so as to include this year as its end. The period has been selected because we believe that proto-modernisation and modernisation processes and the school reforms implemented during this period were of key importance for forming the school system as an educational system that became an important factor in the emergence of modern civil societies, and thus crucial for understanding society as a whole. In spite of the fact that in the 19th century, Dalmatia and the Republic of Ragusa (Dubrovnik) became integral part of the Habsburg Monarchy / Austrian Empire, the research will, for the most part, be limited to the area of the Kingdoms of Croatia and Slavonia, in other words to those Croatian Lands that was part of the community of the Lands of the Crown of St. Stephen. This limitation arises from a realistic potential of research in the project period of three years. However, part of the research will still refer to Dalmatia and the Republic of Ragusa, namely that pertaining to the establishment of the database of students pursuing studies at institutions of higher learning in the Monarchy and that pertaining to the analysis of the legislative framework of the Habsburg state school system. Further work on the initiated research after three years of the project implementation will be focused on Dalmatia and the Republic of Ragusa and organised either by the Croatian Institute of History or within the framework of an international project and in cooperation with other scholars.

Inspection, transcription, translation and critical analysis of the archival records will constitute a significant part of the research. This especially refers to the archival holdings of the Royal Council in the Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia, the Supreme School Directorate, the Vice-Roy’s Council, the Vice-Roy’s Government, the Office of the Governor-General for Croatia and Slavonia and the Department of Religious Affairs and Education that are held in the Croatian State Archives in Zagreb. Also, researches will be undertaken in the Croatian School Museum and in the State Archives in Zagreb, Osijek, Karlovac, Slavonski Brod and Varaždin. As to foreign archives, the holdings of the Education Department of the Locotenential Council / Hungarian Royal Council of Governor-General in the National Archives of Hungary in Budapest that was from 1779 to 1848 in charge of school affairs in Croatia and Slavonia, as well as the holdings of the “Ungarisches Kamerale” in the Chamber Archives of the Austrian State Archives in Vienna containing material on the financial aspects of the establishment of the state school system are of crucial importance for the proposed research. Archival research will also be conducted in the university archives. This will be necessary to set up the database of students at institutions of higher learning. Furthermore, important sources for the research at hand are periodicals, in particular those originating from the second half of the 19th century onwards, as well as many heirloom personal effects of teachers and professors.

The project does not include research of such nature which would in any way stand opposite to the standards of ethical conduct in scientific research.