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

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This scientific project deals with the complex power relations between the Croatian-speaking and the German-speaking culture and theatre in Croatia in the 19th century and their crucial influence on the formation of a Croatian collective identity - a subject which was not researched by the Theatre Studies until now. The project focuses on the social, ideological and political function rather than on the artistic function of the theatre. It analyses the power and possibilities of the theatre to determinate and influence the construction of the collective identity. Using post-colonial theory the project is analysing the homogenisation of the Croatian linguistic and cultural identity through the Croatian theatre as a discursive and ideological construction and as a result of a complex social and political conflicts which determined the image of the Habsburg Monarchy and changed the power relations between the ruler and the Crown Lands of the monarchy. Building on the social and political particularities of Croatia in the 19th century, especially the multinational and multilingual population structure, the political dependence on Vienna and Budapest, and focusing on three Croatian cities (Zagreb, Varazdin, Osijek) the project examines the successive changes in the Croatian linguistic, cultural and national identity in the 19th century. It analyses the role of theatre in the process of the national assertiveness, the ways how the Croatian theatre became a paradigmatic vehicle of ideological differentiation, a medium which demonstrated the belonging or not belonging to a particular nation, ethnic group and culture in an exemplary way and how the Croatian theatre systematically restricted and finally displaced the German-speaking theatre as a symbol of a cultural hegemony.