CUDOTVORNOST I IDENTITET: ODNOS SUBJEKTA I OBJEKTA U BOKI KOTORSKOJ XVII VIJEKA
MIRACULOUSNESS AND IDENTITY: SUBJECT-OBJECT RELATIONS IN THE 17TH CENTURY BAY OF KOTOR

Summary/Abstract: In the year of 1672 several members of Pavlicevic family in Prcanj witnessed miraculous transformation of the Madonna icon inside their household. Sacred image produced loud sounds, changed colors of the skin and grow a pair of legs which helped her moving away from the usual place that it inhabited. This behavioral animism of the artifact produced a very specific biological and ritual response in the observers. The clear line between humans with nonhuman features and nonhuman agency was blurred, allowing the analysis of tripartite relational structure of subject-object interactions. Convertibility of person and thing in the case of the miraculous event in Prcanj is rather eloquent example of an identity fashioning in the early modern religious context. The discourses of „life of things“, viewed from the point of new anthropology, studies in material culture and art historical approaches were used to inspect animistic psychological and cultural habits in 17th century Bay of Kotor. The experience of dissolving margins of a person and a thing was analyzed as crucial aspect in understanding the problems of identity, seen as a composite of relationships, instead of bounded and integrated entity.

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