Experiences and Challenges of Editing and Publishing Primary Legal-Historical Sources in Croatia
Experiences and Challenges of Editing and Publishing Primary Legal-Historical Sources in Croatia

Summary/Abstract: The authors approach the topic of editing and publishing primary legal-historical sources from the perspective of Croatian legal history as an academic discipline. Based on the earlier texts by Jakov Stipišić and Ivan Filipović, the first part of the text discusses several possible approaches towards the editing and publishing of documents, showing that critical intellectual activity is required already when the initial scope and mode of selecting and preparing the sources is decided upon. As a consequence, editing and publishing priorities are more or less directly connected to the particular interests and general methodological presumptions shared by the archivists, librarians and (legal) historians of a given society. The second part of the text – based on the works of Stjepan Antoljak, Zrinka Nikolić-Jakus, Mladen Ančić and personal insight – is thus dedicated to the most significant or illustrative (either in a positive or a negative way) source-editing and publishing projects on what is today the territory of the Republic of Croatia, in as much as some of them were influenced not only by strictly scientific, but also by political or ideological reasons. Pre-modern as well as modern and recent legal acts and other historical sources, including those typical of popular oral culture, are taken into account here. Finally, the authors reflect on the possible future of great editing projects, fearing that digitalization is only an incomplete answer to the precarious status of humanities and (historic) social sciences.

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