President Milanović at National and University Library Day: This is a temple and a large classroom
The President of the Republic Zoran Milanović attended a celebration marking National and University Library in Zagreb Day and the 416th anniversary of its foundation. The celebration is taking place today in memory of 22 February 1483 when on this day 540 years ago the first book was printed in the Croatian language and the oldest book in the Glagolitic script ‘Misal po zakonu rimskoga dvora’ (Missal by the Law of the Roman Court).
“We belong to the West and we are part of Western civlization, the Western cultural circle. Nevertheless, this is only partially true”, President Milanović stated in this address, adding that it is not known where the ‘Misal’ was printed, the first book in the Croatian language, but we do know that it is Western because it is catholic to the extent that Catholicism is exclusively Western. “It is also Glagolitic, and in that Glagolitic script where it took root we can talk about something that is not quite Western”, he noted, and recalled that the Glagolitic script was written by Greek priests before the schism in Christianity.
“Our culture, Croatian culture, our alphabet is Latin, but Glagolitic too. A major part of our medieval history was written in Glagolitic, but in Bosančica (Bosnian Cyrillic) and Croatian Cyrillic as well. We have all of this – Cyrillic, which disappeared, and Glagolitic, which is complex and difficult for people who are not experts and the Latin alphabet, which places us in the Western cultural circle – the Croatian nation is specific in this matter”, President Milanović said, and underlined that in spite of the fact that the ‘Misal’ is recorded as the first book printed in the Croatian language, Croatian literacy, context and content are much older.
“And so in the past one thousand years we have been in search of our own identity, we are a bit in the West, a bit in the East, but actually we are just an independent small people, nation – as a political nation, aware that we belong to one space, to one common path. And on this path this edifice is not just glass and steel, it is a temple, one large classroom. It is a major learning process that started with public reading rooms in Kvarner, later in Dalmatia, that assembled, spread and determined the Croatian idea, the Croatian sense of existence and the common path”, President Milanović noted in concluding his address.
Among the guest speakers at the celebration besides President Milanović were the rector of the University of Zagreb Stjepan Lakušić, the State Secretary and delegate of the Minister of Culture and Media Ivica Poljičak, the Minister of Science and Education and delegate of the Prime Minister Radovan Fuchs, and the Minister of Demography, Family, Youth and Social Policy and delegate of the Speaker of the Croatian Parliament Vesna Bedeković. The Director General of the National and University Library in Zagreb Ivanka Stričević presented the achievements of the National and University Library in the past year. Awards and recognitions were presented for contribution to the work, development and promotion of the Library and for encouragement, support and participation in the realization of its development programmes.
Alongside President Milanović were the Adviser to the President for Education and the Special Adviser to the President for Culture Zdravko Zima.
PHOTO: Office of the President of the Republic of Croatia / Filip Glas