Historic Insitute of the University of Montenegro: New Pages of the Kotor History Written by Miljan Gogić, PhD
A complete picture of the past of the Kotor commune in the 12th and 13th centuries, as well as the Statute of Kotor from the 18th century, will be closer to public through research published in two books by historian Miljan Gogić, PhD, from the Historical Institute of the University of Montenegro.
“The book dealing with Kotor in the 12th and 13th centuries deals with position of the Kotor commune in this period - first in the state of Vojislavljević, then in the state of Nemanjić, construction of communal bodies and internal organization, development of notaries, economic activities, social structure of the commune, opportunities in the Kotor diocese.”, Gogić, PhD, explains.
To write this study, he adds, a barely-known material in the archives of Montenegro, Croatia and Russia have been used to a considerable extent.
"This material provided an opportunity to shed more light on hitherto unknown parts of the history of Kotor of this period. First of all, I would like to point out the parts about the Kotor office and the court system ", Gogić said for the book which is a supplement to his doctoral dissertation.
According to him, readers will, among other things, have the opportunity to get acquainted with the efforts of the Kotor commune to strengthen and consolidate its autonomy and reduce influence of rulers, which largely succeeded in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. So far, it has not been largely the subject of more detailed scientific analysis.
The second book is the Statute of Kotor, which was printed in 1715 in Venice.
"In science, this edition of the Statute is very little known. As a stranger in historical science, the question of what it contained appeared. This little-known Statute contains, in whole or in part, certain provisions from the Statute printed in 1616, the oldest of which were from the beginning of the 14th century. To the greatest extent, the content of this Statute consists of ducals and terminations of the Venetian authorities, from the period when Kotor accepted the Venetian rule, while the youngest document in it is from 1713. Most of the transcripts of these documents, some of which are often given in an abbreviated form in the Statute of 1715, were found in full in various manuscript collections during many years of archival research in Kotor, Perast and Zagreb ", Gogić, PhD, explains.
This book seeks to answer questions as motive for publishing this collection of legal norms and what are topics of social relations in the area of the Bay of Kotor, and beyond, were regulated by it. It will present to the light of day, both to historical and legal science, and to ordinary readers, documents that were, in whole or in part, printed in the Statute of 1715.
"Readers will be able to get acquainted with certain documents concerning regulation of social relations between Kotor and Perast since the Middle Ages, as well as to see the attitude of the Venetian authorities towards Kotor's autonomy, and its privileges," Gogić, PhD, says.
The book will be a significant contribution to publication of sources, which continues the decades-long positive practice of the Historical Institute of the University of Montenegro, which refers to publication of documents from the past of Montenegro.