Page 15 - Herojska doba Histrov

Herojska doba Histrov

Writing about the Histri is a great challenge, and an even greater one is presenting their millennia-old heritage
in a comprehensible and accessible way to the wider public. Thanks to the director of the Archaeological
Museum of Istria in Pula, my colleague Darko Komšo, and a fortunate turn of events, I was entrusted with
this task. I accepted it with great respect—both for the Histri themselves and for the institution that has been
safeguarding their material legacy in the best possible way for more than a century.

The creation of this book was inspired by an international exhibition of the same name, which, in collaboration
with colleagues and institutions from a broader region, provided a platform for presenting topics related to
the identity of the Histri community and their elites within a vast cultural context and amidst the numerous
transformations of the last millennium BCE. The exhibition also offered an opportunity to synthesize existing
knowledge while introducing new perspectives on this distant yet significant Istrian past. As a reflection of
Histrian society, the representative material culture also contributed to a deeper understanding of their in-
volvement and connections with various cultural environments—from the Alpine and Italic regions, through the
Danubian and Balkan areas, to the broader Mediterranean space. Nearly 240 exhibited artefacts allowed a wide
audience to engage with the subject in a visually rich and interactive manner. This established an important
link between scientific discourse and museum presentation, as academic research gained much-needed public
resonance, while the exhibition itself encouraged new discussions and possible interpretations. However, this
book is not merely a chronicle of a long-gone era; it highlights the complexity of the past and its echoes in the
present through different perspectives.

Before you is the fourth in a series of exhibition monographs, The Heroic Age of the Histri. This is a logical con-
tinuation of the publications accompanying the exhibition, whose primary goal was to present this exceptional
heritage beyond the borders of Croatia. The journey of the Histri began in 2023 with an exhibition in Trieste at
the “J. J. Winckelmann” Antiquities Museum, where they were introduced for the first time to the Italian public
and the wider region of the northern Adriatic and its alpine hinterland. This great success was repeated in
Skopje, where the Archaeological Museum of the Republic of North Macedonia hosted the exhibition, offering
the Histri their first presentation to the Macedonian public and visitors from the central Balkans. The exhibi-
tion then travelled to the National Museum of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Sarajevo, ensuring its presence in
the western Balkans as well. Finally, in 2025, the exhibition reached Koper in an adapted, didactic layout, thus
symbolically completing its long and fascinating journey in Slovenian Istria. This time, however, it was not
displayed in a museum but at a university—a centre for knowledge creation and dissemination, a space for
scientific communication—where it is now available to new generations who, among other things, gain direct
insight into the ancient traditions of this region.

Everything mentioned was made possible by numerous collaborators and colleagues who significantly con-
tributed to this project, enriching it with each new experience in a new environment and allowing the history
of the Histri to come to life once again in a new light and setting. I extend my sincere gratitude to all of them,
especially to my colleagues Maja Čuka and Andrea Dugandžić from the Archaeological Museum of Istria in Pula,
whose selfless help, support, and trust were essential in every phase of this remarkable and important project.

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Martina Blečić Kavur

University of Primorska, Faculty of Humanities
Department/Institute of Archaeology and Heritage The Heroic Age of The Histri

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