Our Daily Crime Collection of studies
Biblioteka Hrvatska povjesnica – Zbornici radova Published by Hrvatski institut za povijest (Croatian Institute of History) 10000 Zagreb, Opatička 10 Phone: +385-1-4851-721 Fax: +385-1-4851-725 E-mail: institut@isp.hr Website: www.isp.hr Publisher Jasna Turkalj Editor Gordan Ravančić Reviewers Mirela Krešić, Nenad Vekarić Translation from Croatian and Serbian to English Dominik Bošnjak Translation from Slovenian to English Projekt P j.d.o.o. Design Marija Korotaj Press Intergrafika TTŽ d.o.o., Bistranska 19, Zagreb Published in 300 copies National and University Library in Zagreb Cataloging in Publication Data (CIP) 893775 ISBN 978-953-7840-29-7 All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, by any process or technique, without the express wri en consent of the publisher. The publisher/editor is not responsible for errors or omissions in the contents or any consequences arising from the use of information contained in it. The opinions expressed in the research papers/articles in this publication do not necessarily represent the views of the publisher/editor. This collection of studies is published with financial support of Ministry of Science, Education and Sports of Republic of Croatia.
Our Daily Crime Collection of studies
Edited by Gordan Ravančić
Hrvatski institut za povijest Zagreb, 2014
Contents Foreword ................................................................................................................................7
Faida e vende a tra consuetudini e riti processuali nell’Europa medievale e moderna. Un approccio antropologico-giuridico ......................................9 Claudio Povolo On cu ing off noses and pulling out beards: Face as a medium of crime and punishment in medieval Dubrovnik......................................................... 59 Nella Lonza Rhythm of crime in a medieval city – example of Dubrovnik ..................................... 73 Gordan Ravančić Criminal offenses and violence in medieval Kotor (1326 – 1337) ..............................103 Valentina Živković “Our daily crime” seen through the le ers and notes of Venetian government representatives in the communes of Brač and Omiš (16 th – 18 th c.) ..................... 119 Lovorka Čoralić Social perception and legal treatment of offenses out of necessity ...........................135 Dragica Čeč “A Gypsy is just different from any cultured man” A discourse on the criminalisation of Gypsies with special reference to criminologist Hans Gross’s racist views ....................................................................165 Andrej Studen Crime in the city of Zagreb from 1887 to 1912 based on the Report of the City council ............................................................................................................183 Zoran Grijak & Milan Vrbanus The crimes of minors in the cases of the Royal court table in Osijek......................... 235 Dubravka Božić Bogović General criminality in the Independent State of Croatia ............................................257 Davor Kovačić 5
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Intrusion in Yugoslavian monetary system in 1946 by counterfeiting dinar banknotes of DF Yugoslavia (1944) or an example of how an economic crime has been declared a political crime ..............................................279 Vladimir Geiger “Comrade Tito, help!” Le ers of prisoners and in favor of prisoners addressed to authorities of communist Yugoslavia as a historical source ...............295 Josip Mihaljević “Watch out, UNPROFOR!” – some observations on criminal and unprofessional conduct of peacekeeping forces of United Nations in Croatia ....... 347 Ivica Miškulin
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Foreword Crimes and social responses to them are constant companion of mankind throughout the entire history. We o en consider crime as a kind of social deviation or opposition to social order, i.e. organized societal communities. However, one can treat crime also as a (anti)social response to dysfunction of social organization. Namely, one could make a kind of comparison: as we know from the elementary physics that any force has its anti-pod, thus we could make an analogy that any social interaction has its opposition/reflection within a community or society. Consequently, in the present-day world that is overwhelmed with various kinds of violence, terrorism and crime in general, it would be interesting to look back and try to grasp in which way(s) our predecessors have dealt with crime and what was considered as a crime at all. I realize that such a shi of perspective could seem socially “destructive” and possibly aiming to relativization of crime, though it certainly should not be so. Namely, I believe (and hope) that this shi of our perspective in perceiving crime could reveal some approaches in dealing with various social deviations in the present-day world. Especially, since crime is a social construct, and as such it depends on and can be subject to various social changes. Thus, historical perspective to the perception of crime possibly could give us some answers and directions regarding prevention and origin of the criminal behavior, as well as interesting insight to social differences in treatment of crime during the history. Aim of this collection of works was to gather in one place various studies regarding investigation of daily (mostly pe y) crime throughout history – from the Middle Ages up to the present day. The focus was on Croatia and surrounding countries in order to reveal – I believe – particularly interesting material in the form of a number of independent case studies approaching daily crime from different perspectives and using different methodologies. Thus, this book in front of you represents a collection of studies trying to reveal various types of crimes and social responses to them, embracing relatively large time framework from medieval times up to our recent history. At the same time it has to be emphasized that analyzed cases and types of crimes do not reflect the most common and the most typical crimes throughout the history. Analyzed topics vary from questions regarding pe y and violent crimes up to feuds in pre-modern societies, across problems of dealing with crime in the cities during the modernization processes, up to the perception, definition and usage of crime in turbulent times of defining the socialistic state and later during the Homeland War in Croatia. All the included articles are result of long research of the scholars who contributed to this collection of studies, and – as reviewers of the volume have noted – all of the presented statements and conclusion in the following pages are well reasoned by scholarly apparatus. Therefore I believe that the collection of studies in front of you 7
Foreword
will become interesting and instructive reading not only for professional historians, scholars dealing with history of daily life and law history but also appealing texts for a broader audience. All the authors have wri en their contributions in their own standard languages (Croatian, Serbian, Slovenian etc.), and most of the included articles are translated into English in order to bring these interesting topics closer to the audience. The only exception is the first article that remained in Italian, as it was originally wri en, and the only explanation for not translating it into English was lack of funds. Still, since Italian is a language spoken by more than 60 million people and broadly used in historical science, I hope that this will not be too inconvenient for the future readers. At the end, I have to stress that the presented conclusions and statements do not reflect a itudes of publisher and/or editor of this volume since all the authors had a full liberty regarding the choice of a particular topic and methodology. Still, if any technical / editorial error has remained, a er numerous readings and corrections, that is – naturally – mea culpa. Gordan Ravančić 20 November 2014 th
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