Participation of Associate Professor Lidija Bakota, PhD, in the scientific conference “9th Days of Šime and Ante Starčević: Landscape in Education and Education in the Landscape” (Gospić, 22–23 May 2026)

At the scientific conference 9th Days of Šime and Ante Starčević: Landscape in Education and Education in the Landscape, held in Gospić from 22 to 23 May 2026, Associate Professor Lidija Bakota, PhD, presented a paper entitled The Zoolinguistic Landscape of Croatian School Manuals at the Turn of the 19th and 20th Centuries.

The paper deals with the analysis of school manuals and textbooks in the Croatian language published outside the borders of the Triune Kingdom at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries: Pèrva štanka za katoličansku školsku mladost (Vienna: Imperial and Royal Schoolbook Publishing House, 1860), Pèrva čitanka za katoličansku školsku mladost (Budapest: Printing House of the Royal Hungarian University, 1882), Početnica za katoličanske, hrvatske škole u Ugarskom Kraljevstvu (Győr, 1900), and Druga štanka za katoličanske hrvatske škole Ugarskoga Kraljevstva (Győr, 1902).

The paper provides answers to the following research questions: In what ways are animals represented in the analysed textbooks and school manuals? To what extent and in what ways are anthropomorphisms present in the depiction of animals? What kind of relationship between humans and animals predominates in the analysed material (utilitarian, moralising, empathetic, bioethical)? How do the analysed texts participate in shaping a child’s identity in relation to the animal world?

The research confirmed that, within the corpus of animal-related texts, the prevailing idea is that animals are beings subordinate to humans, created primarily to serve them. Animals are assigned an almost exclusively utilitarian role, which confirms the strongly anthropocentric attitude present in the analysed material. Historically speaking, the textbook landscape and the narrative of childhood in the second half of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century did not grant animals moral consideration or respect; they were deprived of ethical and moral reflection and were used in an entirely tendentious manner, mainly for the purpose of shaping a child’s character.

More at the link below: https://conference.unizd.hr/dani-sas-9-hr/?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTAAYnJpZBExTXhkSjc2VTdtUXJJNWJ4aXNydGMGYXBwX2lkEDIyMjAzOTE3ODgyMDA4OTIAAR62Kf_u2Z1w9gun7hzREZxgBwNeqHzk0DQWYR6Xc6KgodeXdYrBxkHWaxVUGA_aem_ils3RWfAv4MiZN8Uxb8lfg

Programme of the Scientific Conference: https://conference.unizd.hr/dani-sas-9-hr/program-2/

Book of Abstracts: https://conference.unizd.hr/dani-sas-9-hr/knjizica-sazetaka/