Paper Short Abstract:

In the presentation we emphasise the social and cultural history of photography in interwar Croatia. Using the photography authored by two prominent middle-class intellectuals, we examine and illustrate their presentation of various marginalized social groups: the first perspective is of a university professor of ethnology and an amateur photographer (M. Gavazzi), while the second reflects the perspective of a professional art photographer (T. Dabac). The focus of our examination will be the way in which Gavazzi and Dabac have conceptualized and visually documented otherness in an interwar period.

Paper Abstract:

The social history of the interwar period in Croatia is still an area that has not been extensively examined. Although turbulent political history often comes to the fore, this period was characterised by certain social, cultural, and technological developments. In this presentation, we emphasize the social and cultural history of photography which became accessible to the middle-class in the interwar period; the cameras were used to visually document various aspects of everyday life. We focus on the (re)presentation of marginalized social groups using the example of photographs of two prominent representatives of the middle-class-intellectuals in Croatia. The first perspective is of a university professor of ethnology and an amateur photographer, Milovan Gavazzi (1895-1992), while the second one is of a professional art photographer, Tošo Dabac (1907-1970). Their interest in marginalized social groups slightly differs: Dabac emphasized the urban layer (e.g. economically deprived in the city), while Gavazzi, as an ethnologist, included rural marginalized individuals and groups. On the other hand, Gavazzi and Dabac are compatible not only by photography as a medium but also by the fact that they were culturally and politically displayed individuals in the Croatian interwar period. In the presentation, we contextualize their biographies and their expertise, in relation to the development of an interwar photography in a specific social, political, and economic scenery: how individuals and groups are visually depicted, etc. Nonetheless, can these ethnological and art photographs, as a specific visual medium, be (re)valorised as a vital research resource of contemporary ethnology and cultural anthropology?