Politicization of Theatre Audiences Through Historical Opera and the Use of National Myths: A Case-study of Nikola Šubić Zrinjski

The paper deals with the process of politicization of the theatre audience through historical operas, exploring the subject via a case-study of the Croatian historical opera Nikola Šubić Zrinjski (1876) by Ivan Zajc. The author argues that for an opera to be able to fulfil its intended political function, an a priori positive attitude towards the subject or the protagonist in the national collective memory had to exist. The first part of the paper explores the development of the historiographical narrative and the collective memory, showing how the historiographical narrative was fixed as late as in the 19th century. The collective memory leaned on this narrative and was fixed precisely due to Zajc’s opera. The second part deals with patriotic and political elements of the libretto, focusing especially on the concepts of freedom, identity, continuity and community. The final section focuses on the reception, particularly during the second half of the 20th century—a period when Croatia’s autonomy within Yugoslavia was limited and Nikola Šubić Zrinjski functioned as a cultural platform for expressions of Croatian patriotism.