Interview with Marko Jerković (University of Zagreb)

Dr Marko Jerković from the University of Zagreb has been working with FOVOG for 9 years in various collaborations. In this interview he talks in more detail about his experiences as an associated scientist at FOVOG and about his current research. He talks about how his interest in medieval history, especially church history and the history of religious orders, developed. He also discusses the challenges of dealing with the history of monasteries and religious orders and highlights the differences between German and Croatian research on religious orders. Jerković also has advice for young researchers on how to meet these challenges. At the end of the interview, Jerković goes into more detail about his personal goals regarding his research. The interview was conducted by Rebecca Hoppe.

What is your relationship with FOVOG?

First of all, allow me to thank you for the opportunity to share some of my experiences in this interview. I have been cooperating with the FOVOG for the past nine years. In that period I have visited the research center on many occasions for the purpose of research or to participate in various workshops. The most significant results of our cooperation were my stay at the FOVOG as a junior research fellow in 2019 (a scholarship within the TU Dresden's Institutional Strategy), the joint organization of the conference Authority and Consent in 2021 (in Zagreb, at my home university), and the organization of our current bilateral project Saints and Shaping of Religious Identities in 2023–2024 (conducted at the University of Zagreb and FOVOG, and funded by the DAAD/Croatian Ministry of Science) within which I am one of the principal investigators. Besides, I am also an associated scientist of the FOVOG.

What is it like for you to be an associated scientist at FOVOG?

It is my great pleasure and honor to have such a status. I look at it as both the acknowledgement of my work and as a chance to contribute to a well recognised institution, which I highly respect. I believe that such a status provides excellent opportunities to expand the already existing mutual cooperation, to create new projects, and to converse with the FOVOG members more frequently. The FOVOG represents an excellent platform for scholars, and especially for the associated scientists, to make use of its library and thus to enhance the quality of their current research. Apart from these beneficial aspects, such a status incites also the sense of participation in the wider and ever-growing network of scholars interested in new ways of applying the comparative methodology.

What is currently the focus of your research?

I am currently focused on the issue of discipline in religious communities. My new project, which is also a basis of my associated status at the FOVOG, is entitled Disciplinary Authority in Religious Communities. It is concerned with both the techniques of regulation, regularization, and rectification of behaviour, and on the conceptual strategies devised for the efficient mindset adaptions to the cloistered life. The research is based on the examples of Cistercians, Dominicans (male branches), and various female branches of the Franciscan order. My idea is to determine not only the scope and boundaries of the legitimate uses of disciplinary power but also to analyze the programs intended to internalize the notions of power and make them acceptable and omnipresent, thus producing the stable communities of self-controlled individuals.

How did your interest in this area of research develop?

I am generally interested in the ways societies/communities organize themselves. This interest led me towards the institutional history and normative sources. The particular interest in discipline and control came while reading social theory studies, like Michele Foucault’s works, and also Gert Melville’s historiographical research on the use of literacy in providing stability within the organized religion. There is also an interest in modern historiography in the tensions between discipline and deviation, which I recognized as a fruitful area for analyzing crucial concepts of religious life. Besides, while conducting one of my previous projects, about the authority and consent in religious communities, I became motivated to see how religious orders were dealing with dissent and undisciplined behaviour.

Were you already interested in this topic during your studies/your time at school?

During my studies, I developed a fondness for Church history and the history of religious orders. At that time I was interested more in studying the history of particular institutions (monasteries or bishoprics) or significant persons. When I started my research career, the question of discipline was not the focal point but integrated into these other researches. The question of discipline came into focus in the last several years, as a continuation of my studies of general concepts within the vita religiosa. However, even at a younger age, I thought of the Middle Ages as very interesting and an inspiring era, and I loved reading the literature that used the Middle Ages as its contextual scenery (like Hermann Hesse’s Narcissus and Goldmund or Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose). I still think of literature as a good means of sparking not only interest, but also the imagination about past periods and the premodern mentality.

What challenges do you see in your research area right now?

As in other fields dealing with older periods, the greatest challenge is to reconstruct how and why persons or institutions think and act in the contexts that are different than our modern ones. Also, it is challenging to speak of the concepts concerning religious orders generally, because – within these trans-regional organizations – there were so many varieties and traditions. When it comes to discipline, it is a challenge to explain adequately why various and different disciplinary systems were functional and viable in such large organizations.

Do you see any differences between the Croatian and German research landscape?

There are lots of differences between them. Concerning the most important ones, I would say that the German scholars are oriented towards producing systematic schools or modes of research, while the Croatian humanistic/social fields are lacking such degree of systematics. The Croatian historiographical tradition rests on the research of particular institutions (most often locally determined), periods, or persons, while the comparative approaches and the wider uses of social theory are still underdeveloped. In German historiography there is a great variety of approaches, and many of the German historians are scholarly trailblazers within their field. The German academic institutions and libraries are, furthermore, far better equipped with literature than the Croatian counterparts.  

What advice would you give to young researchers who would like to work in your field?

As in other fields, I believe that it is crucial to have a strong interest in the topic and to be highly motivated to study it. My advice would be to preserve patience in the research, to be ready to read constantly, and to have the courage to raise new research questions. Concerning the topic of medieval religious orders, and especially of discipline, I believe that these are extremely interesting areas of research because the sources of religious orders show us some of the key notions of premodern mentality and ways of social/communal functioning in earlier European history. Young researchers who want to deal with that are grasping the culture that shaped our civilization.

How do you imagine your personal future in relation to your research activities? Are there specific goals or milestones that you would like to achieve?

My goal is to finish a book about the acceptable forms of discipline in the Dominican order that I started to write, and also to publish several papers related to my current research. Apart from that, I would like to continue promoting the history of religious orders in Croatia. At my home university I direct the project „Religious Entrepreneurs: Cultural Imprints of Religious Communities in Croatia and Europe“, within which several conferences have been organised. Together with my associates, I tried to show the value of comparative history and to instigate the research of local history within the wider institutional environmentsat these conferences. My long-term aim is to organise a new project which would deal with the transformations of religious life in 13^th–14^th century, and, hopefully, to attract some young scholars for the topics that I find interesting.