Orbini was born in Ragusa (now Dubrovnik), the capital of the Republic of Ragusa, a Slavic-populated merchant city-state on the eastern shore of the Adriatic Sea. His name in Slavic was written by himself as Mavar Orbin.[4] He was mentioned for the first time in sources dating to 1592.[5]
At 15 years old, he joined the Benedictines.[6] After becoming a monk, he lived for a while in the monasteries on the island of Mljet where he was elected abbot and later in Ston.[7][8] In the Kingdom of Hungary he was the abbot of the Benedictine monastery in Bačka (in Serbia) for a short time.[9] Afterwards, he returned to Ragusa, where he spent the rest of his life.
Like most Dalmatian intellectuals of his time, he was familiar with the pan-Slavic ideology of Vinko Pribojević. He made a very important contribution to that ideology by writing The Realm of the Slavs in Italian, a historical/ideological book published in Pesaro in 1601.[10] This uncritical history of the South Slavs was translated into Russian by Sava Vladislavich in 1722,[11] with a preface by Feofan Prokopovich. From then on, the book exerted a significant influence on the ideas of Slavic peoples about themselves and on the European ideas on Slavs.[citation needed]
Like Pribojević, Orbini unifies the Illyrian and Slavic mythic identities and interprets history from a pan-Slavic mythological position. Since Orbini lived on the very edge of the Slavic free lands, he glorified the multitude of Slavic peoples (primarily Russians and Poles) to counteract the aggressiveness of the Germanic, Italian (Venice) and Ottoman empires. One of Orbini's probable sources was Ludovik Crijević Tuberon.[12]
Orbini also published a book in Serbo-Croatian, Spiritual Mirror (Zrcalo duhovno, 1595), which was essentially a translation of the Italian work by Angelo Nelli. This text, translated into the "Ragusan language", as Orbin called the local Slavic vernacular, has cultural and historical importance as an example of prose of the 16th century. His work was one of few primary sources about the 1385 Battle of Savra, although it contains many incorrect and imprecise data about this battle.[13]
Legacy
Aside from its ideological background, Orbin's main work was used for a long time as one of the few sources for segments of late medieval history of the South Slavs, from Carinthia and the Slovene Lands to Serbia and Bulgaria.
Even today's historiography is often uncertain about how much truth there is in some of his writings and claims. Historian Solange Bujan argues that Orbini created a false historical document based on contemporary unpublished sources and Benedictine texts, such as excerpts from recently published works by Byzantine historians, intended to lend credibility to the story, and that the real and authentic medieval historical texts are the Dubrovnik chronicle Annales Ragusini Anonymi and the text Regum Dalmatiae et Croatiae gesta by Marko Marulić, which has so far been considered a concise overview of Orbini's The Realm of the Slavs.[14][15]
Also, Orbin's works directly influenced the Slavic Macedonian General History manuscript by Gjorgjija Pulevski, who is considered as one of the founding figures of Macedonian nationalism.[17]
↑Ćirković, Sima M.; Rehder, Peter, eds. (1985). Il regno degli Slavi, Pesaro 1601. O. Sagner. p.8. ISBN9783876903095. In 1578, when he was 15, he entered a Benedictine monastery and spent..
↑"VI". Medievalia et Humanistica. 12–15. North Texas State University: 93. 1958. Mauro or Mavro Orbini.. He was elected abbot of his monastery on the island of Mljet (Meleda) on several occasions.
↑Babka, Lukáš; Roubal, Petr (2007). A New Generation of Czech East European Studies. National Library of the Czech Republic. p.164. ISBN9788070505342.
↑"Orbini Mauro (1550-1611)". History and Culture of South Eastern Europe. 8–10. Slavica Verlag. 2006.
↑Laourdas, Basil, ed. (1966). Balkan Studies: Biannual Publication of the Institute for Balkan Studies, Volume 7. Institute for Balkan Studies. p.131.
↑(NASSS 1986, p.180): "Special attention is paid to the Ragusan writer Mavro Orbini (1601) and one of his probable sources, Ludovik Crijevic (Ludovicus Cervarius Tubero). ..."
