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THE AGE OF ENLIGHTENMENT, JOSEPHINISM, AND THE HISTORICAL AND LINGUSTIC DEVELOPMENT OF THE CRIMINAL LAW TERMINOLOGY IN CROATIA ON THE EXAMPLE OF THE CIVIL CODE OPCHINSKA NAREDBA OD ZLOSCINSTVAH I NJIHOVIH PEDEPSAH

I. Krumes

Abstract

On the example of the Civil Code Opchinska naredba od zlocsinstvah i njihovih pedepsah printed in Budim in 1788, which is in fact the translation of the Criminal Code by Joseph II originally entitled Allgemeines Gesetz Гјber Verbrechen und derselben Bestrafung, it is possible to outline the ways in which the Age of Enlightenment influenced various aspects of life of all people in the empire, to show how the law and the punishment of felonies was regulated, and especially to track the historical development of the Croatian legal terminology created following the Austrian model. In addition to the content analysis of the law, the paper focuses on the lexical description and the linguistic flexibility of the Croatian language. There is research about the Croatian legal terminology, but rarely about the historical terminology. Up until ten years ago the language of the non-literary reference literature of the 18th century had not been researched in sufficient detail hence part of that historical corpus is almost unknown to the public. The legal terminology is considered to have been standardised in the middle of the 19th century. This paper is proof that old historical law codes and translations hold within an immense lexical abundance of the Croatian language and record the historical development of many national languages, which fulfilled their linguistic potential under the influence of the then advanced reforms of Habsburg Empire.

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