Dragan Damjanović, PhD, Associate professor
Dragan Damjanović, PhD, was born in Osijek in 1978. After finishing his high school education in Našice (1993-97) he enrolled in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Zagreb (1997-2002). On 24th September 2002 he graduated at the Department of Art History, earning his BA in history and art history. He pursued his academic career at the same institution. On 10th March 2005 he obtained an MA degree with the thesis entitled Architect Fran Funtak and earned a PhD degree after defending the thesis entitled Đakovo Cathedral on 14th December 2007.
After having held the position of research assistant (since March 1st 2003) at the Department of Art History, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Zagreb, he was elected assistant professor in 2009. Since November 2012 he has held the position of Chair of Modern Art and Visual Communication and deputy head of the Postgraduate Study Programme in Art History at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb (head of the programme: Dr. Predrag Marković, associate professor)
The main course he has been teaching at the Faculty is Art in the 19th Century. He also taught several elective courses to art history students, as well as students of other study programmes at the Faculty (Friedrich Schmidt and Neo-Gothic, Choice of Style in the 19th Century Architecture, Neo-Gothic in the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, Architect Herman Bollé). From 2009-2010 he is participating in the International Art History Seminar Architecture and the City in Central Europe jointly organized by the University of Zagreb and the University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (USA).
His main research interests are related to the history of Croatian and Central European art and architecture of the 19th and 20th century. The focus of his research is primarily on intercultural connections in Central and South Eastern Europe – issues of national styles, Neo-Gothic, Neo-Byzantine, Neo-Renaissance, Art Nouveau and early Modern Art and Architecture. He similarly takes interest in Catholic, Orthodox and Jewish buildings and secular architecture.
He has published six books, 66 scientific papers, 15 chapters in books, and numerous professional papers. Among 66 scientific journal papers 3 have been published in journals indexed in the CC database, 11 in journals indexed in the WOS database and 10 in the journals indexed in the SCOPUS database (certain papers have been indexed in all the mentioned databases).
The majority of his texts were published in Croatian. He has published four papers in English. Two in the New York-based journal Centropa – Journal of Central European Architecture and Related Arts: “Bishop Strossmayer, Izidor Kršnjavi and the Foundation of the Chairs in Art History and Ancient Classical Archaeology at Zagreb University”, in: Centropa 9/3, 2009, pp. 176-184 and “Herman Bollé and Croatian Pavilions at the Exhibitions in Trieste (1882) and Budapest (1885 and 1896)”, in: Centropa 10/3, 2010, pp. 231 – 243. Furthermore, he published one paper in one of the most esteemed journals in the field of architectural history in the English speaking countries, the Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians (the paper is entitled “Polychrome Roof Tiles and National Style in Nineteenth – Century Croatia”, JSAH, 70/4, 2011, pp. 466-491). The article about emergence of Neo-Renaissance in Croatian historicism, on the other hand, he published in 2013 in one of the most respected German art historical journals Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte (76/3, 2013, pp. 385-408). He is the first Croatian art historian whose papers has been published in those two esteemed journals.
Dr. Damjanović is furthermore a contributor to German Allgemeines Künstlerlexicon (News on the Life and Works of Painters, Sculptors, Architects, Copperplate and Wood Engravers, Lithographers, Draughtsmen, Engravers of Medals and Ivory etc.) published by Saur.
He held 19 lectures and presentations at scientific and other conferences (5 at international conferences).
He also participated in the organization of numerous exhibitions in Croatia among which especially interesting are Slavonija, Baranja and Srijem – Sources of European Civilization (Klovićevi dvori Gallery, Zagreb, Croatia, 2009) and Expressionism in Croatia (Klovićevi dvori Gallery, Zagreb, Croatia, 2011), and independently curated the exhibition entitled The Viennese Academy of Fine Arts and Croatian Historicist Architecture – Croatian Students of Friedrich von Schmidt, which was set up at the Glyptotheque of the Croatian Academy of Arts and Sciences (Zagreb, Croatia, 2011).
He actively participates in the creation of conservation reports on the condition of Croatian architectural monuments. For the purposes of the conservation departments in Croatia he created reports on the Zidduk-hadin house in the Jewish graveyard in Vukovar, damaged cartoons for wall paintings in the Đakovo Cathedral, the war damaged Orthodox cathedral in Pakrac and parish churches in Budimci and Poganovci.
Since 2010 he has been a member of the editorial board of the scholarly journal Peristil published by the Croatian Art Historian Association.
In November 2010 he was a reviewer of the prominent international scientific publication Journal of Design History, and in November 2012 he reviewed a research project 19th – 20th Century Art and Architecture in Latvia: International Contacts and Local Specificity submitted for funding by the Latvian Council of Science.
On two occasions he was awarded the Ernst Mach Scholarship offered by the Austrian Agency for International Mobility and Cooperation in Education, Science and Research (ÖAD). The scholarship comprised a two-month study visit to Vienna (in October and November 2005 and in March and April 2008). The research he conducted while in Vienna was related to his doctoral thesis on the Đakovo Cathedral and to Croatian architecture of the 19th century in general.
In April 2012, he was on a research stay in Krakow within the academic exchange programme where he held the lecture entitled Đakovo Cathedral and Central European Art of the 19th Century and in April 2013 he was on a research stay in Pécs where he gave a lecture Croatian 19th Century Architecture with Special Reference to Projects of Hungarian Architects in Croatia.
He has a good command of the English and German languages.
He was a researcher on two Croatian scientific projects: Croatian Art of the 19th and 20th Centuries in the European Context (2002-2006) and Croatian Art from Classicism to Postmodernism (2007 – present), both headed by Professor Zvonko Maković. He was the most productive member of the project team which is witnessed by the greatest number of works that he published on topics related to projects.
Furthermore, he conceptually conceived and successfully managed international project Croatian and Serbian Artistic Connections in 18th, 19th and 20th Centuries (financed in 2010 – 2011 by the Croatian and Serbian Ministry of Science and Education respectively, formally headed by professor Zvonko Maković) which resulted in many articles on the works of Croatian architects in Serbia.
In spring 2002 he joined the European project Geschichte Südosteuropas als europäische Geschichte (History of Southeast Europe as European History) headed by Prof. Holm Sundhaussen from the Institute for East-European Studies of the Free University in Berlin, and organized by the Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe. As a project participant he represented Croatia at the courses in Sinaia (Romania, April 2002), Leipzig (Germany, October 2002), Bansko (Bulgaria, April 2003), Berlin (Germany, November 2003), Ohrid (Macedonia, April 2004) and Belgrade (Serbia, September 2004). At the course in Bansko he held a lecture entitled Culture of Housing in Croatian Cities (Die bürgerliche Wohnkultur in Kroatien). As part of the project he spent two months (November and December 2004) at the Free University in Berlin.
He is currently a member of the research team on the project headed by Prof. Maković Croatian Art from Classicism to Postmodernism which is funded by the Croatian Ministry of Science, Education and Sport, and which finishes on 31st December 2013. The central area of his research within the project is related to the history of Croatian art in the 19th and the first half of the 20th century.
He is also a researcher on the project financed by the University of Zagreb, headed by Prof. Iskra Iveljić entitled Educational and Cultural Links between Zagreb, Vienna and Budapest from the End of the 18th to the mid-20th Century.
Research topics within this project proposal have not been used for any other calls for project proposals.