In cooperation with the Diocese of Dalmatia and the Ethnographic Institute of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, with the support of the Administration for Cooperation with Churches and Religious Communities, from October 1 to 4, 2024, an international scientific meeting "Mediterranean landscape, identity and the life of the people of Dalmatia".

The idea of ​​the meeting is to establish scientific cooperation between domestic and foreign experts of various scientific disciplines, who tried to talk in a new, more comprehensive way about the inexhaustible topic of the Mediterranean as the cradle of civilization, its beauty, cultural, historical and geological importance, which is in many aspects of life through connected both European and overseas peoples throughout history.

In his welcoming speech, with special inspiration, Metropolitan Nikodim of Dalmatia brought his personal experience of the Mediterranean landscape: "You will forgive me for, in my own way, giving my personal stamp, i.e. an experience of the Mediterranean that I have been living to the fullest almost my entire life. The Mediterranean that I remember from a young age has always been a place of joy and happiness, often rough and sharp, seemingly prickly like a bramble, but deep down very colorful, beautiful and soft and refined, and that in all its absurd extremes that it is full of. It is not without reason that the theater of the absurd arose on the Mediterranean stage. And the Mediterranean is full of absurdities".

In the plenary lecture "Mediterranean: spirit and time", director of the Directorate for Cooperation with Churches and Religious Communities Dr. Vladimir Roganović said, among other things: "We always come to meetings of this type full of soul and heart." The Mediterranean spirit is one of our origins. Every mention of him invites us to travel towards the real or domestic place of origin. It is as if our soul and body have been multiplied, similar to scattered writings created on this holy ground. Especially those related to culture and myths, to customs, to holy places and festivals, to sagas and the realization of one's own origin, which has its own intimate story. Sometimes a song that is exciting above all like the words of a still panting witness. Even more significant is the fact that the long-gone world, thanks to the unique evocation in the texts created in the Serbian Mediterranean, gained the importance of a model, and thus also thought and emotional relevance for later times. These are the moments that our analyzes at this international scientific gathering should first of all follow, avoiding simplifications and mechanistic causal relationships. And that manifests itself in many ways - elation, but also unforcedness, modesty and invisible communicativeness, attachment, finally, to the motherland, the space in which local spiritualists, writers and thinkers were not born, but matured with it".

The organizers of the meeting were guided by a multidisciplinary approach in order to contribute to the expansion of knowledge about the Mediterranean and Dalmatia, its people, nations, cultural heritage and landscapes, as well as to create conditions for further research. The thematic framework of the meeting included a wide range of fields and disciplines, among which are: history, geography, demography and the issue of migration, cultural and artistic heritage (archaeology, sacred architecture, folk culture), theology, literature, agriculture (olive farming, animal husbandry, fishing). , tourism. The participants of the meeting assessed that the scientific meeting brought together experts from different fields who established the foundations of cooperation, continuity and dynamics of meeting and an open and broad approach in understanding the life and creativity of the people we call Mediterranean.

Source: SPC