This book is the work of the relatively little-known historian Ivan Ostojić (Šibenik, 1910–Krapina, 1987), who should not be confused with his more renowned namesake, the church historian Monsignor Ivan Ostojić (Povlja, 1893–Split, 1980), author of the monumental three-volume synthesis Benedictines in Croatia (Benediktinci u Hrvatskoj, 1963–1965). Although mechanically reproduced at the time, Ivan Ostojić’s study, completed in 1968, was never formally published. In terms of its methodology, it belongs to the traditional positivist school of scholarship on the Chronicle of the Priest of Duklja. Despite its very limited circulation, it nevertheless left its mark on several of the author’s contemporaries as well as on younger researchers. A degree of scholarly reception was likewise accorded to Ostojić’s other unpublished studies, which circulated in manuscript form, including The Vlachs in Croatia (1974) and Šibenik and Its Hinterland from the Earliest Times to the Twelfth Century (1972), as well as to his series of articles on the onomastics of the Šibenik region, published in specialist journals towards the end of his life. Ostojić’s research on the Chronicle of the Priest of Duklja is presented here for the first time to Croatian historiography for critical examination and scholarly evaluation.
