Arts & International Affairs: Volume 2, Issue 1 | Page 103

by both historical and political as well as European and global cultural influences, has been established as crucial. The state (whether independent republic or a republic within Yugoslavia) was in a position to either support or prevent certain types of cultural creativity. Its role deeply impacted the recent systemic cultural transition through the establishment and development of a cultural policy. The re-definition of national culture, strong mediation, and mediatization of cultural creativity and the revision of cultural policy focused on Croatian cultural resources are seen here through the lens of cultural globalization and in the context of cultural globalism. Processes of re-definition of the Croatian national culture are here illustrated by changes of the concept of culture, changes in cultural communication, and by an overall reorientation of cultural policy. The concept of culture. The holistic concept of Croatian national culture (identified through language, cultural inheritance, and types of cultural creativity) was slowly disintegrated through its modernization, reidentification, and openness to strong global technological influences in the framework of transitional processes. The initial understanding of culture remained based in the specialized activities supposed to constitute an interactive area of creativity: literature, plastic and fine arts, music, and other cultural branches. Such specialized fields are still operational and preserved as types of programs included within the institutional culture. The budget of the Ministry of Culture (Budget, Program Shares ����) identifies the following cultural activity areas and their budget shares: management of culture (�% of the current budget), museums and galleries (��%), theaters and music (��%), libraries and printing industries (�%), audiovisuals and the media (�%), archives (�%), preservation of cultural heritage (��%), and other cultural activities (��%). This split of supported programs reflects an understanding of culture as a sum of specialized cultural activities. The limited number of areas leaves a number of other creative and cultural activities and specializations aside and thus limits the understanding of culture to the concept of institutional culture, that is, the culture managed by the state. However, global cultural influences have largely widened the perceptions of cultural specializations and fields. They have introduced new interpretations of culture as “a critical self-reflection” that “makes it inclusive of practically everything” (Eagleton ����:��). This is also connected with the anthropological understanding of 102