CROATIAN HUMANIST MATIJA VLAČIĆ AND HIS CONTRIBUTION TO THE SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT OF THE EARLY MODERN AGE

Background: The 500th Anniversary of the Reformation has caused the emergence of many new publications in Ukraine dedicated to this phenomenon. Biographical research were taken quite modest positions among them. The focus was on the figures of the Western European Reformation, whose biographies are widely represented in world historiography. However, many Slavonic reformers still undervalued. In particular, a little known in Ukrainian studies remains a Croatian humanist of the 16th century Matija Vlačić (Matthias Flacius Illyricus). Purpose: The author put forward the task to acquaint the Ukrainian reader with the biography and creativity of the Croatian thinker, as well as to reveal his role in church processes, the development of theological and scientific knowledge in Early Modern Europe. To achieve this, the article is divided into several thematic blocks. The first covers the main pages of life and activity of Matija Vlačić as a Lutheran theologian, polemicist, enlightener, and scholar, the second – summarizes the early and modern studies devoted to Vlačić. The following two thematic blocks relate to his scholarly heritage in the fields of Biblical exegesis and hermeneutics (based on his “Clavis Scripturae”), сhurch history, and critical study of sources (based on “Catalogus testium Veritatis” and role of Vlačić in the creation of “Ecclesiastica Historia” – “Magdeburg Centuries”). Results: The author pays tribute to the scientific achievements of many scholars who have done important work in the study of personality of Matija, and supports the opinion expressed in contemporary historiography of his role in protection of Martin Luther’s reform. The article confirms significant of Vlačić contribution to the development of new principles of exegetics and its rise on the level of Biblical studies, and to the laying down the foundations of scientific hermeneutics and textology. The author traced use by Matija Vlačić his methods of exegetics in the study of historical documents and the comprehension of church history. An attempt at such use is his historical work “Catalogus testium Veritatis”, which can be regarded as an early experience which found a more serious incarnation in “Magdeburg Centuries”. Despite the obvious for the 16th century scientific achievements of “Catalogus” and “Centuries” polemical and ideological tendentiousness of their authors made church-historical science an element of confessional confrontation in Post-Reformation Europe. Scientific methods of Vlačić were used by Andrzej Węgierski – theologian and historian in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the author of the chronicle “Slavonic Reformation”, which became factual material for the historical works of many scholars of Eastern Europe. Key words: Reformation, Croatia, Matija Vlačić (Matthias Flacius Illyricus), exegetics, hermeneutics, сhurch history, “Clavis Scripturae”, “Catalogustestium Veritatis”, “Magdeburg Centuries”.