Assistant Professor Deniver Vukelić, PhD

Historian, Ethnologist and Cultural Anthropologist

Assistant Professor | External Lecturer, Faculty of Croatian Studies, University of Zagreb

Senior History Editor, Školska knjiga d. d., Zagreb

Deniver Vukelić, PhD, is a Croatian historian, ethnologist, and cultural anthropologist, specialising in the cultural and social history of the late medieval and early modern periods, the history of magic and witchcraft, and Slavic and Croatian mythology. He holds the academic title of Assistant Professor and serves as an external lecturer at the Faculty of Croatian Studies, University of Zagreb.

He graduated in History and Croatian Language and Literature from the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb, in 2009. In 2018, he earned his PhD in Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology at the same institution, with a dissertation entitled The Influence of Magical Beliefs on the Formation of Croatian Cultural Identity. Since 2023, he has been pursuing a second doctorate in Premodern History at the same faculty, focusing on Trials for Magical Crimes and Witch Hunts on Northern Croatian Estates in the Eighteenth Century.

His interdisciplinary research encompasses the history of magic, witchcraft beliefs and trials, Slavic and Croatian mythology, traditional pre-Christian beliefs and Old Faith traditions, contemporary Slavic Native Faith (Rodnovery), historical anthropology, religious practices, and the cultural and social history of early modern Europe.

A central focus of his historical research is the history of witch trials and the prosecution of magical crimes in the Croatian lands and the wider Habsburg Monarchy, spanning the period from the late Middle Ages to the mid-eighteenth century. Drawing extensively on archival judicial records and other primary sources, he examines the relationships between legal institutions, popular beliefs, religious and magical worldviews, local communities, and everyday life.

His research also addresses cultural identity, historical memory, digital humanities, and the application of digital technologies to historical and ethnological research.

Alongside his academic activities, he works as a history editor at Školska knjiga, a major Croatian publishing house. He is actively involved in public history, cultural heritage interpretation, historical reenactment, and living history projects.

He served as Chair of the Organising Committee of the international conference Contra sagas – Early Modern Witch Trials in the Habsburg Monarchy (16^th–18^th Centuries), held in Zagreb on 13–14 October 2026.

Research interests: Witch trials; history of magic and witchcraft; ethnology and cultural anthropology; Slavic and Croatian mythology; Old Faith traditions; Rodnovery; late medieval and early modern cultural and social history; legal history; historical anthropology; popular religion; cultural identity; digital humanities; public history.