After His Retirement from the British Council Malcolm Hardy Has Been Able to Dedicate Most

AMAC-UK 2003 lecture

Since his retirement from the British Council, Malcolm Hardy has been able to dedicate most of his time to specific projects of historic research, for which, as a historian and cultural historian by academic training, he has always wanted more time. In 1970 his first posting with the British Council was to Zagreb, where he was intrigued by references in guide books to a British presence during the Napoleonic wars on the island Vis, which as a military base was not accessible to foreigners in the 1970s.

Many years later, when already retired, he was able to visit Vis and, with the help of a conservationist friend in Split and another friend who was involved with the local archives of Korcula, Malcolm undertook to look in British archives for any documentation about the British forts, still standing on the islands of Korcula and Vis, which date from the time of the Napoleonic wars. In doing this he has been able to access a wealth of documentation which has offered completely new insights into the activity of the British in the Adriatic at that particular time.

For the AMAC lecture of 2003 he summed up this research in a fascinating hour-long talk. It is hoped that his research is to be soon published as a bilingual (English/Croatian) book as a joint venture by the ‘Cvito Fiskovic Foundation’ and ‘Krug prijatelja knjige’ in Split. When published we hope to announce it on the AMAC - UK web site.

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AMAC-UK predavanje 2003.

Od kad se povukao u penziju iz British Council-a Malcolm Hardy imao je mogucnost posvetiti veci dio svog vremena odredjenim projektima povjesnog istrazivanja, {to je kao povjesnicar i povjesnicar kulture po akademskoj spremi oduvijek zelio) Prvo zaposlenje s British Council dobio je 1970. godine u Zagrebu gdje su ga zaintrigirale reference u vodicima o britanskom prisustvu na otoku Visu za vrijeme Napoleonskih ratova. No, 1970-tih godina Vis je jos uvijek bio vojna baza i stoga zatvoren za strance.

Mnogo godina kasnije, vec u penziji, mogao je posjetiti Vis. Ubrzo zatim na trazenje dvojice dalmatinskih prijatelja, od kojih je prvi konzervator u Splitu, a drugi arihivar korculanske povijesti, Malcolm je poduzeo potraziti po britanskim arhivima svu postojecu dokumentaciju o britanskim kulama na Visu i Korculi podignutima za vrijeme Napoleonskih ratova. Ovo istrazivanje bilo je

pocetak otkorenja velikog bogatstva jos neistrazenih dokumenata koji su omogucili potpuno novi uvid u aktivnosti Britanaca na Jadranu u to vrijeme.

Za AMAC-ovo predavanje 2003. sazeo je svoje istrazivanje u zanimljivo jednosatno predavanje. Ocekuje se da ce njegov istrazivalacki rad uskoro izaci kao dvojezicna knjiga (hrvatski/engleski) u zajednickom izdanju ‘Fondacije Cvite Fiskovica’ i ‘Kruga prijatelja knjige’ u Splitu. Kad knjiga izadje, svakako cemo to najaviti na AMAC-ovom web-siteu.