Cover with stamps posted on January 5, 2013.
(A
very special thanks to my best friend Tomislav Dolar)
Croatian Intangible Cultural Heritage by UNESCO
The
Festivity of St. Blaise
The
life of St. Blaise and his celebration in Dubrovnik St. Blaise, the bishop and
martyr, is the celestial patron of the town of Dubrovnik and of the Dubrovnik
bishopric. He was born about year 260 in the Armenian town of Sebastia (today’s
Turkish town of Sivas) in the region of Cappadocia. He acquired basic education
in his native town and his higher education in the town of Caesarea
(Cappadocia), cultural centre of that time. There existed already from the
second century a Christian community headed by an archbishop. Most probably it
was here, in Caesarea, that St. Blaise became better acquainted with
Christianity. Generous by nature, he chose a generous and to his fellow humans
close occupation of a physician. Upon return to his native Sebastia he
diligently served the duties of his occupation and testified his faith by his
life. In 302 the Sebastia bishop Mehrudin died and the Christian community
needed a new one - the leader in faith. To general surprise, the priests and
the believers unanimously elected for bishop not one of the priests but the
physician Blaise. Since that was the period of Diocletian’s chase of
Christians, Blaise opposed to that election: in his modesty he explained the
reasons of his not being mature for such an honourable and responsible duty.
However, the Christian community did not give up its proposal so he was left
with no choice but to go to Caesarea and receive the consecration from the
archbishop. The Constantine’s Edict from 313, by which Christians became equal
citizens of the Roman Empire has not yet become effective in the far east of
the state. In Asia Minor, depending on the Emperor’s governor the prosecutions
increased and decreased in intensity, but never ceased. The generous bishop
Blaise sedulously visited his believers: he helped the poor, cured the sick,
fed the hungry and protected the chased. To the profane government, however,
the devotion and the kindness of the bishop of Sebastia were disturbing and the
Emperor’s governor in Asia Minor, Agricola was furious at the God’s man and
saint bishop. He chased him, caught him and tortured him in most cruel ways.
Martyred to death the beloved bishop, the doctor of soul and body, in 316
changed this worldly life for the other, eternal and heavenly. There is a
legend known under the name St Blaise and the Vicar Stojko, connecting St.
Blaise with Dubrovnik. Actually, in 971 the Venetians started with more than
hundred ships towards Levant. With an excuse to take supplies in water and food
before continuing, they stopped near Dubrovnik. During night while all citizens
of Dubrovnik were peacefully asleep and the Vicar Stojko was praying in the
church, there appeared to him an unknown figure of a white-bearded, old man who
said: “I am St. Blaise, the bishop of Sebastia and a martyr. I have come, sent
from Heaven, by the God to protect the city, to prevent – with my Heavenly army
– the Venetians whom you received as guests, from taking you by surprise at
night and attacking your city walls and conquer your and my town.” Further the
vicar said that the old man sent him to the rulers of the town to tell them to
get ready and prepare themselves to protect the town and in future to be more
cautious and not let themselves be deceived by the nice talk of armed guests.
Having recognised in that act a special fondness of the saint toward their town
the citizens of Dubrovnik chose him for their celestial patron. In the year 972
they decided that 3rd February, the day of the martyr’s death, should become
the day of his celebration in Dubrovnik. Since that decision and that year
Dubrovnik has celebrated St. Blaise 1040 times on his holiday called „The
Festivity of St. Blaise“. The festivity has ever since been the spirit of the
town, and St. Blaise the patron saint of its inhabitants - primarily as a
physician and wonderworker - curing from throat illnesses and all other evil,
how they use to say in the prayer called grličanje (head laying between the two
lit candles during blessing). The festivity is celebrated during several days
with acts of devotion taking place in the church and entertainment in town. It
starts with the solemn opening of the festivity on Candelora Day and ends at
the Hill of St. Blaise on the first Sunday following 3rd February. The
celebration is led by the bishop of Dubrovnik and organised by the rectors of
the St. Blaise Church and the Cathedral. The Brotherhood of the Holy Sacrament
actively participates in its organisation in the cathedral while a special
contribution to the event gives the Brotherhood of festanjuls of St. Blaise,
that prepares the working and aesthetic framework of the celebration. The festanjuls
are the godfathers of the procession – citizens, a sea captain and a craftsman.
Regularly the festivity is also joined by the city government and almost all of
the parishes of the Dubrovnik bishopric with their church flags and flag-wavers
in folk costumes. Since in a solemn procession along Stradun the richness and
beauty of relics, Saint’s flags, church robes and folk costumes is most
noticeable, the festivity has become well known throughout the Christian but
also non-Christian world. Exactly for its richness and long tradition (more
than 1000 years) it has been put on the UNESCO’s Representative List of the
Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. Dubrovnik and all inhabitants of the
city and bishopric are very proud of it and the bond between the citizens and
Saint Blaise is best felt at the opening and closing ceremony when from the
thousands of throats the exclamation is heard: “Long live St. Blaise!”
Toma
Lučić
The
Lace from Hvar
The
renaissance Hvar by its culture could have stood comparison with far bigger
Mediterranean towns. The women from Hvar had the chance to acquire precious
lace but also to learn how to make it in the techniques of that time,
especially in the 16th century when many foreign families of tradesmen,
seafarers and state officers immigrated to Hvar from different parts of
Venetian Republic. About highly developed taste but also top lace skill testify
also preserved priests’ shirts from the Franciscan monastery, decorated in the
17th century with needlepoint lace and bobbin lace as well as the altars of the
cathedral in Hvar decorated with bobbin lace, characteristic by techniques and
motifs for the period from the 16th to 18th century. Home textile and clothes
decorated with lace, but also tools for lace making are mentioned in the notary
documents referring to noble families from the 20-ties of the 17th century
while in the 18th century lace was often mentioned in documents referring to
families from all social classes. The founding of the Benedictine monastery in
1664 also influenced lace making in Hvar, since the monastery cherished various
skills, among them also at that time much appreciated lace making. Also
connected with the monastery is till today preserved skill of making lace from
agave threads, whereby Hvar is known in the world. Therefore on the mounds
beneath the tower walls in the first half of the 19thcentury a kind of agave
(Agave Americana) was grown, which provided very good quality threads for lace
making. In 1846 a lower Benedictine sister’s school was founded. It was the
first school for girls from lower social classes - for the children of fishermen,
labourers and craftsmen – where they were - apart from obligatory school
subjects instructed also in lace making. For the needs of handicraft the
Benedictine sisters ordered from different European countries journals with
instructions and templates for different handicrafts and thus also for lace
making. A post employee and a writer Theodor Schiff mentions data about lace
making from agave threads in the 60-ies of the 19th century and in 1912 Natalie
Bruck Auffenberg, a writer and an expert in lace making also mentions lace made
of agave thread in her book “Dalmatia and its Folk Art“. Women from Hvar, of
different social classes, made lace selling it to travellers and officers who
took it with them as a present and souvenir. Already from the last quarter of
the 19th century the lace from agave threads was gladly seen at many
international exhibitions and in 1900 it was awarded an honorary diploma and a
gold medal. The Benedictine sisters pass down, from generation to generation, a
demanding procedure of turning agave leaves into silky threads for lace making.
They make lace in various techniques of sun lace, ripple, needle lace on netted
background, but they developed also their own technique called antique. The
lace is made without a scheme, it is a product of imagination and spirituality
of the Benedictine sisters. After the Second World War a tourist interest in
the preservation of the cultural heritage of Hvar and their interest in buying
agave thread lace helped preserve the lace skill of the Benedictine sisters
from Hvar. After the independence of the Republic of Croatia this lace became a
much appreciated protocol present. In September 2009 the skill of making lace
in Hvar, along with the lace making in Lepoglava and on the island of Pag was entered
on the UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of
Humanity.
Tihana
Petrović Leš
Gingerbread
Craft
Gingerbread
Craft in North Croatia The development of gingerbread craft and candle-making
craft in medieval monasteries in the territory of central Europe was based on
the tradition of beekeeping and the use of bee products - honey and wax. From
precious wax, candles and votive offerings were made, while from flour and
honey – by adding some aromatic spices, appreciated honey biscuits were baked,
known in Germany already in the 13th century under the name Lebkuchen. For
making biscuits wooden moulds of different shapes and motifs were used and the
gingerbread production flourished in the period from the16th until the end of
the 19th century. The gingerbread craft and candle-making craft in Croatia are
connected with the development of crafts in towns and developed due to
immigration of artisans from German speaking countries, especially from
Austria, where the name Lebzelter become common name for the type of biscuit.
The word was adopted in Croatian language in the form of licitar, lecetar as
the name for the craftsman but also his products. Gingerbread producers from
small and few Croatian towns associated in guilds. Already in the 17th century
licitari - the gingerbread producers, of the town of Varaždin associate in the
old and big Styrian guild with the seat in Graz; in the 18th century they are
joined also by the gingerbread makers from Zagreb and Koprivnica. Some Croatian
museums keep in their collections very valuable and old examples of moulds from
that time – so the Zagreb City Museum has got several moulds from the 17th
century and the Ethnographic Museum in Zagreb one of the largest collections of
wooden gingerbread moulds. In the 19th century and the first half of the 20th
century there exist many gingerbread makers in Croatia who have gained their
skill through a number of years of practice with masters from Austro-Hungarian
territory. The decreasing number of gingerbread makers from the middle of the
20th century is a consequence of political and social changes and the changes in
the way of life. Gingerbread production in Croatia is practiced today by a
couple of families and individuals in Hrvatsko zagorje and Međimurje regions,
in Zagreb and its surroundings, in Samobor and Karlovac and in Podravina and
Slavonia regions. For making their products - biscuits and cakes, Croatian
gingerbread makers have used wooden, clay, metal or plaster moulds of different
shapes and decorations, which changed dependent on fashion trends, local
tradition and taste. Very often the mould shapes had also a kind of religious
symbolic, depicting scenes from the Old and New Testament, the figures of
saints, motifs with mythological characters and scenes, profane characters etc.
The most often moulds were heart, baby, horse-shoe, horse etc. In Croatian s special
subkind of gingerbread developed, made of a mixture of flour, yeast and water,
baked and then dried and coloured with characteristic red, yellow, green or
white colour, decorated with sugar mass, mirrors, pictures and verses. The
licitars – gingerbread in form of heart, rosary, honey cookies, biscuits and
the bonbons were very often objects of donations among relatives and friends,
both in town and in country, on the occasion of childbirth, baptising,
confirmation, engagement or marriage. Wax candles accompanied one in the time
of curing illness or dying and the wax votive offerings of different shapes
were laid as a vow on altars of patron saints. Licitar products were bought and
given as present at fairs and church celebrations, when people enjoyed the
taste of another sweet gingerbread product called gvirc, gverc or medica
(alcoholic drink made of honey). Its particular application in expressing folk
and national identity the licitars acquired between the two world wars, when it
became traditional in bourgeois families to decorate a Christmas tree with
gingerbreads of different shapes, but smaller size. In that period giving
licitar heart presents inspired Krešimir Baranović for his ballet and the
licitar products and tents in fairs become also a theme in painting. Although
the procedure of making gingerbread has been perfectionised through centuries,
some recipes have remained family secret and making and decorating has until
today remained manual. In the 90-ties of the 20th century gingerbread becomes
Croatian souvenir and the producers begin to look for new ways of application
and expression, making among other, also Christmas nursery from gingerbread.
The gingerbread craft of North Croatia was in 2010 for its cultural importance
included in the UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural
Heritage of Humanity.
Tihana
Petrović Leš
Wooden
Children’s Toys
Ancient
wooden toys In a beautiful fairy tale by Andersen a queen who earlier was a
fairy, begins to shrink from unlove: first her gloves become too big, then her
dresses and then little by litter, she returns to her old world. Many things
begin to shrink from unlove. Also long-lasting baroque wardrobes and chairs began
to shrink when people stopped loving their curved lines, pompous shapes and
painted flowers – and on their shrinking way, they reached dwarf dimensions.
They saved themselves as toys. Those small, red, blue, yellow, black, white
pieces of furniture, plotted and spotted, actually preserve the heritage of
ancient centuries. From the history of (applied) arts they transited into
ethnology in the first chapter of the history of evanescence. And, in the
second chapter they have directed themselves toward the collection of rare
objects, since their manufacturing material and techniques are replaced by
global plastic and Chinese patterns. Together with small furniture, on that
same way are also small horses, their carts, butterflies that in proto-kinetic
imagination wave their wings but also move our legs and arms, equally as the
little men on the marry-go-round or birds that due to the mechanism of cork and
rope peck the seeds drawn on the tablet; then, the music instruments,
tamburitzas and pipes. But, before they fade away as real toys, and come back
in the world of applied arts, not to say souvenirs, these little objects have
created a fascinating aesthetics of taming everything that existed, by
following the development of technique and generally the development of
mankind: so, to the repertoire of these wooden toys gradually also trains and
later aeroplanes were added. Their vulnerability and effort by which they want
to connect worlds is touching. From the toys that taught children about
everyday life, they became toys that teach adults about the rights and the
kindness of memory. Once, for sure, wooden toys were there where the children
were; however, such as we know them today, they mainly inhabit Hrvatsko zagorje
i.e. Prigorje regions. In somewhat different form they can be found also in
Dalmatinska zagora. The centre of production is still around Marija Bistrica,
especially in the villages Laz and Vidovec. Most probably has the vivid church
fair, granting sale, influenced the subsistence of this small world. Writing
with joy this text for the stamp by which the Croatian Post will pay
international tribute to these small objects – their being entered on the
UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity –
I recall a personal episode which is already a part of their history. It was
winter 1982, Christmas was approaching, Christmas that at that time, surely,
was not publicly celebrated or marked. Since I had been collecting these small
wooden toys for a long time, I had a respectable quantity. I took a selection
of it to the bookstore Znanje, situated in - at that time Street of Socialist
Revolution, across the then Officer’s club of the Yugoslav National Army.
Actually, I was given at disposal huge shop-windows of the bookshop for the
exhibition. Christmas exhibition! The shop-windows were white, full of branches
of evergreen trees; on them, wooden toys were hanging in the solemnity of their
vivid colours, especially red. On a huge piece of hammer paper in the middle of
one shop-window, the catalogue text about toys was written. It mentioned the
villages of Prigorje and H.C. Andersen who is still today at he beginning of
this text. On several occasions persons in uniforms entered the bookshop to
check what was happening. And, since everything took place before Christmas,
there could be no excuses by attributing it to the New Year. The excuse was
hence of general, ethnographic nature: winter is the most favourable time for
traditional crafts because there is no work in fields – thus it is also the
most favourable time for exhibiting them. In the meantime, Christmas became
again public holiday; wooden toys were first put on the list of the intangible
heritage of the Republic of Croatia and now also on the UNESCO’s list. Thus, it
is even greater pleasure for me to remember their first exhibition. From the
lack of love many things get smaller. But if the love hurries after them, the
dimension is lost and only proportion remains - proportion in which the one who
loves is equal to what he/she loves, so nothing is too small or too big. Most
probably just for the anticipation thereof, Croatian wooden toys have become an
international memorial.
Željka
Čorak
Technical
Details
Gingerbread
Craft
Date
of Issue: June 12, 2012
Values:
four stamps of 1,60 HRK, 3,10 HRK, 4,60 HRK and 7,1 HRK
Designer:
Orsat Franković, dizajner iz Zagreba
Printer: "Zrinski" - Čakovec
Process:
Multicolor Offset Printing
Size:
35,50 x 35,50 mm
Perforation:
Comb,14
Paper:
white 102g, gummed
Watermark:
Sheet:
8 stamps sheetlets
(Information
and texts from Croatian Post)
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