Jakob, Jelena and Bogdin

7/29/2019 Jakob, Jelena and Bogdin

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Jakob, Jelena, and Bogdin Tree Miniatures

on the Assigned Teme

Vladimir Peter Goss, Vesna Miki

Building upon the research o cultural anthropologists, archeologists and linguists inthe area o the Southern Slavs, in particular in Croatia and Slovenia, the authors ofer threeexamples o so ar unnoticed paradigms o the mythical landscape, and link them to the

phenomenon o the cultural landscape and its creation, as seen by the eld o the history ovisual art.Te cultural landscape could have as its matrix a number o old sacred spots, wellcorrelated with the later important human interventions into the environment, something tobe born in mind in any environmentalmodication. In those terms a ew words will be alsosaid about a program at the School o Architecture at Zagreb, applying the new humanistresearch to study o architecture and design.

Discoveries o cultural anthropologists and Slavic linguists in Southern CentralEurope, in particular in Slovenia and Croatia, have raised both an important challengeand ofered new avenues o research to the historian o visual arts. Te research by An-

drej Pleterski in Slovenia and Vitomir and Juraj Belaj in Croatia in the eld o culturalanthropology and archeology, and o Radoslav Katii in Slavic linguistics have broughtsense and meaning to what had been a wealth o apparently unrelated linguistic and topo-graphic data. Te place names were related to the landscape, the connecting glue beingthe mythical underpinning as proposed by the Russian scholars Ivanov and oporov, andor the area o Southern Slavs masterully applied and expanded by Belaj, Katii andPleterski1. Te word thus became a visual phenomenon, and the visual phenomenon wasenriched by the verbal content. Te challenge or the visual arts history consists in tran-scending the narrow limits o arts (in terms o architecture, sculpture, and painting), andaccepting that all the arts, visual or not, participate in a much larger phenomenon the

cultural landscape, a record o creative human intervention into the environment in boththe material and spiritual sense. For many this is a major challenge which is very di cultto accept. Te new solutions involve, on a very basic practical level, an increased ability tolocate lost monuments ollowing the lead o territorial organization proposed by culturalanthropology, and on a much higher level, an ability to grasp the essence o human cre-ativity within a certain place and time2.

Within this ramework we will ofer to our colleagues in cultural anthropology andlinguistics three landscape structures which might be interpreted in the light o what hasbeen said above. Tey come rom three very diferent parts o Croatia, the Zagreb area in

1 See bibliographies sub nomine in Belaj 2007 and Katii 2008. Pleterski 1996 remains the key study.2 Goss 2008, Goss 2009.


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Jakob, Jelena, and Bogdin Tree Miniatures on the Assigned Teme

the northwest, Central Dalmatia,and the Kvarner area. wo o theminvolve territories o well-recog-nized importance or Croatian po-

litical history, the Zagreb Prigorjeand the Salonitan eld near Split,and the third a much less studiedand politically prominent, but cul-turally also very important area othe Kvarner gul.

Studying cultural landscapeis or the history o any art, and soalso the visual art history, both anapparently new, but also a very old

eld. I we read Pausanias, we willbe amazed by the number o spiri-tualized points in the landscape.Tere is practically no tree, rock,bush, water, or crossroad that isnot a witness o human presence,or that is not modied by an inter-

vention o human spirit and hand,rom a simple name-giving to com-plex urban landscapes3.

Obviously, human beingscannot live in an environmentwhich is not touched by humanspirit, or in which there is no coop-eration between the human spiritand Mother Nature. Such total artinvolves phenomena that we rec-

ognize as basic orms o human creativity the image, the sound, and the movement, aswell as those wherein a major part is played by Natures contribution smell, touch, taste,and the sense o space. Since the Renaissance, when art histories (and so also the history

o visual arts) emerged as critical humanist disciplines, that totality has been disappear-ing, giving us separate elds such as the history o literature, o music, o dance, o visualart (vulgo art history). A return to an integrated, Pausanian, approach is o a greatimportance, in particular or the question o the preservation o both natural and culturalecology, which jointly orm the total ecology4.

Another important aspect in those terms is practical work in teaching, in particularstudents and younger scholars, how to analyze, appreciate, and creatively act within theenvironment. At the Faculty o Architecture o the University o Zagreb there is a ProjectHyCro (HiperHrvatska) led by Proessor Vesna Miki. Te project which has both theo-

3 Pauzanija 2008.4 Goss and Gudek 2009, pp. 9-10.

1. Belajs Zagreb triangle (V. Belaj).

Plazur


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retical and practical, hands-on, dimensions investigates spatial complexities as a part othe process o preservation o the traditional heritage to serve as a basis or concrete urbanand architectural design projects. HyCro is ormulated as a summer school taking placein Continental Croatia, and was so ar conducted in Podravina (2005), Gorski kotar andGacka (2006), and Gorski kotar and Skrad (2008), and it constitutes a part o a 9th semestercourse on regional architecture5.

Te basic goal is to ormulate an investigative model which could systematize andevaluate all existing natural and cultural values, in particular in the areas where such val-ues have not been studied or applied in terms o a sustainable development o eco-systems.We consider it extremely important that the ne contributions o a number o humanist

disciplines in the eld o human space be promoted and applied in practice.Te history o visual arts too should be grateul to cultural anthropology and lin-guistics or helping it recover lost and orgotten territories. In the light o what has beensaid so ar, let us present our three miniatures on the assigned theme o the Old Gods inthe New Country.

1. Jakob (Jacob, James).

Pausanias has done wonders in recognizing and describing the complexity o largecultural landscape structures, e.g., Athens or Delphi. Our rst example deals with one

5 Miki 2010.

2. St. Marko at Gradec in Zagreb (Goss/Juki).


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3. Medvedgrad and St. Jakobs peak (Goss/Juki).

4. Jakovlje, hill o St. Dorothea (Goss/Juki).


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such complex structure, or Croatia one o its most important historical-cultural land-scapes, the Zagreb Prigorje (Cismontana). Proessor Belaj has demonstrated how thekey points in the landscape could be set to orm a sacred triangle; these are: the hill oSt. Jakob (Jacob, James, gs. 1, 3), at the westernmost end o the central massive o theMedvednica Mountain eaturing a rather recent chapel o the Saint Peruns place; St.Marko at Gradec the Upper own o Zagreb Moko (g. 2); and upanii, a hamlet onthe outskirts o Zagreb along the Sava River (the Jarun area) Veles. Belaj also noticed,and this is tremendously important, that three key landscape markers St. Jakobs peak,the Medvedgrad castle on a lower hill below St. Jacobs, and St. Marks, the parish church oGradec (gs. 1, 2, 3; the latter two being also supreme works o art), all on the same line!

Independently I have reached a similar conclusion based on the act, noticed also by Belaj,that the hills o St. Jakob and o Medvedgrad bear the names o Veliki and Mali Plazur (TeBig and Te Little Crawling Place), a reerence to the crawling o Veles attempting to reachPeruns seat6 (gs. 2, 3).

In a recent diploma essay, my young colleague, ea Gudek, extended that line look-ing or interesting place names on or close by it. Across the Sava river, the line goesthrough the village o Jakuevec (Jacobs village), where in the 14thc., and quite probablyearlier, there was a parish o St. Marks. Behind the Medvednica, the line passes throughJakovlje and Igrie. At Jakovlje (Jacobs Place), a long scattered village on a raised beam, itpasses through a hill, once surely ortied, bearing a recent chapel o St. Dorothea, a very

6 Belaj 2008, pp. 309-310: Goss 2008B.

5. Igrie, the likely site o the sanctuary (Goss/Juki).


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6. Solin, Otok, location o Our Lady o the Island (Goss/Juki).

7. View o the Perun above rnovnica rom the Otok in Solin (Goss/Juki).


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rare Saint in Croatia (g. 4). As she is a patron o ruit and ower growers, having mi-raculously produced apples and roses in mid-winter in the course o her martyrdom, herea Christian Saint must have landed on top o some ancient ertility Goddess (Flora?). AtIgrie, another scattered beam village just to the north o Jakovlje, it passes through thehighest point, a steep hill at the extreme eastern end o the beam, an ideal spot or a smallort and/or a sanctuary (g. 5). Igrie is an interesting place name. At Kalnik Mountain itappears within a very indicative context, i.e., at the place o the ruined chapel o St. Martin(single nave with an added, polygonal sanctuary, which indicates a Romanesque i notearlier date or the nave), in ront o which there are traces o a circle made o stone, the

walls o which seem too thin to be a ortication. As Igrie means the place o dancing,thus o rituals, we may have here traces o an old, Slavic, or even pre-Slavic sacred spotChristianized by the untiring and in Northwestern Croatia omnipresent St. Martin7.

o ofer at least a temporary conclusion: the cultural landscape o the Zagreb Prig-orje has as its matrix a number o very old sacred spots, well correlated with the laterimportant human interventions into the environment. In other words, they orm the basiso Zagrebs cultural landscape as we mostly know it today, and conrm that the Mountainhas been the key actor o the citys existence. Not only that its two core areas Gradecand Kaptol sprang up on the Mountains ofshoots, but it has acted as a positive climatemodier, and the source o the most o the necessities o lie throughout the history.

7 Goss and Gudek 2009, pp. 11-16.

8. Split, Poljud, Holy rinity and St. Michael, ca. 800 (Goss/Juki).


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2. Jelena (Helen)

Zagreb has established its prominence by the end o the 11th century. As long terminvestigators o the earliest monumental Slavic art on the territory o Croatia, we askedourselves the ollowing question: could, or even should, such a process o endowing thehuman environment with sense and meaning take into consideration some key individualsites and monuments o the nations history? o explore this venue o investigation weshould descend to the cradle o Croatian past Central Dalmatia.

Katii and Belaj have duly demonstrated that the landscape around rnovnica tothe east o Split ollows the pattern o early Slavic mythical structures8. I Perun was lo-cated at Sv. Juraj above rnovnica, could Moko and Veles be ound at some o the key na-tional monuments in the Podmorje upa, i.e., the Salonitan ager and the land in betweenrogir, Klis, and Split. Choices are many royal estates and oundations at Bijai, Putalj,Riinice, etc., but the most obvious and illustrious spot would have been the Otok (Island)in Solin, on the river Jadro, the site o the mausoleum o the Croatian kings, expanded byQueen Jelena (Helen) beore 9769 (g. 6). Indeed, the Perun above rnovnica looms talland clear toward the southeast (g. 7). I so, maybe Veles had his abode in Paljud, Paludes,

8 Belaj 2007, pp. 441-443.9 Goss 1975-76.

9. Te Solin small triangle (V. Belaj).


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10. Te Peak o St. Jakob rom Medvedgrad (Goss/Juki).

11. Sv. Brdo in the Velebit (Goss/Juki).


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the marshy land to the north o the walls o the early medieval Split, i.e. Diocletians Palace.A spot worthy o consideration would be the hexaconch church o the Holy rinity and St.Michael, who oen tames Veles by sitting upon his home (g. 8). At our request ProessorBelaj had checked out our suggestions and successully drawn a so-called small mythicaltriangle in line with our proposition (g. 9)10.

Te orm o the small church, today lost among large suburban buildings, but onceon a raised spot o the peninsula and thus much more visible than today, is that o a poly-conch, remarkably requent in the Pre-Romanesque architecture in Croatia. Elsewhere V.

Goss has endeavored to demonstrate that the requency o appearance o the type (be itin its hexaconchal or octoconchal orm) is due to the act that the Slavs recognized a planwhich reminded them o sanctuaries in the old country. Tis is ully in harmony with theestablished church practice o using places and orms known to the pagan population toacilitate the reception o the new aith11.

Our conclusion is that we should intensely subject the key sites o early Croatian his-tory to such an analysis o surrounding space, or example, the Biskupija area near Knin,the Saviors Church at the spring o Cetina, as well as a number o other key sites in theZadar and Split hinterland.

10 On the distinction between big and small triangles, Belaj and Belaj 2007, 16-23.11 Goss 2009, pp. 152-163.

12. Te Western Papuk rom Bijela (V. Belaj).


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3. Bogdin

It has become quite clear that the patterns resulting rom application o mytho-logical matter to the landscape, i.e., o human creative interventions into the environmentbased on mythological elements, occur with considerable requency. Are there any indica-tions that some orms keep recurring in terms to tell the same tale?

Viewed rom Medvedgrad, St. Jakob appears as a ne pyramidal hill (g. 10). A

pyramid is also the Sveto Brdo (the Holy Mountain, g. 11) on the Southern Velebit, iden-tied as a Peruns seat; or one could quote the Kajles, a Holy Mountain in the Himalayas.Proesor Belaj has conrmed and drawn a sacred triangle at the Western tip o the PapukMountain in Western Slavonia (g. 14), which includes a beautiul pyramid o the PoganiVrh (the Pagan Peak, Peruns seat), the wiggly Petrov Vrh (Peters Peak, Veles home), andMokos location exactly at the site o the Benedictine monastery o Bijela, one o the keymonuments o theCroatian Middle Ages (g. 12, 13)12.

12 Here we would like to recall a ne paper on the topic given by Proessor omo Vinak at the Conerence Pagu praskozorje hrvatskoga kranstva, Pag, September 26-28, 2008, entitled Sv. Brdo na junom Velebitu.We remain grateul to Proessor Vinak or additional inormation. We are equally grateul to Proessor Vi-

tomir Belaj to have conrmed our intuitions concerning the Zapadni Papuk triangle. See also Goss 2008B, pp.264-266, and Goss and Gudek 2009, p. 14.

13. Te Pogani vrh.


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Pyramidal mountains have recently gained some notoriety, but here our, admittedlystill limited sample, indicates that the regular pyramid orm may be the standard imageo Peruns home.

Frequently traveling between Zagreb and Rijeka, we have noticed rom the through-way, as it descends rom the Highlands toward the Kvarner Gul between Otrovica andKikovica, a ew very ne pyramidal peaks. As one has been more and more exposed to thecultural anthropologists doctrine, we nally picked up a map and established that one othem, not the tallest but in the middle, is called Bogdin (Bog=God, thus possibly Gods

peak, or denitely a place related to a God) (g. 15). It is surrounded by two hills calledVelika and Mala Pli (Big and Little Pli=Pleivica=Bald Mountain,i. e., Witches Moun-tain) and a smaller hill called Svetonji (Svet=Holy, thus a place related to Holiness).

We would like to draw the attention o our colleagues to the Bogdin group, as weourselves have been unable to nd any other sensibly related spots in the landscape (wewould single out, though, place names such as Bojuine and reska), and yet believe thathere we have a basis or expert research. In saying so we rely on both the place names, butalso believe that some conrmation is ofered by the orm o the hill; and that we may beat the trace o an emerging iconography o the landscape.

Te standard history o visual arts does not rush to accept views like that, as theythreaten the traditional borders between disciplines as well as those within the history

14. Western Papuk triangle (V. Belaj).


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o visual arts itsel. Such views may be close to some radical theories o art o the 20thcentury, as they take into consideration not just a static visual phenomenon called thework o art, but also a process requiring a study o the role o the observer and his move-ment throughout the time and space13. Te observers participation means that in addi-tion to the art o creating images, sounds, movements, smells, etc., we must also have anart o experiencing, a stance that seriously questions the position othe art as somethingelevated and elitist, while at the same time underlining the tremendous importance thatart as living environment has or ones both physical and spiritual well-being (i it is at

all wise to make distinction between the two)14

. Which, next, underlines the importanceo understanding and respecting our environment, as being kind to our environment weare being kind to ourselves.

13 Hopkins 2000, pp. 161-197; Danto 2003, 103-124.14 Dutton 2009, chapter Art and Human Nature.

15. Bogdin (Goss/Juki).


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Literature

Belaj, Vitomir 2007, Hod kroz godinu, Zagreb.Belaj, Vitomir 2008, Sacred ripartite Structures in Croatia, in: Mencej, Mirjam ed.,

Space and ime in Europe, Ljubljana.Belaj, Vitomir, and Belaj, Juraj 2007, Ivaneki se trokut produbljuje i iri, Ivanekakrinjica 3, 16-23.

Danto, Arthur 2003, Te Abuse o Beauty, Chicago.Dutton, Denis2009, Te Art Instinct, New York.Goss, Vladimir P. 1975-76, wo Early Croatian Royal Mausolea, Peristil18-19, 5-10.Goss, Vladimir P. 2008, wo Saint Georges and the Earliest Slavic Cultural Landscape

Between the Drava and the Sava Rivers, Peristil51, 7-28.Goss, Vladimir P. 2008B, Hiding in: Veles the Snake in the Landscape o Medieval Slavo-

nia, Ikon 2, 263-270.

Goss, Vladimir P. 2009, Landscape as History, Myth, and Art. An Art Historians View,Studia Ethnologica Croatica 21, 133-166.Goss, Vladimir P., and Gudek, ea, 2009, Some very Old Sanctuaries and the Emergence

o Zagrebs Cultural Landscape, Peristil52, 7-26.Hopkins, David 2000,Aer Modern Art, Oxord.Katii, Radoslav 2008, Boanski boj, Zagreb.Miki, Vesna 2010, Razvojni programi za pogranina podruja Hrvatske, Graevinar

62, 123-131.Pauzanija 2008, Vodi po Heladi, Uro Pasini, transl., Split.Pleterski, Andrej 1996, Strukture tridelne ideologije pri Slovanov, Zgodovinski asopis

50, 163-185.


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Jakob, Jelena i Bogdin tri minijature na zadanu temu


ovjek nikad nije mogao ivjeti u okoliu koji nije osmislio svojim duhom, odnosnogdje se nije spojilo stvarateljstvo ljudskog roda i prirode. U tom okviru zeleni - su otilidalje od kulturnjaka, no danas se poinje shvaati da zatite ope ekologije nema bezzatite i prirodne i kulturne ekologije. U biti, one su neodvojive. akvo shvaanje vodi doshvaanja stvaralake suradnje ovjeka i prirode, te se time lome granice izmeu granaumjetnosti, ali i granice izmeu visoke i niske, elitnei puke umjetnosti, itd. Ve-lika je zasluga linguistike i kulturne antropologije pri vraanju studija likovnih umjetnostina pravi put. U svjetlu izreenog, iznio bih ukratko tri primjera pokuaja sagledavanjanekih kulturno-pejsanih enomena s gledita prouavatelja likovnih umjetnosti.

1. Jakob.Na prvi primjer se obraa Zagrebakom Prigorju. Proesor Belaj je pokazao kakose kljune toke tog pejsaa mogu posloiti u sveti trkut - Sv. Jakob na Medvednici(Perun), Sv. Marko na Gradecu (Moko) i upanii na Jarunu (Veles). Belaj je primijetiotakoer da tri vana orjentira tog pejsaa nalaze na istoj crti. Crta se preko Save nastavljau Jakuevec, gdje je u 14. st. a vjerojatno i prije upa Sv. Marka. Preko Medvednice, crta senastvalja u Jakovlje i Igrie, toponim koji se u vrlo zanimljivom spomenikom kontekstu

javlja i na Kalniku (mjesto rituala). Dalje nismo ili jer ve i ovo zahtijeva intenzivan radna terenu koji slijedi.

Uz tu os veu se jo neki zanimljivi poloaji, prvenstveno na podruju Remetskog

depa mogue najranije jegre slavenskog Zagreba. U skupini Lipa-Rog na istonom di-jelu sredinje Medvednice (kako nam je pojasnio Poesor Pleterski, opet toponimi bogatogsadraja) locirali smo moguu zanimljivu toku, brijeg po imenu Stari kip.

A povuemo li crtu sa Sv. Jakoba kroz podruje Kamenitog stola u Remetama dola-zimo do rimskog pretka Zagreba, Andautonije!

Dakle, kulturni pejsa Zagrebakog Prigorja ima kao temelj mreu vrlo starih svetihmjesta, koja uvelike korelira s ljudskim zahvatima u okoli.

2. JelenaMoe li ovakovo osmiljavanje pejsaa, uzeti u obzir vane spomenike nacionalne

povijesti? Na pr., ako je Perun kod Sv. Jurja nad rnovnicom, da li su Moko i Veles na ne-kom od vanih predromanikih lokaliteta splitske okolice. Moko bi trebala biti na Otokuu Solinu kod crkve SS. Marije i Stjepana, mauzoleja Kraljice Jelene i hrvatskih kraljeva,aVeles na Poljudu (Paludes-Movare), moda kod esterolisne crkvice Sv. rojstva i Miho-

vila (koji esto sjeda ba Velesove poloaje). Proesor Belaj mi je nacrtao, t.z., mali trokutkoji odgovara mojoj predpostavci.

Dakle valja podvrgnuti kljune spomenike ranog hrvatskog kranstva slinim ana-lizama.

3. Bogdin

Ako se nasluuju uzorci u stvaralakom osmiljavanju pejsaa, da li smo na tragunekoj ikonograji pejsaa? Sv. Jakob je lijepa piramidalna glavica, pa tako i Sv. Brdo na


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Junom Velebitu, Pogani vrh na Zapadnom Papuku i Kajles, sveto brdo Himalaja. Da li jerazmjerno pravilan piramidalni oblik standardna slika Perunovog stana?

Iznad autoceste Zagreb-Rijeka izmeu Otrovice i Kikovice ima nekoliko vrlo li-jepih piramida od kojh se jedna zove Bogdin! Mislim da smo zaista na putu prema

ikonograji pejsanih oblika.

Documents

Jakob, Jelena and Bogdin