Sutivan Island of Brac
Description. Sutivan is a settlement on the north-western coast of Brac, set just opposite Split. It is only 13 km distant from it. Sutivan is an entrance to Brac It is at the side of Split with which it has been connected from the day of its birth Sutivan is the result of the side by side existence of the island’s primeval inhabitants with the people from across the sea who were constantly emigrating and remaining there in Sutivan. Today it is lovely little village of the Meditterranean type, with beautiful tree-lined beaches and many holiday houses that stretch along the sea on both sides of the village. Sutivan is Split’s favorite holiday place, it is one of its clearest beaches-it is its suburb across the sea. Until not long ago, Sutivan was just a little picturesque settlement of peasant huts in the environs of Blato and of more luxurious houses near the sea. Next to the huts there still remain the sties, baking ovens, and in the cellar we find oil-vessels, barrels and rusty vine-presses. The barrels are already rarely filled with wine and the coast and the quays’ are rarely covered with the fishermens’ nets. Barrels of fish are no longer loaded on the fishing boats and in the little harbour we now more often see leisure-crafts instead of the fishing boats. The masts of the big sailing-boats used to rock here in the bay before setting off to Venice via Otrant. An then the regulations about wine, philloxera, steam-ships, the First World War and the harder living at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century opened the ways to the distant worlds for many Sutivans. Accursed sea-ways with their vastness and vast hopes constantly dragged this people to the road with no return. Sutivan is no longer the typical farmer’s settlement that used to raise its houses on the sunny slopes in order to preserve the tilling lands in Blato, Lokva and near the sea. It is necessary, therefore, to start from its lungomare that stretches from Lucica to Lokva, and get to the glades, enter the stony yards and the houses raised on the sites hidden from the view from the sea. It is here, in this architecture in which prevail stone slabs and lime, that we should recognize the old Sutivan. The old Sutivan was hidden from the pirates and exposed to the sun, the new one stretched itself along the sea to expose itself to the world.
History. The present Sutivan is a settlement of Modern Times. It was founded in the 15th century when, during the time of peace at sea, the old Brac settlers from the interior descended to the coast. But is was conceived in fairly ancient times. It would be difficult to imagine that this corner of the island, situated just opposite the old towns, especially that of Medieval Split would have been left unnoticed and empty. Indeed, in 1340, the foundations of the Early Christian church of St. John were dug up in the eastern part of the settlement. The experts share the opinion that the church belongs to the 6th cenutry. And so Sutivan, together with the other settlements set on the northern coast of Brac, (like Supetar, Splitska, Postira, Pucisca and Povlja), was already in existence in pre-Croatian times. As on the coastal line we follow the gradual development from villa rustica- Early Christian basilica- Early Croatian church, it would be sensible to expect here as well the mark of the Croatian architecture or other evidence of early Croatian presence. From the earliest registers that belong to the 11th to 13th century, we learn about the estates of Brac’s and Split’s wealthy people in the region of D. Humac (q.v.) via Mirca (q.v. to Sutivan and the bay of Svicurje. As early as in the 11th century, the church of St. John became the Croatian shrine. It is supposed that the founder of its benefice was the nobleman from Split, Cassari, who is registered in Supetar’s list as a rich man, from whose widow Petar Crni (Peter the Black) bought on Brac the village Gomirje (D. Humac) with all the land and farm-hands. From the testament of the prior Petar from 1907, we learned that he gave as a present all his estates to the church os St. John de Fonte (on the Bunta) with the very unusually drawn border-lines; they are to be marked within aershot of the cock’s crowing, (in quantum potes gallus audiri). The church was afterwards destroyed but on its site the new one was erected in 1579 and restored in 1655. The creation of the present settlement was greatly supported by the emigrants from across the Channel. The first settlers were the Ivanovicis from Podgora in 1477, and after them Jakov Natalis who in 1505 erected a fortified settlement. In the 16th century Sutivan got separated from the parish of D. Humac and raised the church of Mary’s Ascension (in 1585). At the beginning of the 18th century, the great Croatian poet Jeronim Kavanjin (1641-1714) next to the fort erected his baroque summer house with a wide park. Here was created his grand poem Bogatstvo and Ubostvo (Wealth and Misery), the most voluminous work of old Croatian literature with 32658 lines arranged in 30 cantos. Although in the 17th century this settlement was attacked by the plague, this village of peasants and fishermen in 1772 already had about 700 inhabitants. They originated from various parts and therefore fenced their homesteads which are still now referred to as the separate parts of the settlement (Vovelovi dvori, Stipanovi dvori, Zuvetica dvori, Jankov dvor, Slavica dvori...) The church of St. Rocchus in the present, new cemetery was raised by the Sutivans in 1623 in order to protect themselves from the plague and thus this saint became the patron of the settlement. For centuries it grew and formed its character, this settlement of the original inhabitants and the newcomers, peasants and seamen, noblemen and ordinary men.
Name. from the name of the Early Christian basilica sanctus Johanes, in the Roman-Croatian linguistic mingling was created, earlier than the 10th century, the Croatian form Sutivan via still an older one of Sutivan. This later one is the official name that was artificially maintained in spite of the fact that in the historical sources it always reads as Stivan and the Bracans themselves call it so. The church was in Fonte, which is found in the present form Bunta (from Ponta-the cape), because the historical sources call this region Ponta nirgra (The Black Cape), probably because of the conifer wood of pines and cypresses that grew round the church and the monastery. About the monastery we know from the preserved name of Mojstir, which originates from the Greek monasterion (monastery). Later on some remains of it were found. if we add to this the names, Svicuraj (Lat. sanctus Georgius) the name of the bay and the little church in it, and Mirca ( Lat. murmus, the wall) on the opposite side of Sutivan, it is obvious that we find ourselves standing on a place of ancient and high culture.
Monuments. The cultural monuments of Sutivan are grouped round the two parish churches- the old one and the new one. The old church of St. John was raised as a three-apse Early Christian church in the 6th century. In the 11th century it was renovated and in the coming centuries its rector was seated in Split while the estates were in the surroundings. in 1609 the remains of the old church were visable. It was restored in 1656. In this shrine is still preserved the southern wall of the old church with the four exterior lesens (small semi columns). The inscriptions on the facade is much younger because the church was later several times restored. Near the church are the ruins of the old Mojstir (the monastery) whose activity has remained a secret to us up to the present day. Of the civilian architecture we should draw attention to the house-fort of Jakov Natalis Bozicevic, which was raised at the foot of the bay in 1505. In the eastern part of the bay there is the fort of Marjanovic, with firm oblique walls at the bottom, from the 17th century. A little further out there is the charming and harmonious summer-house of Kavanjin with a baroque park, raised in 1690 to 1705. The Kavanjin summer-house is of particular monumental value. There were some estates buildings round it which are still preserved. Across the way was the cellar with the wine and oil presses. Through the extended part of this family-strada (path, way) one entered the small yard with the house. Further to the east was still another three-storey building and then towards the south a ground-flour building in which the temporarily hired farm-hands from Zagora used to dwell. To the estate of the Kavanjins also belonged the ruins of Mojstir with the little yard. In 1934 when the building of the gymnastics hall was started, the oldest monuments of Sutivan were discovered, the foundations of the church and of the monastery. The Kavanjin estate with its arrangements of auxillary houses reminds us of the old Roman and Croatian medieval estate buildings, one of which, Gomilje from 1080, belonged to the same region (q.v. D Humac) The poet J. Kavanjin pulled down the house with the cellar, yard and the garden and raised his summer-house, of which the ground-floor, the yard, the cellar and the garden with the foot-paths are still preserved. The original entrance was from the southern side. On the side walls are the loopholes and over the entrance is the inscription Ostium non hostium (the door opened only to friends), Over the present entrance a memorial tablet was set in 1935 with some lines from his velepjesan (grand-poem). The summer-house was behind the town-hall, which consisted of two ground-floor houses. In the bigger were the offices and the smaller one served are a prison. The Sutivans gave in to the demand of Kavanjin and pulled down these two houses. In 1879 in their place the yard of the summer-residence was enlarged, with an added entrance staircase. In return, the townsmen got their land on Blato where they raised the new community house. The second monumental complex is the parish church, raised in 1579, a late period for Renaissance forms. Later on, in the centuries of baroque it was partitioned many times so that the original style was completely lost. the 19th century finally removed the baroque mark of this shrine. The fine baroque belfry with the open loggias and the culminating cupola is not typical of the Brac campanili of the even stone surfaces. However, we can deny neither its elegance by which it imposes itself upon the settlement the stretches along the glade, nor the charm of its apparent longing to reach the top of the hill on is south side. Round the church was the old cemetery but the burials were performed inside the church. There the baroque steles were discovered with the inscriptions in the Croatian language. In the church it is worth seeing the monumental marble tabernacle made at the end of the 19th century and the altar painting Our Lady of the Rosary, with the characteristics of early baroque. The little votive chapel of St. Rocchus was raised in 1635. From the year 1829, whn it was forbidden to hold burials in the village, the cemetery was moved to this place. In this, later on, church, altered, here is a wooden statute of St. Rocchus, the work of V. Tironi and a few early baroque paintings from central dalmatia. It is rather curious to find in the eastern part of the settlement one of the formerly numerous windmills on the island, now turned into a dwelling house. Sutivan is the birth-place of one of the most deserving researchers into the history of Brac, Prof. Andre Jutronich, born in 1895, initiator and editor-in-chief of the periodical Bracki zbornik. There are now more than 10 books of the scientific studies on Brac published in this edition. The Stivans also speak in the cakavski dialect, like the Milnas and the Supetrans. This dialect is typical of those settlements on the coast that had close connections with the Venetians. But Sutivan adopted the speech of Brac mostly in the Split dialect. This is still another contact with Split, the contact with which we started our discussion about Sutivan.