MIRCA
Island of Brac
Description. Mirca is a small settlement, set some distance from the sea and
still closely tied to the rural economy. Mirca has an expressive rural nature
and is scattered into several parts. Donji dvori, (The Lower Homesteads), Pod
Lokvu (The Under Pool), Glavica, etc. As early as February, the almonds whiten
all the environment with their crowns in full bloom.
Mirca is a garden and an orchard. The houses range from cottages to high two-storey
buildings with cobbled yards. Mirca is mainly turned towards the estates in the
backround and it is only recently that it has stretched towards the sea near
which in the past stood only the cemetery and the vineyards in Mutnik and Vele
njive (The Big Fields). There is a new quay in the harbour of Gumanca, a modern
olive-mill and many week-end cottages that have already reached as far as the
pine-wood and entered some of the recently left vineyards.
Mirca is a quiet and tranquile place and popular etymology connects the noun mir
(peace) with the name Mirca. Mirca is situated on the boundary between rural
life and the tourist trade, with the wish to preserve both of them.
Mirca is the sentimental love of the greatest Croatian poet Tin Ujevic
(1891-1955) who often used to stroll up these parts unveiling Mirca.
“ In the heart of a misery land and ungrateful stone, there is a moment of
high and passionate domestic poetry, some fountain of beauty upon which one
should stop and linger.
For this is the suburb of stillness where on footpaths mules and little donkeys
appeared like some touchy vehicle.
Yes, it was needful to come here from stuffy over crowded Skadarlija, to have
the Morning Star whitin the reach of our hands. There are so many stars here and
they twinkle so discretly.
The peace enters me.”
[Tin Ujevic, Otkrivajuci MIrca (Unveiling Mirca), Jadranska posta, No. 299, in
1929]
Name. The name Mirca is derived from the Latin noun murus (wall). Its meaning probably points to the ancient buildings that later on where destroyed and scattered. In the Middle Ages, according to historical sources, the settlement was called Mirac (the little wall). Later on, like many other settlement on Brac, (which in the beginning, were not built close together and therefore had the appearance of plurality), it assumed the plural form of Mirca.
Monuments. The Berticevic and Brkovic families started raising the parish
church in 1579. Mirca had at that time fifteen houses and seventy inhabitants.
Enough to separate from Donji Humac and to unite with Sutivan. This former
church, dedicated to Our Lady of Mirca, was enlarged in the second half of the
19th century with some baroque additions that we find in the majority of the
churches on Brac.
In the church there is an altar painting Pieta, by the Brac painter F. Tironi
from 1783 with the emphasized realizm of provincial apprehension.