POSTIRA
Postira is a settlement of Modern Times, founded by the refugees from across the
Chanel and the old settlers of the Brac interior. The fort of Lazanic seems to
have been erected (in the valley underneath) by the end of the 16th century. It
was one of the numerous fortified monuments to the permanent defence of the
Bracans on the bare land. In the harbour we find a high palace with a
Renaissance gable on whose southern front are many humanistic quotations of a
religious nature showing thus the high level of culture and education. It is the
birth place of the poet I. Ivanisevic (1608-1665) who was, with his works, the
initiator of Croatian literrary criticism and polemics. Such an environment
could produce a famous sculptor like N. Lazanic (16th century).
Down there by the coast, in the already mentioned Renaissance palace, one of the
greatest Croatian writers Vladimir Nazor (1876-1949) was born, the creator of
the rebellious farmer Veli Joza and the tailed, goat-like Brac satyr and
partisan messenger Loda, also a great poet of Renaissance harmony and splendour.
“I was born in a little town on the coast of a sea-channel. In front of it,
the sea with the sailing-boats that pass and, mostly, do not
even enter the harbour: on the other side across the water, the violet
mainland with the long mountain range: behind the little town the karst region,
scrawled all over with the greeness of vineyards and olive-groves...” (VI.
Nazor, Andeo u zvoniku, (The Angel in the Belfry), Mladost, 1926)
Nazor was right. Rarely did the pirates
ships or traditional ships touch those shores. Postira set out to sea rather
late.
From there we climb up the steep high-street into the heart of Postira. At the
sides are set the luxurious houses of the former Brac landlords, erected mainly
in the 18th century. The large yard and house entances, guest-roomskitchens in
the lofts with large hearths, paved floors, cisterns in the yards...These houses
with large cellars, high storeys and luxurious furniture interrupted the
continuity of the traditional folk architecture.
The most beautiful architectural harmony with the locality of the
Mediterranean little town, we percieve in the little picturesque square in front
of the church. The pebbles, polished by farmers’ feet and washed by rains are
pressed into the hard soil of the street and the square. The walls of the houses
that encircle the square appear picturesque and harmonious in the reflection of
the sun. This closed square in front of the church, with its interesting set of
facades built of dressed stone, with gates that open from the square with its
stone seats for rest and talk, was for a long time the centre of life, its
meeting and market place.
The village church turned its shrine into a fort with loop-holes. This is the
only monument to serve a double purpose in the turbulent history of the island.
Both the buildings witness that the centre and the nucleus of Postira were up on
Glavica and not in the harbour. Glavica appears as a separate entity in economy
and style.
Above the church, on Glavica, there was the first and genuine abode of
Postira’s peasants, set in a typical rural setting of yards with the cottages
covered with slabs. Next to them are the kitchens, cellars built out of rough
stone or covered with thick mortar. In the yards we find the baking ovens:
cellars with vine presses in deep stone oil-vessels and stone seats. this rural
locality offers a valuable insight into the older Brac architecture.
From Glavica, there is a beautiful view of the Channel of Brac, of the
settlement and the harbour, of the coast and the boats tied to the quays and of
the picturesque yards the through their entrance gates join the village
foothpaths.
In the eastern harbour of Zastivanje, the fisherman raised their houses right on
the limestone cracks. used to the murmuring of the sea waves that whiten the
little caves and lap against the walls, to the northern wind that sweeps dust of
the sea carrying it to the lofts and rooms, they draw their green shutters to
the sea when it becomes hostile.
During the star-lit nights, the dreamers
walking under the tamarix trees would hear the voices of the sea and the singing
of the cicades from the village gardens, mistaking them for chanting nymphs: or
up on the Glavica they would think they heard the pipes of Nazor’s satyrs
coming from the Brac Arcadia, while it would be just a melancholy Dalmatian song
sung under some balcony in the tiny lane.
In all their time, the dwellers of Postira knew nothing of such daydreaming
because to the Glavica peasants or to the Zastivanje fisherman oars and hoes in
their hardened hands were the things that created a harder and grimmer history.
The Postirans will eagerly tell you the legends about the name Postira. On Vrilo
in the harbour, the women from Dol used to wash and to stretch (prostirale)
their clothes on the coast to dry, so that the name P(r)ostira came up. Science,
of course, seeks the origin of the name in the Latin word pastura, meaning the
pasture-ground. The plural form of the name comprises some formerly separated
parts Glavica, Podjezice, Vrilo, Piskere, Porat, Rat, Zastivanje etc. In the
Middle Ages the region was a possession of the ecclesiastical chapter of the
Split and was cultivated by the Brac farmers.
In 1337 the harbour (in portu Postire) was mentioned for the first time. The
settlement did not exist then.
From historical sources we may suppose that there was the old chapel of St. John
which has now disappeared. it is unquestionably confirmed by the name Zastivanje
(za sv. Ivanom-behind St. John, from Latsanctus Johannes). The fresh water
spring of Vrilo at the foot of the harbour was indispensable to the shepherds
and eventually decided the site of present Postira.
Again, the name of Lovrecina, the beautiful wooded and sandy harbour to the east
of Postira and Stobrec (Lat. sanctus Laurentius), tells us about an old church
of which only the walls still exist. Later in the 11th century it was probably
the site of a Benedictine monastery.
On Mirje (Lat murus, the wall) above Postira, there are the remains of walls
built out of chiseled stone. On one spot there is a 3 meter high wall with an
arch that reminds us of the arcade arches of the earliest medieval churches on
Brac (D. Vrsalovic). Was it not then the site of the chapel of St. John, the
record of which is kept in the name of Zastivanje? Together with the Early
Christian church of St. John in Sutivan and Povlja it would be the Early
Christian church of the same saint on the northern coast of Brac.
On the road to Lovrecina we enter the world of even more ancient monuments. in
the harbour of trstena overlooked by a big water-tank which collects the water
from the river of Cetina, through the submarine waterpipes that bring water to
eternally thirsty island, there is a semi-cylindrical cover of a sarcophagus,
turned over and serving now as a water-trough near the well.
Lovrecina is a place of the great Early Christian discoveries. There we find
Early Christian Sacophagi and the relics of an Early Christian church. The right
wall of the church is in ruins today. If we add to this large church, the Early
Christian sarcophagi, the relics of the walls and of the little quay still
visible is the sea, we should realise that we are on the site of a very forceful
monastic shrine which continued to live during the times of the Croatian
benedictins. This is confirmed by the name of the region, Benedija (Benedict)
and Opatija spila (opat-the inhabitant of an abbey) in the
surroundings.
In addition to the already mentioned palace with the Renaissance gable one
should visit in Postira the apse of the parish church with the enforced windows
and loop-holes and the interesting putokriz from the end of the 18th century. We
draw your attention to the few old graves in the church and to the graves found
in cimatorij (Lat. cimeterium-cemetary) and in some surrounding gardens. They
lead us to presume an even older age of the cult shrine on the site of the
present church.