SELCA
Island of Brac
Description. Although Brac does not possess like other Mediterranean regions,
some monumental cultural objects, this island has, nevertheless, its settlements
which are on their own, of specific monumental value, Through them, Brac has
achieved modest but sincere and valuable, although miniature, town-planning
solutions which are conditioned by the highely developed land configuration,
historical events and climate conditions. Selca is an outstanding example of
such a successful achievement. There the inherited Mediterranean architectural
patterns almost reach the high level of the town life. Selca is a link and a
bridge in the transformation of a Mediterranean village into town. All the
houses serve their specific purposes, with clear level surfaces, free from
decorative excess, with tidy yards, with gardens of a high horticultural
standard. All these created the basic element of the local atmosphere in which
one stays with pleasure.
Situated on the gentle slope of the hill Plisi, Selca does not break its harmony
with nature, which gave it the building material and decided its final form. It
is situated there as if according to some ancient Mediterranean custom, at
moderate height halfway between the sea and the plateaus in the backround. They
appear as if caught in the middle by the blueness of the sea, by the bluish
peaks of the remote Biokovo, and the bright blue sky. The reflections of white
stones upon all this blueness! Up there on Plisa, Selca seems to enjoy the sea
more than her people would where they to live from it.
Selca is in love with stone. Everything is from stone to which the diligent hand
of Selca’s stone masons knew how to give the site and form, sometimes giving
in to asphalt patches and the unsuitable versatility of semichrome marble. There
we find the stone doorways, staircases, terraces, balconies, with decorative
stonebalustrades. The paths and yards are covered with gravel and stone slabs.
Of stone are the gutter-pipes under the eaves, the sinks in the kitchens, the
table surfaces, the vases, of stone are the seats in the squares and near the
yard-walls the graves and the childrens toys-everything is made of stone. Stone
was chosen not only because of its abundance here but also because it is
durable. Hardly ever is it destroyed by bad weather, it has protected the
ancient inherited buildings up to the present day. The Selcans have grown side
by side with stone from the time when as cattle-breeders, they dug in it ponds
for their cattle, when as farmers, they sorted out stone in the terraced fields
in order to cultivate wines, olives and sour cherries: all back to the times
when the Stambuks emigrated from Bohemia and developed here the stone-masonry
which was and remained the most profitable profession for the Selcans.
Today in Selca’s harbour of Radonja, there are more than 150 workers employed
on the modern machines that produce stone blocks and marble slabs of good
quality, which they bring from the neighboring quarries. Among other things,
this stone was used in the building of the United Nations Palace in New York. If
we are to accept the statement that the stone gives to the irregularly built
villages on the Mediterranean coasts the appearance of little towns, than we
should point to Selca as the most prominent example. That it is not due to the
lack of wood as a building material, is confirmed by the neighboring regional
names Zagvozd (suma-wood), Smrcevvik, Grabovik and some others, all suggested by
wood.
Although burnt down in the Second World War by the invaders (in 1943), Selca
remained faithful to its traditional architecture. Love for the new was not
conditioned by neglect of the beautiful in the old.
Tourism will inevitably knock on its door, because the evenings are fresh here
and the nights more pleasant than those on the coast and the view towards the
sea more beautiful from these slopes.
It is irresistibly attractive and not far to reach.
History. Selca is mentioned in the register of Povlja from 1184 (1250). At
that time it could only consist of shepherds dwellings which were deserted
afterwards, similiar to many other drywall settlements. Various infectious
diseases wiped out many of the original villages in Selca’s inland.
Selca grew and developed partly from the original old inhabitants coming from
Podgracisce (q.v. Gornji Humac), and partly from the newcomers coming during the
Venetian-Turkish wars in the 12th century and later.
In 1614 the priest N. Simunovic records how, at the eastern end of Brac, there
are some thirty scattered houses on the pastures and only Selca has eight
shepherds’ houses. That year, a Margareta Scepanovic, who lived in the wood in
the place Selca 7-8 miles away from D. Humac was recorded.
In 1633, a church Gospa na Selcih (Our Lady of Selca), founded by D.G. Simone
together with the inhabitants of Radonja, is noted. Selca is also noted in 1645
in connection with the church which some call Mad(onn)a na Selcih and others B.B
de Radovgna Obviously enough, the very name of the settlement was neither
established nor generally accepted. So that in 1668, the bishop Andreis records
that Selca and Lokanjac(a part of Selca today) were under the authority of the
parish of Gornji Humac.
Only when Selca passed to stone-masonry, did it experience a sudden and rapid
development. In 1678 it had as many as 124 inhabitants and a century later, 400.
Such a growth was fostered by constant immigration and the development of
stone-masonry. In 1720 Selca came to be a curacy and in 1815, a separate parish.
The real blossoming in its economic and cultural life took place at the end of
the 19th century. In 1888 the Selcans founded the society Hrvatski sastanak (The
Croatian Meeting), under the patronage of Bishop J. Strossmayer. This society
had a very important role in the nourishing of the native language and
literature. After the Secong World War the society was called Jedinstvo (The
Unity), and it was restored under the patronage of V. Nazor. The library of
Selca was the best eqipped on the island. There lived for a long time, serving
as doctor, the prominent Slovak writer Martin Kukucin-Bencur (1844-1911), who
drew the plots for his stories from the patriarichal life of the Brac peasants.
His novel Kuca na Proplankus (The House of Glade) refers to Selca where we still
find the shabbey house which, supposedly, Bencur described. At the beginning of
the 20th century Selca’s students from Prag and Graz, brought the panslavistic
ideas here, to edge of the Slav world, which was for centuries suppressed and
alienated. This is why Selca was the first place in the world to erect, in the
park, the monument to Lav. N. Tolstoy (1828-1910) in 1911, a year after his
death, at the time, when in his native Jasna Poljana, this idea was only being
considered. Already in 1938, Selca was the first village in Croatia to erect a
monument in their square to the peasant leader and prominent politician Stjepan
Radic whose bust was sculptured by the then young Croatian scilptor Anton
Augustincic (1900-).
Name. In the surroundings of Selca, almost all the regional names are of Croatian origin, but many of them bear old, lost meanings like the hamlets Zagvozd (wood), Dunaj (a name for water, the well), Gradac (fort, stronghold), Nakal (the ditch). There we also find the hamlet Sela (The Villages) which belong to Selca (although selca expresses something less than sela). Selca in its original form denoted a small estate and therefore its traces were often lost and the name changed. It is seen best in the name of the church. The first record of it it Stimorice, which is a Croatized form of the Latin sancta Maria. This language data could direct us to think that in ancient times here was the shrine of St. Maria, which was later on in 1645 restored and called Madonna na Selcih or B.B. de Redovgna. In view of the proved existence of a cult, the preservation of the sacred place; on could suppose that in Selca, probably on the site of the old parish church, there was a little wooden church, the nucleus of the present settlement.
Monuments. In the neighborhood there are several exceptionally valuable
little Early Croatian churches from the pre-Romanesque period, the roots of
which reach as far back in history as the 10th century. These small stony places
of worship are raised on the more prominent places on the southern side of the
road to Gornji Humac. Some are erected next to the prehistoric cairns from which
they borrow stone. They follow the cult of worshipping the heights, known from
ancient Slav mythology and they continue to pay homage to the sacred places of
the primeval and unidentified cultures on the island.
These sacrificial posts with the dwellings and graves round them are the first
beginnings of medieval architecture after the Croats had settled on the island.
They came as the result of the synthesis of the Croatian soul with the Roman
architectureal heritage on the island.
Saint Nicholas, set between Selca and Sumartin with a beautiful view (1400,
above sea level) to the east coast of Brac, St. Cosimus and Damianus on the high
Smrecevik (449m above sea level), St. Thomas on the same hill, to the west of
Selca and St. Dominica on Gradac dominate from above the whole southeast part of
the island. These are all Saints of the Christian East which the Croats had
already chosen when they first embraced the Christian faith. Their temples are
of small proportions so that they could easily be covered with the barrel-vault,
over which is the stone-slab roof. On the top of this, St. Nicholas has a dome
like some other little Early Croatian churches. The walls of the little churches
are decorated with arcades which give the impression of monumentality.
The Croats, unused to stone in building, used to fasten the roughly cut stone
with the lot of plaster. These little churches together with the one on Gradac,
were several times described and evaluated. It is worth while seeing these
ancient monuments of Croatian religious architecture not only because they are
of such rare and exceptional forms, but also because of these prominent places
on which they stand. They lead the imagination into the remote, fascinating
world of Slav mythology and primeval Christianity on the island, and it leads
the eyes towards the magnificent landscape composed of vast areas of Karst and
the distant sea.
Appearing as a foreign body in Selca’s square, we find the parish church
dedicated to the Slav apostles Ciril and Metod. The building started in 1919
based on the plans of the Austrian architect Schlauf. Apart from the beauty of
the clean, level surfaces and the purity of contours that surround that square
he succeeded in uniting in the styles of the Early Christian basilicas and the
Romanesque and Gothic churches. And thus it broke with tradition, spoiling its
harmony with the environment and genuine feeling for the mystery of stone.
In the church we find the bronze statue of the Heart of Jesus which was in 1956
presented to the church by our great sculptor Ivan Mestrovic. It is interesting
to notice that the statue was cast out of the guns shells, left over in
profusion after the Second World War, because the German forts were here for
long very strong and unconquerable. The statue thus built was particularly dear
to the Master, because, as he wrote, from the murderous grenades meant for the
destruction of men, he created a stature with a heart to symbolize love and
peace.