Original scientific paper
Where to search the Croatian Olympus?
Tomo Vinšćak
; Department for Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
The Velebit mountain is deeply implanted into the soul and senses of the Croatian people. Velebit is of the same significance to the Croats as e.g. Olympus to the Greeks and Triglav to the Slovenes. Starting from this presumption, the author tried, following the cultural-historical method in ethnology, to "open some doors" and initiate the research into the pre-christian Slavic mythology, which could be traced among the Croats living in this district. Because there are no archaeological or written documents left from the pre-christian period of the Croats ,the only possible way of reconstructing the history of their culture is by listening to the native people telling about their customs. beliefs and sayings, or by writing down the so called oral literature. With a careful analyses of the knowledge obtained in this way, some phenomena could be reached which at the first glance seemed to have their origin in the christian circle, but further research showed that they, in fact, originate from the pre-christian, old slavic world.
According to the author, such an example is the Holly Mountain (Sveto Brdo), which is usually connected with Peron, the Thunderer. Being aware of the fact that the Slavic, as well as the Croatian Olympus never really existed, the author thinks, nevertheless, that the idea of the Holly Mountain (Svetog Brda) played a significant role in the spiritual world of the first Croats settling in these territories.
Keywords
Croatian Olymphus; coming of Croats; Perun; Veles; Velebit
Hrčak ID:
75762
URI
Publication date:
22.6.1992.
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