Original scientific paper
Ports and Marinas in the Velebit Foothills According to the Croatian Variant of the Senj Sailing Manual ("Senjski peljar") Dated Early XVIIth Century
Mithad Kozličić
; Odjel za povijest Sveučilišta u Zadru
Josip Faričić
; Odjel za geografiju Sveučilišta u Zadru
Sanda Uglešić
; Odjel za povijest Sveučilišta u Zadru, Zadar, Hrvatska
Abstract
The paper offers an analysis of the Senj Sailing Manual ("Senjski peljar") written at the beginning of the XVIIth century. The modern variant of the original text is articulated and published. It is an entirely original sailing manual that comprises the Velebit Foothill region (Podgorje) from Senj to Dračevac, or rather Novsko ždrilo. This manual was most probably written for the captain of the littoral part of the Croatian Military Border. Texts of similar nature, written before the Senj Sailing Manual, including cartographic material, mention far less ports and marinas than this publication, which offers longer or shorter descriptions pointing out qualitative features of importance to seamen. Manuals of later dates and the cartographic material from the period XVIIth c. – XVIIIth c. are only to a small extent more extensive than the earlier ones, yet they still include far less maritime and geographical data than the Senj Sailing Manual, which offers an abundance of diverse information.
The turnover occurred after systematic hydrographical and geodesic measurings of the Adriatic Sea and the Croatian coastal region had been carried out in the first two decades of the XIXth century. Sailing manuals and cartographic material written on the basis of these and later measurings (conducted during the XIXth and XXth cc.) contain many more data than the Senj Sailing Manual. Many of them do not however include all the then up-to-date information and knowledge; they rather offer reduced information, focusing on the most important ports, marinas and other geographically important sailing facilities, which were substantial in the then new time period.
It follows from the analysis of the Senj Sailing Manual that this is an entirely original document of sailing and economic nature, which contains such an abundance of diverse data that it could not have been modelled on any other earlier written historical document of similar nature. Moreover, such a large quantity of information as this manual offers for a relatively short portion of the Croatian coastline (Senj – Dračevac – Obrovac) would contain only sailing manuals of much later dates (written from the late 1820s onward). In this sense, this substantial historical source had to be thoroughly studied, even more so since it is the oldest source of its kind written in the Croatian language. The authors hope that the results of their work might stimulate other scholars to study the Senj Sailing Manual and contribute thereby to clearing several dubious solutions present in this study.
A transcription of the Senj Sailing Manual and a copy of the original manuscript, in safekeeping at the Croatian State Archives in Zagreb, have been enclosed to the study.
Keywords
Senj Sailing Manual ("Senjski peljar"); Velebit Canal and Foothills region (Podgorje); Senj; Novsko ždrilo; eastern Adriatic; XVIIth c
Hrčak ID:
94337
URI
Publication date:
29.12.2012.
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