Original scientific paper
The Križevci Statutes in the Context of the Development of Croatian Wine Culture
Tanja Baran
Abstract
With their arrival in the territory that is Croatia today, the Croats adopted grapevines as an agricultural product. Numerous charters, laws and statutes dating from as early as the 9th century stress the importance of vine-growing as a branch of economic activity. The relatively strong development of viticulture contributed to the founding of the oldest agricultural college in south-eastern Europe, the Agricultural and Forestry College in Križevci in 1860. The initial notations of the Križevci Statutes, the best-known Croatian rules on companionable wine-drinking, date from that time. Previously they had been handed down by word of mouth. These rules are a continuation and fruit of earlier oral-literary forms that lived on among the people, from epic folk poems dedicated to wine, to speeches, toasts, verses and wine-drinking songs. Croatian good cheer flourished along with the oral, popular song, but right up until Križanic’s quotations and Patacic’s Doktor od Pinte we have no important memorials to Croatian wine-drinking culture. Following Pinta, and particularly during the 19th century, companionable wine-drinking brotherhoods, clubs and societies with various rules and regulations sprouted up all over Croatia. After the Statues were written down, discussions started about whether the Croatian rules had been influenced by the drinking regulations from Central Europe, especially those from Germany. Croatian students abroad maintained a particular connection with the Statutes. Wine and the Statutes were the thread which bound them together in socialising in their spare time, as was written about by the Croatian authors, August Šenoa, Josip Eugen Tomic and Vjenceslav Novak. Slovenian students abroad also socialised in keeping with the rules of the Križevci Statutes. They took those Croatian companionable wine-drinking rules and translated them into Slovenian, adapting them to their own use. Wine-drinking clubs in 19th century Croatia were not reduced merely to wine toasting, but also served for preservation of the national awareness of the Croats in the struggle against Germanisation and Hungarianisation. However, that dose of seriousness in no way suppressed the cheery atmosphere and humour that accompany good wine. The customs connected with vineyards and wine are often a coupling of pre-Christian and Christian features and are a set of elements of various origins. Croatian wine-growing tradition is familiar with five obligatory saints, with whom the majority of activities connected with the vine are linked, as well as the best-known customs. These saints are celebrated on St Vinko’s Day on January 22, St George’s Day (Juraj) on April 23, St John the Baptist’s Day (Ivan Krstitelj) on June 24, St Michael’s Day (Mihovil) on September 29 and St Martin’s Day on November 11. The cheerful popular spirit connected with wine has been a constant, despite all the changes brought by civilisation in the cultivation of the grapevine throughout the centuries. It remains visible in the customs, rituals, songs, stories, legends and rhetorical and minor oral-literary forms, and is reflected through the statutes, rules, regulations and ceremonies. It has endured in the Croatian regions, either in performance or in notations, or, as in the example of the Križevci Statutes, in both ways among all social strata and throughout all eras.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
2611
URI
Publication date:
20.12.2005.
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