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HISTORY OF THE CITY

Osijek, the biggest and the capital city in Slawonia, is situated on the right bank of the river of Drava, 22 km from the mouth of the river of Danube. The right bank is a bit higher and because of that it provides a good protection from floods, a suitable crossing over the river of Drava. In the area of today’s city there were several archaeological sites from different pre-historic periods and cultures from earlier Stone Age, over Copper and Bronze to the Iron Age.

Although the area of the city of Osijek was settled even in the pre-historic period, the first urban settlement was erected by the Romans. There are many archaeological findings and the items of a great natural, historic and artistic value-all of them are kept in Osijek Museum that was founded in the year 1877.

Roman Period

The Romans conquered this part of the Pannonian plain, in the area of today’s Down Town and formed the military camp and a civilian settlement Mursa. More intensive rise of the city was connected with the name of the Emperor Hadrian, who gave the status of the colony to Mursa in the year 133.

The colony Aelia Mursa was built in three phases from the middle of the 2. till the middle of 4. century. The Roman city on the border had a square form, double walls and orthogonal form of the streets. Because of extremely important strategic position the Romans built the stone bridge with six carriers across the river of Drava. Parts of this bridge are kept in the Museum in Osijek. The colony Aelia Mursa was devastated several times, and last time it was destroyed by the Huns in the year 441. After that destruction of Mursa, the city was not renovated any more and new inhabitants settled in its neighbourhood.

From the last mentioning of Roman Mursa in the year 591 till the first written mentioning of Osijek in the Middle Ages in the year 1196 there were no written documents, but there were archaeological traces that showed that the life was still going on in the area, but not in a high intensity.

Osijek in the Middle Ages

Osijek from the Middle Ages was developed in western side of today’s Tvrđa (Fortress). The oldest written documents were mentioned for the first time in the year 1196, when the King Emerik confirmed the rights to Cisterian abbey Cikador to collect fare for trade and transport by ship.

In the Middle Ages Osijek consisted of the citadel and "varoš" and it was owned by several feudal families. The family Korog ruled in the city for the longest period of time, from 1353 till 1472. There are only foundations of a big church with the Roman portal and Gothic parts that is preserved from the Middle Ages. A tombstone of Filip Korog, with his family coats of arms and the inscription, made of marble, is a finding of great significance.

The Turks conquered the city on 8 August, 1526. They robbed and burnt down the city and after that they started with the construction of an oriental settlement. During Osman’s occupation the city consisted of the inner fortress and the part of town under a fortified place that was protected by palisades. According to the census from the year 1579 there were 7 "mahalas" in the city, 4 in the city itself and 3 in the part under a fortified place. The biggest "mahala" was Mahala of the mosque that belonged to the late Kasim-pasha (it consisted of 53 houses) and Mahala of the mosque that belonged to Mustafa-pasha (it consisted of 111 houses). In the part of town under a fortified place there was also a Christian mahala, where there were 26 houses.

During Osman’s period Osijek was well-known for its wooden bridge, which was 8 km long and considered to be a world wonder of that time. It was built across the river of Drava and across the swamp in Baranya, from Osijek to Darda. The bridge was built in a few weeks and about 25 000 people were involved in the construction. Osijek, as the biggest city in Slawonia, was very important trade and traffic centre and the point that you simply could not avoid on your way between East and South. At the end of 17. century the fights for freedom started throughout Europe – it was the time, when many "vedutas" were printed and among them there was also Osijek with its famous bridge.

Osijek after the Turks

Osijek was liberated from the Turks on 29 September, 1687. After the liberation the weakest defence points were strengthened and afterwards the complete urban structure was changed. The inhabitants of the part under a fortified place were moved about a kilometre and a half upstream of the Fortress because of the construction of new fortifications.

In the year 1692 the Upper Town was formed. At about the same distance, downstream of the Fortress, the Down Town was built in the year 1698 and settled mostly by the inhabitants from swampy islands from Baranya. These three parts of the city, the Fortress, the Upper and the Down Town were developing in 18. century as three separate communities.

All three independent communities: the Fortress, the Upper and the Down Town that were rather distant one from the other, were united in one city in the year 1786. Twenty years after the unification Osijek was declared the Free Royal City in the year 1809. Almost till the middle of 19. century Osijek was the biggest city in Croatia, but because of its political and traffic isolation it lost its importance and it became the fourth city, according to the size. Today Osijek is also on the fourth place. The institutions of City government were moved to the Upper Town in 18. century.

With the historic building of the Upper Town towards the Fortress the prerequisites for connecting further parts and for building new settlements were made. In the year 1884 the city got a new way of a public transport – a horse tram. It was the first horse tram south from Vienna and Budapest.

Although there was a discontinuous urban development that lasted for almost 2000 years, the city of Osijek can be proud of its architectural inheritance gathered in the last 300 years. Preserved architecture and numerous cultural and historic objects can show us that Osijek was involved in all periods of middle-European cultural life.

From;

http://www.osijek.hr/eng/history.asp

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ABOUT THE STAMPS

350 YEARS OF FRANCISCAN PRESENCE IN ČAKOVEC

Serie: 729 | Type: P | Stamps in serie: 1 The stamp has been issued in a 20-stamp sheet, and there is also a First Day Cover (FDC).

Stamps no: 350 YEARS OF FRANCISCAN PRESENCE IN ČAKOVEC Value: 3,5 kn Author: Ariana Noršić, designer, Samobor Size: 29,82 x 35,50 mm Paper: white 102g, gummed Perforation: Comb,14 Tehnique: Multicoloured Offsetprint + Gold Printed by: "Zrinski" - Čakovec Date of issue: 20.5.2009 Quantity: 100000 Motif: Franciscan church in Čakovec The year two thousand and nine shall be commemorated in Čakovec by celebrating Franciscan’ jubilees: eight hundred years of the Franciscan order and three hundred and fifty years of Franciscan presence in Čakovec. Saint Francis of Assisi is the founder of the order of Friars Minor (Franciscans). The founding date is April 16, 1209 when Saint Francis of Assisi asked Pope Innocent III to approve his way of life dedicated to God and his neighbour’s good. The order spread with a rapidity unexpected as it was unprecedented. The first Franciscans arrived to Croatia already during St. Francis lifetime. Since their arrival to these parts through the entire history Franciscans established numerous parishes and monasteries in these parts, nevertheless the historical conditions of difficulty and struggle caused closing down of numerous of those establishments. On the territory of the Republic of Croatia today we have the Parish of the Most Holy Redeemer with the seat in Split, the Parish of Saint Jeronimus with the seat in Zadar and the youngest founded in 1900, the Province of Saints Cyril and Methodius with the seat in Zagreb and the monastery of St. Nicolas in Čakovec. Franciscans arrived to Čakovec at the invitation of the count, Vice Roy and poet Nikola Zrinski VII of Čakovec in the year 1659. The Ladislau Custody held its General Chapter on the first of February 1659 in Varaždin and father Maksimilijan Tkalčević was nominated the Custos. At the same time the Bishop of Zagreb and local ordinary, Petar Petretić was asked to give approval and a blessing to the founding of a monastery in Čakovec. After discussing the issue with father superiors of other monasteries in the broader surroundings of Čakovec, Bishop Petar Petretić in September, 1659 adopted the decision on founding a monastery in Čakovec. Father Franjo Riđanec, brother Juraj Sinko, brother Vinko Stefanović, father Ferdinand Zelniczey and father Benedikt Juran who was nominated for father superior of the monastery under construction at that time arrived to Čakovec. Upon founding the monastery first brothers embarked on a quest of developing an affluent religious life based on teachings of St. Antonius, assiduously disseminating his preaching and honouring the feast day of Our Lady of the Angels – Porziuncola – and in direct connection with it the Porziuncola indulgences, granted only in Franciscan churches since the year 1620. Undoubtedly Franciscans were present in the Zrinski family as confessors and spiritual leaders taking care of soldiers’ families as chaplains. A wooden monastery and the church burnt to the ground in 1699 and a present day monastery was built in 1702, the church adjacent to it in 1707. The inauguration of the newly built church building was held in June 14, 1750. Franciscans observed the rules laid down by their founder St. Francis and developed respect for him and Franciscan Brotherhood of the Belt known today under the name of Franciscan Secular Order. A special devotion toward the Holy Cross started to gain ground after the fire in 1741 when the cross remained intact by the fire and still today on display in the adjoining chapel of the monastery church. At the end of the eighteen century after coming into possession of Saint Vincent’s remains, a martyr and a deacon, Franciscans introduced worshiping and reverence for St Vincent on a church holiday of Our Lady of the Angels, Porziuncola. In the 18th century among other things a theological academy was also opened at the monastery for the St.Ladislau’s Province, where philosophy, moral theology and rhetoric were taught. Maksimilijan Vrhovec, Bishop of Zagreb, established a new parish of St Nicolaus on November 8, 1789, and the management of the parish was allocated to the Franciscan order. The Parish was active until 1999 when, within newly founded Varaždin diocese, new parishes were established on the territory of the St.Nicolaus parish. Franciscans community in Čakovec has actually been responsible for the management of the two parishes since. In the course of the entire history of St. Nicolaus parish, brothers were curators of souls and clergymen not only in schools, they were also the originators of numerous societies or active members of other societies providing for spiritual care and needs. Engaged in numerous activities brothers contributed enormously to the perseverance of the national identity at the time when Međimurje was under the Hungarian jurisdiction. Nevertheless according to the church rules this region has always been under the jurisdiction of bishops and archbishops of Zagreb. Between the two World Wars Franciscans contributed immensely to undertakings of the organisation «Katolička akcija», and their numerous activities and engagements reached such proportions that they engaged vigorously in construction of their own Catholic Centre completed in 1938. This year Franciscans community in Čakovec celebrates several important jubilees and this postage stamp is issued on the theme of celebrating these important jubilees.

FAMOUS CROATS

Serie: 723 | Type: P | Stamps in serie: 4 The stamps have been issued in 20-stamp sheets, and the Croatian Post has also issued a First Day Cover (FDC).

Stamps no: 725 FAMOUS CROATS - PETAR ŠEGEDIN Value: 5 kn Author: Hrvoje Šercar, painter and graphic designer, Zagreb Size: 29,82 x 48,28 mm Paper: white 102g, gummed Perforation: Comb,14 Tehnique: Multicoloured Offsetprint Printed by: "Zrinski" - Čakovec Date of issue: 22.4.2009 Quantity: 100000 PETAR ŠEGEDIN (1909 – 1998) Petar Šegedin was born on July 8, 1909 in Žrnovo, island of Korčula. He went to a training college in Dubrovnik and attended two year post-secondary school in Zagreb he enrolled and graduated at the Faculty of Philosophy in Zagreb. He was a Secretary of Matrix Croatica/Matica hrvatska (1946 – 1947) and – on two occasions – president of the Croatian Writers’ Society. From 1956 until 1960 he was the cultural attache in the Yugoslav Embassy in Paris, and after returning to Zagreb was a free lance artist. He was a regular member of the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts from 1964. He died in Zagreb, on September 1, 1998. He appeared in literature with fiction articles in Krleža’s Pečat in 1939 under the pen-name Petar Kružić. After the war he became a paradigmatic writer of Croatian literary existentialism, resisting a dominant concept of social realism, and was severely criticised by the bureaucrats. Already in his first novels – The Children of God (1946) and Isolationists (1947) – he created a special type of moral meditative prose preoccupied with symbols of existential situations (fear of death, anxiety, alienation, sin, guilt) and introducing strategies to overcoming uncomfortable situations. All characters in his novels represent personifications, typifying a certain quality of human behaviour: total alienation and concern in regard to how we should lead our lives. His novels are full of intellectual passion and philosophical thinking; the right expression is coined in a syntagm a philosophy of literature. Dostojevski and French existentialists were his literary models. Šegedin considered literature above all as a possibility of gaining insight into the human existence and at the same time questioning it; in the background is a process of building a plot, developing a story or creating a dramatic plot. The existentialist trilogy is complemented by a novel Crni smiješak (1969) created by rewriting of previously published short stories. It elaborates on shaping of human destiny in literary works, and describes literary writing as a therapeutic and confessional activity. In his later novels (The Garden of Gethsemane, 1981.; The Wind, 1986.; A Petrified Circle, 1988.), along with describing existential themes (suicide issues and self-destruction), he also deals with the metaphysical problems (good-evil), relations between a singled out individual and the authority, ideology and aesthetics, freedom and meaning. His literary pieces are more and more immersed into social and political context, however always bordering with philosophical essay and meditative prose. In his short novel A Traitor (Kolo, 1969, a book printed in 1993) he is preoccupied with conformism, national treason, fear, silence and blindness of Croatian intellectuals in a recent past. A Traitor is actually a herald of his famous essay We Are All Responsible? (1971) at the time of a political movement the Croatian Spring he shook up the intellectual and cultural establishment. Šegedin wrote numerous short stories and novelettes (Dead Sea, 1954; Orpheus in a Little Garden, 1964; Holy Devil, 1966; Silence, 1983; Face to Face, 1987; Bright Nights, 1993) on the opening pages interpreting anecdotal and seemingly banal situations, and as a rule portraying traumatized individuals, immersed into loneliness and sadness. A scene of action is most often a society situated in an isolated island, with characteristic silence of a rocky ground, shimmering shadows and dark anticipations. In his best novels (Holy Devil, A Day, What About a Late Pavulina…) Šegedin is exploring as a writer social issues and atmosphere. He achieved considerable literary fame with his travel pieces (On a Way, 1953; Encounters, 1962) reminiscing about culture and art, intellectual curiosity, describing inner feelings created under the impression of already experienced events, ignoring adventures and picaresque descriptions. Word for Word (1971) is a theoretical text based on logic and reasoning of autonomy of art and reciprocal conditioning of a content and a form in a performance of an aesthetic act. In most of his works Šegedin is preoccupied with a lonely and jeopardized individual, through analyses and discussions on the crises and a downfall of human values, persisting on the model of intellectual prose, which by the seriousness of themes and the quality of execution, guarantees him a high place in the Croatian contemporary literature. FAMOUS CROATS Serie: 723 | Type: P | Stamps in serie: 4 The stamps have been issued in 20-stamp sheets, and the Croatian Post has also issued a First Day Cover (FDC). Stamps no: 724 FAMOUS CROATS - JURAJ HABDELIĆ Value: 3,5 kn Author: Hrvoje Šercar, painter and graphic designer, Zagreb Size: 29,82 x 48,28 mm Paper: white 102g, gummed Perforation: Comb,14 Tehnique: Multicoloured Offsetprint Printed by: "Zrinski" - Čakovec Date of issue: 22.4.2009 Quantity: 100000 JURAJ HABDELIĆ (1609 – 1678) Juraj Habdelić was born in Staro Čiče in a family of low rank aristocracy of Turopolje in April 1609. He was a writer and a lexicographer. He went to gymnasium probably the Jesuit Secondary School in Zagreb and continued his education in Vienna and in 1630 he entered the Jesuit order. After two years in novitiate in Leoben he graduated Philosophy in Graz (1632 – 1635), and later on he worked as a teacher in Jesuit secondary schools in Rijeka, Varaždin and Zagreb. He graduated theology in Trnava, Slovakia (1639 – 1643), and gave lectures on Jesuit collegiums in Varaždin and Trnava, where he was graduated for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy. He was the Dean of the Varaždin Jesuit collegium from 1649 until 1652, and after that departed to Zagreb, where he was also appointed on two occasions a Dean of the Jesuit collegium (1654 – 1657 and 1663 – 1666), he preached in a parish church St. Marcus, and was engaged in other church activities as a priest and a teacher. Thanks to him the Zagreb Jesuit Gymnasium was transformed into the Academy in the year 1669. He died in Zagreb on November 27, 1678. From the beginning of the Croatian literary historiography (I. Kukuljević) up to the present day Habdelić is considered as one of the most prominent among Croatian writers of the 17th century, writing in a Kajkavian dialect. Two books of religious prose, Mirror of Saint Mary (Graz, 1662) and First Sin of our Father Adam (Graz, 1674), represent his main literary works. The Mirror of Saint Mary is divided into seven parts; each part evaluates one human virtue or condition (sainthood, intellect and prudence, material wealth, health, beauty, strength, good reputation) describing it as a possible source of arrogance, and as a counter balance and a model of modesty suggested in examples from life of the Virgin Mary. A literary work twice as long The First Sin of our Father Adam (1181 pages) is divided into three unequal parts. It begins with the Biblical History and ends with a description of the Original Sinn. A motive of creating Eve from the Adam’s rib Habdelić used for a lengthy discussion on relations between husband and wife. In the second part he is elaborating on human tendency to sin due to Adam’s original sin („decadence of a human nature“). He also wrote about Peasant Rebellion led by Matija Gubec in the year 1573, based on a historical literary work by N. Istvánffy. In his work Habdelić forged a tale about a famous speech of Matija Gubec delivered on the eve of a decisive battle. The third part, nearly five times longer in comparison to the previous two parts, is dedicated to seven mortal sins. The most interesting substantially is the first part on arrogance; Habdelić guardedly elaborates on actual events in Croatia at that time, Zrinski-Frankopan conspiracy, criticises outward adorning („dressing up“), arrogance of educated men, even arrogant behaviour among priests. The last part is written in Latin against spiritual laziness of priests, so that the common people would not understand it. His both prose works have similar compositions, characteristics of style and are divided in the main numbered parts („parts“ in Habdelić nomenclature), chapters („del“) and articles („kotrig“). According to some literary historians (9/10) his are the works with the content taken from literature, mostly from the Bible, medieval literature, and contemporary theological writers. However, particularly in The first Sinn of our Father Adam, there is a panoramic picture of the way of life of the people of that time: on housing, clothing, diet, customs. Literary historians particularly cherished Habdelić’ style: his developed hypotaxis, Baroque metaphoric expressions, satirical note. His work is full with strength and freshness, of moral didactic issues with numerous examples („pelda“) easy to be accommodated in sermons. His Dictionar is the first lexicographic work in the Kajakvian literature. It consists of around twelve thousand words and phrases translated into Latin. Dictionary was written for secondary school students of north Croatia. Belostenec, contemporary of Habdelić, used it for his ambitious lexicographical work Gazophylacium, (published posthumous in 1740). Habdelić although a strong moralist mentioned in his Dikcionar names of forty wine sorts. FROM:

http://www.posta.hr/default.aspx?id=3

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