250 YEARS OF BJELOVAR

Motif: Bjelovar, Maria Theresa Square, lithograph in colour on cardboard, printed round the year 1910, author unknown, from the Collection of postal cards in the City Museum Bjelovar The city of Bjelovar was built in 1756 at the time of the Enlightened Absolutism of Empress Maria Theresa exclusively for military strategic reasons. It was modelled upon the pattern of the Renaissance town Taurin (Turin) in Piedmont and built on the location of Belovac, the former small market town from the year 1420. It was to become the seat of the Varaždin military district of the Military Frontier. That was the time when, along with the great wars, great civilizational and cultural achievements intermingled and reached even the most distant regions of the Habsburg Empire. By the way, the “peer” of this city, W.A.Mozart, was born in Salzburg in the year 1756, too. Along with the military buildings in Bjelovar, there were also churches built: the parish church of St. Theresa of Avila (1771), whose altars are decorated by big paintings of an unknown Baroque painter from Varaždin, and the parochial church of Holy Trinity (1795), with icons of the Baroque iconographer J. Četirević Grabovan, which were exchanged in 1904 for the icons of the Croatian painters C. Medović, B. Čikoš-Sesija and I. Tišov. There are four stone Baroque monuments made by an unknown master, put up in the city centre: St. Theresa (1777), St. George, St. John Nepomuk and St. Helena (1778). At that time civil public and private buildings were also being built. The first known graphic representation of the city can be found on a craftsman’s certificate from the year 1779, drawn by Christoph Hartwig. Following the arrival of two Bohemians, Austrian monks Piarists, Hubert and Ignatius Divisch, who opened the first school for the six children of military officers on November 5, 1761, Bjelovar turned into one of the larger educational centres of the Military Frontier. The cultural needs of the growing number of its citizens started developing, not only those of soldiers but also of the craftsmen, merchants, physicians, and so, as early as the year 1784, Bjelovar could welcome the guest appearance of the Austrian actors’ troupe of the theatre manager Ignatz Bartsch. This is when its primary purpose, turning Bjelovar into an exclusive military stronghold, had vanished. Ten years after the city was established – beside the first 43 erected military buildings – there were also 35 citizens’ houses with 70 German and 79 Croatian inhabitants. This is also the time when Bjelovar got its first inn, and at the end of the century there already were four of them. The Empress granted Bjelovar first the crafts charter (1770) and then the merchant charter (1772), consequently the city turned into the chief marketing centre of the Varaždin military district. With a tradition longer than five centuries, the Bjelovar Fair that takes place in Gudovac, a market town not far from Bjelovar, is currently of international significance. The civilian authorities had been separated from the military government of the city, and in 1774 the city got its first mayor, Ivan Austrecht. In 1776 the first post office was established in the city, and in 1782 the first military and civilian hospital was built. Economy and manufacture were strengthened, and in the same year the military authorities built the first silk spinning-mill. The Varaždin military district of the Military Frontier was demobilized in 1871, which has brought about the unifying of this region with the civilian Croatia and the establishment of the Bjelovar County. The permanent memory about the time of Turkish gazebos and frontier guards, this distinctive period of European history, had been preserved in the heraldic elements of the coat of arms of the city of Bjelovar. From that moment on the life of the citizens of this city started flourishing. Since 1874 the city could boast of having been given the complimentary title of the Royal Borough. By joining the two neighbouring counties, the Bjelovar and Križevci counties, in 1886 the Bjelovar-Križevci County was established, with Bjelovar as its seat. One of the most intriguing historical events in Croatia took place in this city in 1888, at the time of the great imperial military manoeuvres held in this area. What occurred was the dispute between the Emperor and King Francis Joseph I and the Bishop of Đakovo, J.J. Strossmayer, referred to as the “Bjelovar affair”. This dispute brought the name of Bjelovar onto the front pages of the most important European newspapers. The change in architectural-artistic styles in the course of three centuries had left as a bequest to us several examples of constructional activities of monumental value: the Late Baroque complex of public military and church buildings in the very centre of the city, the precious classicist edifice of the library, an example of the Viennese Secession – the building of the Home of the Croatian Hawk, the former Jewish synagogue from the same period (the Jewish religious community was founded in 1877 by the Bjelovar-born bookshop owner and printer Jakob Fleischmann) and some others. There are some further sacral buildings that are subject to protection. Among the architects who have designed a number of the public and private buildings we can find the names of eminent architects from Zagreb, R. Lubyinski, M. Pilar, D. Sunko, O. Goldscheider and I. Fischer, while the constructor of the Zagreb cathedral, H. Bollé, has also undertaken some projects in Bjelovar. The central city square, at some time a pasture ground for cattle, then a military drilling-ground, changed after the “Association for the adornment of the city of Bjelovar” was established in 1890. It was turned into cultivated public pleasure gardens, with newly-planted trees, benches and a wooden well (the motif chosen for this stamp) and the meteorological column, a present of the merchant Babić from Sarajevo to his native city. At the beginning of the 20th century the central gardens (there are two more in Bjelovar) were redesigned by the municipal gardener from Zagreb, F. Jeržabek. Presently we can find there only four domestic and some forty foreign sorts of trees, bushes and shrubs. Where once the wooden well stood, a wooden bandstand was built, and in 1943 another one was built, this time encased in stone slabs brought from the quarry in Selce on the island of Brač, (the same stone that was used to build Diocletian’s Palace in Split and the White House in Washington). Nowadays, thanks to the pleasure gardens, the city of Bjelovar continuously keeps receiving acknowledgements from the Croatian tourist community in the category of the best arranged tourist places of continental Croatia. Part of the culinary specialities that are linked to the tourist-gastronomic supply is based precisely on traditional dishes of the so called “grandma’s cuisine” that draws its roots from the long past but not forgotten times of the Military Frontier and the frontier guards. Many outstanding personages from the European public sphere used to come and stay in Bjelovar; though Maria Theresa had never visited the city she established, it was her son, Joseph II, who had done it in the 18th century. The next to come were the “notional progenitor” of Bjelovar, General Phillip Lewin, Baron von Beck, in the 19th century the Emperor and King Francis Joseph I and his son, heir apparent Rudolf, Archdukes William, Joseph and Otto as well as the English heir apparent, the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII), Ban D. Khuen-Héderváry, Bishop J.J. Strossmayer and others. In the 20th century the city was visited by Cardinal A. Stepinac, S. Radić, M. Krleža and many others (e.g. Otto von Habsburg who was proclaimed honorary citizen of the city of Bjelovar in 1997). Bjelovar can be found in poems, novels and essays of a number of Croatian writers, and in his diary M. Krleža rendered his stay in the city immortal. The first county prefect of the Bjelovar County was the Croatian poet I. Trnski; the poet P. Preradović attended the military college in this city; the Dubrovnik-born writer I. Vojnović was for a short period employed here as a court-of-law senior officer. D. Gervais, the Istrian poet worked for a time in one of the solicitors’ offices in Bjelovar. The eminent names of the Illyrian Movement in Croatia, F. Rusan and M. Smodek, spent the last years of their lives in this city. Bjelovar is the city where many eminent personages were born, where they worked and some are still working here: the operatic singer F. Stazić, the vibraphonist B. Petrović, the multi-instrumentalist R. Vojtek, the actors B. Buzančić, B. Diklić or V. Milojević (a.k.a. Charles Millot, the French actor), one of the first academically trained Croatian women painters, Nasta Rojc, the painters E. Murtić and I. Friščić, Z. Vrkljan and D. Adamović, the sculptor V. Bakić, the writers V. Jurčić, K. Špoljar, Ž. Sabol, M. Sabolović and G. Tribuson. The Zagreb canon and historian, B.A. Krčelić from the 18th century, prior to the establishment of the new city, wrote in his work Annuae or history the following: “Bjelovar will offer not the slightest security, because it has been built from wood, consequently, at one time it will open the way to the enemy for the destruction of our homeland.” His apprehension has almost been effectuated at the end of the 20th century. But the frenzied attempt of the assailants at the time of the Homeland War who, on the September 29, 1991, wanted to raze this city to the ground was thwarted by the courageous defenders, despite great damage made to it: 60 damaged and completely destroyed family houses and damaged 1st category monuments of culture. This wide open city with more than 42,000 inhabitants, is nowadays the seat of the Bjelovar-Bilogora County, and is continuing to extend, increase and develop free from any inhibition. As we all know, it is celebrating its 250th anniversary. Mladen Medar