GINGERBREAD CRAFT

Gingerbread Craft Gingerbread Craft in North Croatia The development of gingerbread craft and candle-making craft in medieval monasteries in the territory of central Europe was based on the tradition of beekeeping and the use of bee products - honey and wax. From precious wax, candles and votive offerings were made, while from flour and honey – by adding some aromatic spices, appreciated honey biscuits were baked, known in Germany already in the 13th century under the name Lebkuchen. For making biscuits wooden moulds of different shapes and motifs were used and the gingerbread production flourished in the period from the16th until the end of the 19th century. The gingerbread craft and candle-making craft in Croatia are connected with the development of crafts in towns and developed due to immigration of artisans from German speaking countries, especially from Austria, where the name Lebzelter become common name for the type of biscuit. The word was adopted in Croatian language in the form of licitar, lecetar as the name for the craftsman but also his products. Gingerbread producers from small and few Croatian towns associated in guilds. Already in the 17th century licitari - the gingerbread producers, of the town of Varaždin associate in the old and big Styrian guild with the seat in Graz; in the 18th century they are joined also by the gingerbread makers from Zagreb and Koprivnica. Some Croatian museums keep in their collections very valuable and old examples of moulds from that time – so the Zagreb City Museum has got several moulds from the 17th century and the Ethnographic Museum in Zagreb one of the largest collections of wooden gingerbread moulds. In the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century there exist many gingerbread makers in Croatia who have gained their skill through a number of years of practice with masters from Austro-Hungarian territory. The decreasing number of gingerbread makers from the middle of the 20th century is a consequence of political and social changes and the changes in the way of life. Gingerbread production in Croatia is practiced today by a couple of families and individuals in Hrvatsko zagorje and Međimurje regions, in Zagreb and its surroundings, in Samobor and Karlovac and in Podravina and Slavonia regions. For making their products - biscuits and cakes, Croatian gingerbread makers have used wooden, clay, metal or plaster moulds of different shapes and decorations, which changed dependent on fashion trends, local tradition and taste. Very often the mould shapes had also a kind of religious symbolic, depicting scenes from the Old and New Testament, the figures of saints, motifs with mythological characters and scenes, profane characters etc. The most often moulds were heart, baby, horse-shoe, horse etc. In Croatian s special subkind of gingerbread developed, made of a mixture of flour, yeast and water, baked and then dried and coloured with characteristic red, yellow, green or white colour, decorated with sugar mass, mirrors, pictures and verses. The licitars – gingerbread in form of heart, rosary, honey cookies, biscuits and the bonbons were very often objects of donations among relatives and friends, both in town and in country, on the occasion of childbirth, baptising, confirmation, engagement or marriage. Wax candles accompanied one in the time of curing illness or dying and the wax votive offerings of different shapes were laid as a vow on altars of patron saints. Licitar products were bought and given as present at fairs and church celebrations, when people enjoyed the taste of another sweet gingerbread product called gvirc, gverc or medica (alcoholic drink made of honey). Its particular application in expressing folk and national identity the licitars acquired between the two world wars, when it became traditional in bourgeois families to decorate a Christmas tree with gingerbreads of different shapes, but smaller size. In that period giving licitar heart presents inspired Krešimir Baranović for his ballet and the licitar products and tents in fairs become also a theme in painting. Although the procedure of making gingerbread has been perfectionised through centuries, some recipes have remained family secret and making and decorating has until today remained manual. In the 90-ties of the 20th century gingerbread becomes Croatian souvenir and the producers begin to look for new ways of application and expression, making among other, also Christmas nursery from gingerbread. The gingerbread craft of North Croatia was in 2010 for its cultural importance included in the UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. Tihana Petrović Leš