This post is not the typical theme of this blog and is merely dedicated to a few people I came across in some other blogs, which persist in saying that Serbians lie about being harassed by Croatians, that things like that never happened or just in negligible quantity.
Without judging and without the wish to dig up old stories I'd like however to show that just a few kilometers away from the tourist paths, where more and more western europeans spend their holidays, a shameful truth is still present. These pictures are shot in the area around Knin (Republika Srpska Krajina). It shows churches and houses from the serbian ethnic community that have been destroyed by croatian separatists during the croatian independence war 1991 - 1995. In the lower left corner you can spot the ustashe "U"
No chance for serbians to come back. The atmosphere around the regions of Zadar (known as heartland of croatian nationalism) is very hostile toward serbians and also a lot of serbs can not legally enter Croatia (whoever was involved in the opponent side during the war and is registered is not allowed to access croatian territory). that was a little village... The ustashe "U" here in combination with the "catholic cross" makes reference to the fact that the catholic churche supported the fascist ustashe regime. "there is no forgiveness for cetniks"the atmosphere is openly anti-serbian!
The third serbian orthodox monastery we visted on our trip through Croatia is hidden in a National Park and is called: Monastery Krka. In the same area we visted also Monastery Gomirje (here the post) and Monastery Krupa (here the post). It takes a nice off-road ride to reach from where you have stunning view to the landscape. The Krka National Park is adorned with seven picturesque travertine falls created by the passage of the Krka River through the limestone foundation whereby the process of travertine creation evolves.
Ten species of endemic fish have been found in the river and due to spring and autumn migrations of birds this area is among the ornithologically significant regions of Europe. Also in the Park are the remains of an ancient water supply system, the Burnum military camp and a medieval old Croatian fortifications from the 14th century. While among the sacral structures the most valuable are the Franciscan monastery, the Church of the Lady of Mercy on the islet of Visovac and the St. Archangel’s Monastery also called Monastery Krka.
Monastery Krka is situated at the broad, calm part of the river Krka, it was erected on the foundation of an older hermit monastery and was founded in the 14th century and is dedicated to St. Archangel Michael. In 1345, this monastery was mentioned for the first time as the endowment of princess Jelena Subic, the wife of prince of Skradin and Bribir. Under the main monastery church, there are old Roman catacombs, which represent significant evidence that St. Apostle Paul preached Christianity in this region.
The church of monastery was built in several stages. The oldest part of the church is the narthex – the entrance part.
The Monastery was devastated and burned during the wars between Turks and Venetians. After these wars, the monastery was renewed and the altar in a present-day form was built in the eight decade of the 18th century.
Standing in front of the monastery-entrance.
The belltower of this monastery was built in the Romanesque style.
The iconostasis was made of composite icons. Main icons are works of an unknown Venetio-Cretian artist; and the upper part of the iconostasis consists of icons brought from Russia during the 17th century.
The monastery has always been spiritual and educational centre of orthodox Dalmatian eparchy that is seated in Sibenik. Throughout its long history, this monastery gave many archibishops and sheperds of the Serbian Orthodox Church.
In 1615, Theodore Dabrobosnian Metropolitan, founded the first organized theological school in the Serbian Church.
Except the main church, there is a small chapel of St, Sava, which was built by Dalmatian Bishop Stefan Knežević. In 1890, Bishop Stefan died and he was buried in this chapel. Besides that, monastery Krka has a very rich treasury and two libraries. Also, in 2001 the reconstructed Semminary Holy Three Hierarchs, again started with its work.
The first monastery we visited crossing Croatia (see explanations here) was Gomirje Monastery, also called „Manastir Sv. Jovana Pretece“.
I was quiet surprised to see that the monastery was in a relatively good shape and it didn't looked like it has been destroyed or devastated in the balkan wars. A inhabitant of the monastery who showed us around gave us the explanation for that: the monastery was in the "neutral" zone during the croatian war of independence 1991 -95 so it could not be attacked.
This is the most westward monastery of the Serbian Orthodox Church in Europe and is located in Gorski kotar in the Primorsko-goranska County and is a significant parochial centre of the Serbian ethnic community whose most important feast is the Assumption of the Virgin Mary. Tourists of all kind of religions visit the monastery and the monastery makes efforts to encourage also the croatian catholic community to use their library.
The atmosphere in this monastery is pretty relaxed, as they don't feel any agressions or resentments from the local environment. The serbian ethnic community must simply not show of serbian national symbols.
The complex is in the ownership of the Serbian Orthodox church. After World War II it became a nunnery while in its previous history monks inhabited the monastery.
On the territory of the national state the monastery has a great parochial significance for the most populous, Serbian ethnic community, and has carried out its function continuously since the 17th century. The Serbian community that has settled in this region bought the estate from the Frankopan princes. The monastery is particularly significant in the revolutionary year of 1848, when viceroy Jelačić recruited his army under its wing and prior Stavrofor of that time was a member of the Croatian Parliament and gave his priory for humanitarian purposes. The monastery played an important humanitarian role at that time, sheltering refugees and storing humanitarian aid.
The monastery has been renovated continually since 1999. The church roof has been repaired and the metal sheet roof covering replaced on the bell tower and church dome. The static consolidation of the apse was undertaken and the church facades and tower forms reconstructed. In addition, new drainage and rainwater canalisation systems have also been installed. A water supply system was brought to the complex and the semi-interred concrete cistern removed and a new one constructed.
The monastery church is oriented and located in the courtyard of the two storey lodging houses with a "U" shaped ground plan open to the South toward the river basin of the Dobra so that the mutual relationship of the construction directions are mildly slanting.
Today the complex is enclosed with a wall of façade brick and originally had a paling fence. The church and monastery were built from stone with arches, while the floors and roofing were made from wood. The roof covering is from sheet metal and grooved brick, originally shingle.
Until 1879 an adapted Frankopan tower with a square ground plan and an elaborately structured facade in the historicist form and with the same function and which crumbled from age stood in the place of the present day bell tower.
To the North, at the edge of the wood a group of stone and wooden outbuildings stood, including barns, hay-lofts storehouses and workshops and a walled-in monastery graveyard within which was the first church of which there is no trace today.
The monastery owns quite a lot of land, including woods, meadows, hayfields, plough-fields and on the northern side of the lodging house a large orchard. The present day church was consecrated in 1730. The monastery burned down in 1789 and again in 1812 and was renovated in 1842-46 and again in 1889. The complex was also damaged and burned in the First and Second world wars, repaired rather unprofessionally during the 50's of the 20th century.
The church is a typical Orthodox place of worship with an altar, iconostasis, a dome standing on four square columns and and tower at the entrance like those built in the baroque period throughout Lika, Kordun and Banija.
The interior was decorated with two layers of sign-paintings of which the baroque style one was preserved as the lower layer in the sanctuary and the upper one in the entire church which has two historicist phases. Because of the threat during World War II the baroque iconostasis with large-sized icons on canvas was dismantled and stored in Karlovac and Zagreb.
The monument is of national interest since it housed the main painting school, which supplied the surrounding Orthodox monasteries with iconostases in the manner of the Russian school. The monks were also engaged in bookbinding.
All the windows on the church and those that were in total disrepair in the hallway of the first floor of the lodging house have been replaced.
All the outbuildings also have to be renovated, primarily their roofs and wooden parts of superstructure on the stone foundations.
Here the website of the monastery and here the Council of Europe documentation to download.
In the next few post, I will share here my travel experiences during this summer. I came back with lots of pictures, sketches in my diary and informations, and slowly I'll put everything online.
Basically I started from my hometown Lugano, crossing Italy from Milano to Venezia to head down to Montenegro to spend some time at the sea with my family. But who knows us, knows also that we can not just speed down directly by the fastest way to destination, and that we like to stop and see also what's in between two destinations.
We opted for driving away from the croatian tourist paths prepared for showing to international customers, and to choose a picturesque road throught Republika Srpska Krajina where some serbian orthodox monasteries were to be visted.One of them is Monastery Krupa in the Velebit mountain park.
Otac (Father) Gavrilo, who runs the monastery now, received us warmly and told us about life in the monastery and the situation of serbian orthodox life in these days Croatia. It seems that as long as they don't show serbian flaggs or cyrillic writing they can go on with their peaceful life. It was not always like that!
Beneath the rocky mountain Velebit, settled in the picturesque valley where the river Krupa springs, surrounded by the mountain and the hills, Krupa lives its peaceful life.It was built in 1317 in the time of King Milutin. As it is known, the basement of the monastery was built by the monks from the nearby monastery Bosanska Krupa.The Krupa Monastery shares the destiny with the orthodox people in this region to whom it belonged. Many times the monastery walls laid in ruins due to different irruptions and had always to be renewed.
In the time of Emperor Dusan, in 1345, the monastery was rebuilt for the first time. King Milutin, his son Stefan of Decani and his grand son Stefan Dusan issued statements wich said that they gave the land to the monastery where the monks could lead their life. Turks also confirmed this by giving a special written confirmation directly frm their Emperor from Istanbul.
In 1995 it was seroiusly devastated (even if the State of Croatia made "all efforts" to protect it) in Operation "Oluja" supported by former american president Bill Clinton who "believed the Serbs could only be brought to the negotiating table if they sustained major losses on the ground".
Despite of that, the monastery was always rebuilt like it is today.
In the 1960's frescoes where found in the monastery church, that were paited by the monk of Hilandar (he painted the dining room there) Georgije Mitrofanovic between 1617-1618.Also icons from italo-cretan school painter Jovan Apaka were found. The interior open court of the monastery.
For more information, here is the official site of the monastery and here the wikipedia entry (still small in the english version). Monastery Krupa honored many well known writers of Serbian literature. Dositej Obradovic , serbian author, poet and philosopher, lived here a significant period of his life and also his coeval and compatriot teacher Vasilije.
Gerasim Zelić (1752–1838) was a Serbian Orthodox archimandrite and writer.As early as 1784, Gerasim had argued the need for Slavic rather than Greek clerics, but it was not until the 1820s that action was taken in this regard. He also spent time in Krupa Monastery as a lot of other significant writers.
Great reconstruction were done in 1855 with help of Russia, Austria and Serbia. The Austrian government however stipulated the reconstruction demanding that all the monastery's windows have to be made as gothic style lanced windows.
This post is not the typical theme of this blog and is merely dedicated to a few people I came across in some other blogs, which persist in saying that Serbians lie about being harassed by Croatians, that things like that never happened or just in negligible quantity. 
These pictures are shot in the area around Knin (Republika Srpska Krajina). It shows churches and houses from the serbian ethnic community that have been destroyed by croatian separatists during the croatian independence war 1991 - 1995. 
No chance for serbians to come back. The atmosphere around the regions of Zadar (known as heartland of croatian nationalism) is very hostile toward serbians and also a lot of serbs can not legally enter Croatia (whoever was involved in the opponent side during the war and is registered is not allowed to access croatian territory).
that was a little village...
The ustashe "U" here in combination with the "catholic cross" makes reference to the fact that the catholic churche supported the fascist ustashe regime.
"there is no forgiveness for cetniks" the atmosphere is openly anti-serbian!
