ZADAR – CITY OF THE PAST AND THE POWER OF RENEWAL

The oldest of all Adriatic ships have been brought up from the seabed, precisely in the waters of Zadar. The fame of the liburnia and the condura is well known to those researching the history of seafaring arround the world. The fleet of Silba, with its vessels called manzera, was Venice's prime purveyor of meet. The commanders of Silba took their sailing vessels accros the Atlantic as well. Today, Zadar is the home port of the most powerfull Croatian shipping line- Tankerska plovidba.

Zadar was the first in Croatia to be able to greet a pope. He was welcomed by them commons singing to him in „their Croatian language“, as the chronicler puts it. This was in far-off 1077, and the pontiff was Alexander III.

As early as the 14th, a Dominacan college was founded. From colleges like this, the most briliant European universities derived. The tradition of higher education was maintained at the time of French administration at the beginning of the 19th century, and was confirmed in 1955 by the founding of the first faculty in Croatia outside Zagreb – today's Faculty of Philosophy.

The historical Archive in Zadar (founded in 1625, but according to more recent research it would seem to have been much earlier) has material that is valuable in world terms. Only the records in Dubrovnik can stands side by side with it. As well as material from Zadar, the Archive keeps the most valuable material from Šibenik, Split and Kotor. Folios from the scriptorium of the monastery of St Chrysogonus are even today one of the essential basis for the study of the national history. Finally, the Scientific Library, founded by the Paravia donation in 1855 is, in terms of the value of its stock, immediately second to the National and University Library in Zagreb.

The architectural heritage is unique. Although because of its history of destruction Zadar does not constitue such a homogenous whole as Dubrovnik, Trogir or Korčula, all the stylistic or artistic periods figure in the sacred profane buildings: the Forum, St Donat, St Anastasia and St Chrysogonus, St Dominic and St Francis, St Simon, St Mary... the Loggia, the City Watch, the Land Gate, the places... the ancient period, the early Middle Ages, Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance, sculpture and painting, walla and fortresses... Quite enough for inscription on any list of the world's heritage. Some of the monuments have also been for ever lost: the Theatre, the Monastery of St Chrysogonus, the Pasini-Marchi and Bonaldi Palaces, the Renaissance complex on the site of today's Marketplace, the Capitulary Hall...

The church, bell-tower and convent of St Mary, of order of Benedictine nuns, are a particular site for Zadran pride and for a sense of belonging to the city. Through the urging, the care and the courage of these nuns, the greatest treasury of gold and gilt items has been preserved for the national heritage; this treasury is today on show to the public in the form of the Permanent Exhibition of Ecclesiastical Art in wing of the convent.

A special place in the goldsmith's tradition belongs to the decorated 14th century sarcophagus of St Simon, exhibited on the main altar of the church of the same name. The work was donated by the Croatian-Hungarian queen, Elizabeta Kotromanić.

Zadar is also a city with an exceptional musical tradition. In its destroyed and never rebuilt theatre, Verdi's operas were performed immediately after their first performances in La Scala. As well as by many noted musicians, this tradition is today nourished by the Blagoje Bersa Music School, the Petar Zoranić Choir and the Musical Evenings in Donat music festival.

What is probably the first puppet theatre in the country works in Zadar. Today alongside the monuments of the past, it is the first product to bear the Zadran trade mark. What St Donat is to the architectural heritage, so the puppets and the puppeteers are in today's theatre.

Jazine in Zadar is the shrine of Croatian basketball, and the shabby hall of the Zadar Besketball Club is the cethedral of the Croatian sport. This club, with Krešimir Ćosić, player, spirit and legend of the city, united Zadran people in their love for the city and the country at the beginning of the seventies. And so it is today.

The Zadar Guiness Book is truly impressive: the first schools, hospital and library (11th century), the first music scores (12th century), the first lectionaries (15th century), drama (15th century), the first Croatian novel (16th century), the first newspaper in Croatian (1806), the first Archaeological Museum (1830), Natural History Museum (1838), Red Cross Society (1878)... From 1848 untill the city was annexed by Italy (1920) there were 55 various associations at work in the city, 82 magazines and papers came out, and more than 2,000 different books were published.

Zadar is the city of the past, but one with the power to renew itself. Many a generation has drunk at its classical and medieval wells. Nothing has been forgotten. Nothing lost. Geographical position, mild climate, picturesque landscape ans artistic expression, the spirit of tolerance and love, will take it once again, after this painfull interruption, to the paths of fame and glory, where it has allways belonged.