BOK LJSKA MORNARICA 809 Zagreb

0150700022

Hrvatska bratovstina BOK LJSKA MORNARICA 809 Zagreb

Rectu CLT I CIH I ITH lvo Skanata President Le 1 1 DEC. 2018 24 November 2018 N0 ...... t!?r.~~-- ..

Mr. Tim Curtis, Secretary of the 2003 Convention Section of Intangible Cultural Heritage UNESCO 7, place de Fontenoy 75352 Paris 07 France

Dear Mr. Curtis, let me say, on behalf of the Croatian Confratemity Boka Navy 809 Zagreb (Hrvatska bratovstina Bokeljska momarica 809 Zagreb), that we expre~s our resolute opposition to the submitted nomination of the Boka Navy for inscription on the UNESCO Representative list of the intangible cultural heritage, especially bearing in mind that this is a cultural good of the Croatian people of Montenegro, regardless of where its members now live. The Boka Navy is a cultural phenomenon, both by lasting for millennia and by the characteristics which made it special in comparisOn to other such occurrences on the Mediterranean coast. In the consciousness of her heirs, the Boka Navy does not exist as an association, to them it is a tradition. Or more precisely, it is an association which became a tradition. Precisely this transition from material to spiritual explains why it is still here after twelve centuries, and why thousands alike have ended their historic walk 200 years ago. In its long history the association has been banned and abolished several times or it would disappear in the ruins of the city forts and the smoke of burnt down buildings during the invasions of Kotor, such as those that happened in the first centuries following its foundation. lt was always restored from the outside, initially through the wishes of the community to continue acquiring material goods and defending the heritage and the community itself, and in the past century and a half to meet the spiritual needs of said community.

10000 Zagreb, llica 48 MB: 3249506 • 018: 03189734311 • tiro rafun: ZABA lBAN HR5323600001101513859 TeJ: 01/ 6050·182 • Mob: 099/6547-407 • e-mail: [email protected] Predsjednlk/Gastald: lvo Skanata Hrvatska bratovstina BOKELJSKA MORNARICA 809 Zagreb

Of course, it is the product of the spirit of a relatively small group of people who, despite numerous challenges, managed to preserve their national recognisability, living the destiny of peoples outside their home state. When we say that the Boka Navy needs to have a prominent place in the treasury of world cultural heritage, we do not think that the conditions for that have been fulfilled with the submitted nomination. On the contrary, it has several disputable points, which indicate that in preparing the nomination the binding provisions of international acts, recommendations and standards have not been applied to the necessary extent, nor have the best practices in international protection of cultural heritage been used. In other words, that nomination is not a good recommendation for the Representative List. Our efforts to discuss the controversies first within the family of heirs have unfortunately not yielded any results. Talking to a deaf ear were also the persuasions of our relatives, friends, neighbours, acquaintances, with whom we lived together in Boka not so long ago, about dialogue being the only way leading to the Representative List and that there was no other way. The bearers of the nomination, however, went their own way and without companions, leaving us with no with other option than to present everything we wanted to say to them to the UNESCO body which is to decide on the nomination, with the request to take the remarks of this motion into account. We have decided to take that step, convinced that we were taking it to the benefit of the Boka Navy, a cultural good, and all those concerned by that good, and hoping that the recommendations to eliminate the shortcomings of the nomination, issued by said body, will be accepted by Montenegro. In this motion, which due to our lack of practice in such cases, may be somewhat more extensive than the usual ones, we will argue the following: 1. The nomination process did not enable for participation of all interested communities; 2. The nomination document contains inaccurate data; 3. Montenegro has groundlessly rejected the partner offer of the Republic of Croatia for the two states to nominate the Boka Navy together. Ad 1. The main characteristic of the procedure completed by submitting the nomination to the UNESCO is the lack of dialogue. When we say that, we mean to say that it was not conducted at the working table, where all the prospects of presenting the cultural good to the world were negotiated. In this ambience, from the beginning to the end, it was conducted exclusively between two sides- the Boka Navy, headquartered in Kotor and Montenegro state authorities. We would not, however, be wrong in saying that the state conducted that dialogue in fact with itself, given that the head person of the non governmental organization, which is the legal status of the Boka navy, is a high official in the Montenegrin government. The representatives of the Croatian national community in Montenegro were not given the opportunity to give their opinion on the content of the nomination dossier, even though Groats were listed as heirs in its Montenegrin version. This also happened to the representatives of the Catholic Church, the priests of

10000 Zagreb, llica 48 MB: 3249506 • 018: 03189734311 • Ziro racun: ZABA IBAN HR5323600001101513859 Tel: 01/6050-182 • Mob: 099/6547-407 • e-mail: [email protected] Predsjednik/Gastald: lvo ~kanata Hrvatska bratovstina BOKELJSKA MORNARICA 809 Zagreb the Kotor diocese, who are mentioned in the same document as having an important role in religious rituals. The importance of both mentioned communities for the Boka Navy is only discretely mentioned in the document. The real truth in fact is: were it not for the Catholic Church and Groats, there would not be a Boka Navy, and even less a cultural good. The expectations of Boka people living in the Republic of Croatia about the nomination being implemented in good faith implied that they too would be adequately involved in the proceedings. In this sense, the wishes expressed by caretakers of the same tradition from the five Croatian cities was not met well by Montenegro. The answer was a rejection of any discussion on the matter and an even stronger influence by the state on the course of the process. The communities that have given the cultural good to Montenegro for safekeeping thus remained excluded from the nomination process. Even if we had not read Article 15 of the Convention on the Protection of Intangible Cultural Heritage, even if we had not familiarised ourselves with the ICH-02 form with clear instructions on how to apply this article in practice, we would have known by feeling, logic, nature of things and justice that the project team should have included representatives of mentioned communities. The project bearers, as may be concluded from the dossier, have however, utterly misinterpreted said provision about the need to actively engage the "widest possible circle" of interested communities, groups and individuals in the process. In the filled-in section 4.a of a form in the dossier, the 500 words quota does not include the names of any other community, group or individual except for the Boka Navy, headquartered in Kotor. Considering the Boka Navy a proof of their millennia! presence in the area of Boka Kotorska, Groats in Montenegro have requested for national identity of the cultural good to be highlighted in the nomination dossier. Given that this issue is also touching upon the area of national minority rights, they presented it at the session of the Croatian-Montenegrin Mixed Intergovernmental Committee for minorities held in May 2017. The Montenegrin side has committed to devote attention to it, as well as to the possibility of a joint nomination with the Republic of Croatia. The president of the Croatian national community in Montenegro is still waiting for a meeting with the minister of culture, requested in spring of 2017, to discuss this topic, while Croatia concluded only from the proceedings of Montenegro that there would be no joint nomination. The question of national identification of cultural goods in a multi-ethnic and multi-confessional state such as Montenegro, in which the native people is only a relative majority, may be a sensitive political issue, but is also crucial to the survival of peoples living in it. Particularly sensitive to this is the less numerous autochthonous Croatian community (0.9% of Montenegrin population), which as such has no strength to resist assimilation processes. Demographic forecasts warn about such alarming situation, saying that if current trends were to continue, in 50 years there will be no Groats in Montenegro. This means that every ten days or so, two to three Groats either change their national identity or conceal it, or dye or move out of Montenegro. In preventing this grim scenario, the Croatian community needs the help of the state in which it lives and of the home state of the people it belongs to.

A clear request by the Croatian minority community, was replied to by the highest level of Montenegro state authority, the prime minister: "Montenegro, as a country that inherits multiculturalism as a core value, treats its entire heritage as integral and complete, without dividing it according to national affiliation, because those are cultural values belonging to the citizens and the entire society, with which everyone has the right to identify'*. We presume not being wrong in interpreting the words of the Prime Minister in a way in which the cultural policy of Montenegro, in the part dealing with the care of cultural goods occurring on its state territory, is based on depriving the national community of its goods in order to give them to all citizens. The ultimate consequence of such a policy would be that the people, which has been living in today's Montenegro for centuries, has not, in all the time of its existence, created any single cultural good which it could identify with. We find that simply hard to believe, even more we find it impossible to have any one people in the world that did not create anything with which it could present its specificities to others. On the other hand, this attitude also has a great assimilation power. By taking the symbol of its historic identity away from a nation, its very past is taken away, also leaving it without a future. We do not find any footing for the aforementioned position of the Montenegrin government in international acts governing cultural heritage and its protection, as well as rights of national minorities and human rights in general. lt is contrary to the very notion of multiculturalism. Multiculturalism, as we understand it, means affirmation, not negation of any identity, especially not the national one. lt is in direct contravention of the Agreement between the Republic of Croatia and Montenegro on the protection of the rights of the Croatian minority in Montenegro and the Montenegrin minority in the Republic of Croatia, under which the states have committed in Article 5 to "monitor with special attention the realization of cultural and educational needs of minority members and to that end recognize minority cultural heritage as an integral part to the national cultural identity". Finally, it is contrary to its own practice of protection of cultural goods. Namely, the expressed position was not taken into consideration when the "Montenegrin oro" was proclaimed a cultural good of national significance, on which occasion the very decision on the proclamation stated that it was "a song and a dance of the Montenegrins". Without the possibility of influencing the nomination process, the Croatian community remained until the end of the expiry of the deadline for submission of the nomination, when Montenegrin authorities changed their position and decided to present the Boka Navy through the national identity of its heirs. The relationship that was then established between the Croatian minority community, whose members are also the current 99% (!) of members of the Boka Navy based in Kotor, and the state authorities cannot be called cooperation on the protection of cultural goods. Those were the typical political negotiations between political party representatives before presidential elections. The great difference in negotiating power of the parties came also to the fore in the outcome of these negotiations. We are aware that the limited space of the registration form impedes from describing the cultural good in its entirety, thus giving the project team the possibility to underline, according to its own criteria, the

10000 Zagreb, llica 48 MB: 3249506 • OIB: 03189734311 • Ziro racun: ZABA IBAN HR5323600001101513859 Tel: 01/6050-182 • Mob: 099/6547-407 • e-mail: [email protected] Predsjednik/Gastald: lvo Skanata Hrvatska bratovstina BOKELJSKA MORNARICA 809 Zagreb information it considers important to be entered into the description of the good. We also know that the nomination guidelines do not insist on details from the history of the cultural good. Yet, it seems to us that a brief historical description of the good, as well as its perception in the context of social circumstances in which it is was maintained, can help gain full insight into its magnitude, understand its essence, in which lies the strength of our arguments. In doing so, we will of course use data from written sources, more or less known to the Boka population and all others who have fundamental knowledge of the history of Boka and the Boka Navy. The Boka Navy, in the period for which there is no written evidence of its existence (809-1353), as convincingly assumed by historians, was a military organization of defensive character, which also had a distinct religious component, recognizable in the celebration of its patron saint. Tryphon. Between 1353 and 1463, when there were records of it, it was called: Pia sodalitas naviculatorum Catarensium, indicating the fraternity character of the association, such as those founded in the middle Ages by Catholic laymen upon approval of local bishops. Along with the religious component it also had a solid class structure. Since 1463, as date of its oldest preserved statute, to 1811, when it was abolished, it was called Fraternitas divi Nicolai marinariorum de Catharo. The specificity of this fraternity is that, in addition to the class and religious component, it also had an accentuated military component, having also public powers, which are otherwise immanent to city magistrates. The rebuilt Kotor Navy in 1833 had a class membership and a religious function, lasted only for 15 more years and carried the seed of change that will take place 25 years later. The religious component manifested itself in various forms and at multiple levels. Thus, the Boka Navy organized an outdoor celebration of St. Typhon, its patron saint and that of the city of Kotor, then of St. Nicholas, the patron saint of seamen and at the time of the Venetian rule in Boka, of St. Mark, the patron saint of the Republic. Besides that, it had its own church of St. Nicholas, appointing and revoking the four chaplains of this church. According to the 1934 Statute, the Bishop of Kotor was a virile member of the Boka Navy Administration, his representative a virile member of the Court of Seven, and the bishop was also one of the signatories to that Statute. Besides acting under the influence of the Bishop of Kotor, the Roman curia also had direct jurisdiction over it, as can be seen from a document dating from the second half of the 16th century. lt should be added to all of this, that the formation of the Boka Navy in 809, as it is said, is linked to a religious act- the bringing of the body of St. Tryphon to Kotor, and that, after its abolition in 1848, it was revived and transformed into a memorial association thanks to huge dedication of the Kotor Bishop. Over time, the Fraternity first lost its military function in 1797, and then the class one in 1848. lt retained only the religious one in the newly established association called the Noble Body of the Boka Navy, established, as stated in Article 2 of the 1874 Statute, "to keep alive among the people of Kotor the memory of their ancestors' glorious endeavours by gathering in the days of the national holiday of Boka people, on the festivity of St. Tryphon on 2 and 3 February". St. Tryphon continued to be celebrated

10000 Zagreb, llica 48 MB: 3249506 • OIB: 03189734311 • Ziro racun: ZABA IBAN HR5323600001101513859 Tel: 01/ 6050-182 • Mob: 099/6547-407 • e-mail: [email protected] Predsjednik/Gastald: lvo Skanata Hrvatska bratovstina BOKELJSKA MORNARICA 809 Zagreb according to ancient customs of the fraternity of Kotor seamen. The tradition has been preserved to date in the framework of the Boka Navy Association. The Boka Navy went through various phases, changing from the inside and the outside. What is, however, present throughout all 12 centuries is the celebration of the patron saint of Kotor. Tripunjdan, as this celebration is called in Kotor, is the connective tissue that connects the parts of the Boka Navy body, incorporating into it the characteristics of cultural good - longevity, customs and (spiritual) connection to the community. In all of this, the role of the Kotor diocese was and still is crucial. Unfortunately, it was not honoured with a place in the project team. The Ordinariate of the Kotor Diocese expressed its disapproval of such a relation towards the creator of the cultural good in a public release at the end of January 2018. The admiral's public admission that "a mistake may have been made in not including the diocese in the nomination process" came too late. Ad2. a/ The ICH-02 form (sections 8.1 and 8.2) states next to the name of the Boka Navy that it is a "traditional organization od seamen". This indication cannot be accepted as entirely correct. The organization of seamen, as stated earlier, ceased to exist in 1848. Since then, and in fact since 1859, the Boka Navy implies the memorial association, the "Noble Body of the Boka Navy". Along with a huge difference in the character of the associations, there are also differences in the membership structure. In the new association, there are not just seamen, but members of various social strata. Even the admirals are not selected solely among maritime professions, and they include intellectuals of various professions, from university professors, doctors, lawyers to diplomats. Over time, the share of seamen in the membership of the association has steadily declined, so today they are represented in a very small number. The aforementioned changes in the very essence of the Boka Navy oblige for it to be presented as a "traditional organization of seamen transformed into a memorial association". b/ The Montenegrin version of the ICH-02 form (in English it is formulated differently) states that along with Groats, Montenegrins are also heirs to the Boka Navy. This is the result of the already mentioned agreement between political representatives of the Croatian minority in Montenegro and Montenegrin government officials. Aside from the fact that negotiations were conducted on matters that are not negotiated, that one does not become heir to a cultural good by political agreement, but by creating and maintaining that good, the one thing that in that description has no footing in history or any correspondence with the current moment, is that Montenegrins inherit the Boka Navy. As individuals and even less as a nation, Montenegrins have not participated in its preservation. Even 70 years after Boka was annexed to Montenegro, the national structure of the Boka Navy remained unchanged, 99% of its members coming from Croatian families. For that, of course, there are historical reasons. The political ties of Kotor with the state in its hinterland (Duklja, Zeta, Montenegro) are marked by the constant aspirations of Montenegrin rulers to rule over the whole of Boka and the persistent efforts of

Boka people to not let that happen. The political interests of Kotor inhabitants were going in the other direction - along the Adriatic coast towards the northwest. The thousand-year clash between Kotor diplomatic skills and Montenegrin military and political power resulted in Montenegrin rule over Kotor in the 11th and 12th century, in different time intervals, and since 1945 in a common living in the Montenegrin federal community and as of 2006 in the independent state. Montenegrin subjugation was opposed by Kotor inhabitants only through negotiating skills. That is the way how they in the middle of the 11th century managed to avoid political alignment with the neighbours in the North and got the complete autonomy from the Montenegrin ruler, both in administration and laws. In the second half of the 14th and the beginning of the 15th century, due to constant invasions of their territory by Montenegrins, they voluntarily surrendered the rule first to the Hungarian-Croatian king, and then to the Venetian Republic, under whose authority they remained until its collapse in 1797. After the collapse of the Republic, at the end of the 18th and the first decade of the 19th century, Boka people expressed overt sympathies towards the Hungarian-Croatian kingdom, indirectly towards the Austrian emperor and fearing of falling under the authority of Montenegro through mediation of the Russians, at that time Montenegrin major allies, advocated via diplomatic channels for the patronage of Austria. Even in the next 100 years of living in the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, the view of Boka people has not changed. The separation of Boka from Dalmatia, as the cradle of Croatian statehood, its natural and historical environment, which it belonged to since the early Byzantine times, began in the Yugoslav state, which was founded in 1918, to end with Boka being annexed to Montenegro in 1945 with the founding of the so-called Second Yugoslavia. The destiny of Boka at that time was decided outside of it and without it. On the other hand, mid-19th century, when the processes of constituting modern nations and national states are being opened, Boka people decide on the union of Boka with Croatia. Regardless of the fact that it was not realised, the decision shows the aspirations of most Boka residents at the time. The greatest advocates of the idea, which Boka people supported decades later in the Dalmatian Parliament and the Imperial Council, were precisely the members of the Boka Navy. Their aspiration for territorial connection of Boka with Croatia was the expression of awareness of their own national affiliation. If massive political changes were out of reach of their influence, the emancipatory effect of awakened awareness reached its full expression in expressing their own identity. The members of the Boka Navy realized the need for identification, both their own and that of the association, in complex political circumstances then dominant in the Monarchy, as well as in Boka, by highlighting the clearest sign of recognition of a nation- the language. In 1913, at the assembly they unanimously decided that instead of former Italian, the official language of the Boka Navy communication would be Croatian. The relation, however, between the Boka Navy and Montenegrins is eloquently illustrated by two letters of its admiralty from the second decade of the 20th century. Thus, in a letter dated 1915 addressed to the Imperial and Royal Military Command in Kotor, the admiralty asks for legally prescribed measures to be taken against the publisher of a postcard on which the members of the Boka Navy in uniforms are

10000 Zagreb, llica 48 MB: 3249506 • 018: 03189734311• Ziro racun: ZABA IBAN HR5323600001101513859 Tel: 01/ 6050-182 • Mob: 099/6547-407 • e-mail: [email protected] Predsjednik/Gastald: lvo Skanata Hrvatska bratovstina BOKELJSKA MORNARICA 809 Zagreb presented as Montenegrins. In a letter dated 1916, the admiralty informs Boka municipalities about the great war victory of the Empire against Montenegro, to which a volunteer formation of the Boka Navy participated, and calls upon "the entire Boka to participate in the celebration of Tripunjdan and the conquest of Lovcen". The relation of Montenegrins towards the Boka Navy and vice versa has undoubtedly been affected by economic, cultural, national and confessional differences as well as a different historical experience. All of those, in a variety of social contexts and over a longer period of time, proved to be a barrier to greater mutual rapprochement. Even the period of life first in a common state, and today in a single one, despite the established much greater mutual understanding and trust, has evidently not helped develop in Montenegrins an emotion towards the Boka Navy. In our many contacts with members of that nation, we have come to the conviction that in the collective consciousness of Montenegrins the Boka Navy does not exist as part of their national identity. cl A different approach to the protection of cultural goods at national and international level, apart from emphasizing national identity, is also witnessed by the difference in the description of said cultural good. In this case, there is a huge difference between the description of the Boka Navy as a cultural good in the Decision under which it has been declared a cultural good of interest to Montenegro and in the nomination dossier. At national level, the Boka Navy is defined as "a symbiosis of human skills, language, speech, use of art and craftsmanship, performing skills, maintenance of traditional rituals related to the cult personality, place and ambience". In the dossier on the other hand it is a traditional seamen organization. Instead of any kind of comment, we will say that, when this definition was disclosed, not even the eldest Boka people could recognize in it the association, whose longstanding members they were and whose fathers, grandparents ... (sailors, ship commanders, ship owners) were also members. d/ To the list of reasons for our critical review of the results of the nomination process we also add a huge difference in the nomination texts in the Montenegrin and English languages. The differences are such that in the English version the meaning of the expression itself changes and states what was not agreed in the aforementioned negotiations of political actors. The parties had agreed that Groats as the dominant heirs were to be mentioned in the dossier, followed by Montenegrins and members of other nations. In the final version, which was produced and submitted to the UNESCO by the Ministry of Culture of Montenegro, this was not done. Although it would not be entirely unnecessary to know why the Montenegrin side did that, most important at this point is that it did not keep its promise. Ad 3. The degradation of the naval economy in Boka in the first half of the 19th century is the reason for the substantial emigration of Boka people, first to the cities along the eastern coast of the Adriatic, and then for other reasons too, towards the interior of Croatia and other parts of the world, particularly overseas countries. Nevertheless, the greatest concentration of Boka people was and still is in Croatian regions.

The founding of a memorial association in Kotor inspired the part of emigrated Boka people, who consider the Boka Navy their tradition, to organize celebrations of St. Tryphon in the areas where they live according to the ancient customs of Boka seamen. Although Boka people, as we said, have settled down in almost every part of the world, only Boka people in Croatia organize the festivities of the patron saint of their hometown The first such celebration was organized in Split in 1873, only 14 years after the renewed celebration took place in Kotor. There is evidence of celebrations held in Zadar in 1915 and in Sibenik in 1936, while in Zagreb they have been held since 1921. In Rijeka it began in 1962, and in Dubrovnik and Pula in the early 90-ies, when a large number of Groats from Boka, exposed to great pressure by their fellow citizens, during the armed aggression on Croatia were forced to leave their hometown and came to live in those towns. Today, there are five fraternities of the Boka Navy in Croatia - in Zagreb, Rijeka, Pula, Split and Dubrovnik, with approximately 800 members, which is more than in Boka. In 1965, the Zagreb, Split and Rijeka associations became organizational units of the Boka Navy, headquartered in Kotor. In relation to that, we underline that the Zagreb branch is the first branch of the Boka Navy. lt was founded seven years before the branch offices in Boka. With this act the Boka Navy definitely came to Croatia. Its crossing of the border resulted in yet another precedent: a member of the branch office was appointed Admiral of the Boka Navy, headquartered in Kotor. This honour was given by Kotor residents to a member of the Zagreb branch office, a professor of maritime law at Zagreb Law Faculty, a person from Boka, who was not born in Boka. The Admiral remained on that function until his death in 1989, managing the Boka Navy all the time from Zagreb. Noteworthy is also the fact that Zagreb gave yet another Admiral (1935), who also made decisions as Admiral from Zagreb, and it is also worth mentioning that yet another person from Zagreb was appointed honorary vice admiral in 1991. The importance of the Croatian fraternities of the Boka Navy in preserving the tradition from 1945 to 1990 is immeasurable. lt was, in fact, a time when the position of the church, religion, individuals who expressed religious feelings and practiced religion were defined by the Marxist view of religion as an "opium for the masses." The Church was excluded from public life, ideological pressure was very powerful. The Boka Navy, headquartered in Kotor adapted to such a social climate by abandoning the tradition. lt did not celebrate Tryphon Day /Tripunjdan/, its performances were of ceremonial character, reduced mainly to lining up the squadron on the occasion of receptions of foreign and domestic state leaders and of marking important dates in the Yugoslav World War 11 history At the same time, in the same state, in accordance with the same laws and procedures of the state apparatus, the associations of Boka people in Croatia (subsidiaries of the Kotor Boka Navy) organized each year celebrations of their patron and patron of their homeland. Those celebrations were spoken of and reported in the religious community, since St. Tryphon was not celebrated here prior to the arrival of Boka people to Zagreb. In the small monograph of the parish of St. Mary on Dolac in Zagreb, issued in

1985, it is thus written: "Every year on 3 February, numerous Boka people gather in the church of St. Mary. They have their own holy mass and a suitable "Boka ceremony". If is opened by the "little admiral", the flag is raised, etc. They proudly remember the oldest society, the "Body of the Boka Navy". They also gather like that on 15 May for the celebration of the Lady of Skrpjela to whom they attribute the victory over the Turks". We hereby would like to point out that in the period from 1945 to 1990 the Boka Navy, based in Kotor, maintained its 12-century tradition thanks to its branch offices in Croatia! Without those, there would be a 45-year discontinuity. Perhaps half a century seems a short period of time compared to 12, perhaps this discontinuity, had it existed, would not have diminished the glory, beauty and value of the cultural good, but in the context of what this motion speaks about, more important is the fact that the cultural good was kept outside the area where it originated. And if it is about duration, one may undoubtedly conclude from everything said here that with almost 150 years of celebration of St. Tryphon according to ancient customs and 45 years of preserving the tradition, the Boka Navy is present in Croatia much longer than in Montenegro. The submitted nomination, as we have shown in this motion, is burdened with disputes, which reduces the value of the cultural good, making it unsuitable for inscription on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. In order to meet the expectations of the true heirs of the Boka Navy tradition, in order for it to fully shine in privileged company, it is necessary to eliminate the aforementioned shortcomings. In our opinion this is only possible in a dialogue between the two states and communities which have expressed interest in the nomination in the previous procedure. I am remaining at your disposal for further clarifications. SincerelylvoSM yours,

Encl. Statement of the Bishop's Ordinariate Kotor

Saturday, 27 January 2018 - 13:39 Author: KOTOR DIOCESE

The polemic that began end 2017 and beginning 2018, in the media and also in the Assembly of Montenegro and the Croatian Parliament, could not pass unnoticed by the Kotor Diocese, as the original spiritual heir of this, nowadays essentially memorial institution related to the cult of St. Tryphon. The reason to all is the proposal for said institution to be inscribed on the UNESCO list as Montenegrin intangible cultural good. We are aware of the present historical moment in which we sense from the material we have the deliberate imprecision in recognizing its key Christian Catholic component, clearly highlighted both in the Statute of the Boka Navy Kotor in Article 33 and in the Rulebook on uniform, ranks and performances of the active composition of the Boka Navy Kotor, particularly in Article 51. This is also recognized in the lack of consulting the Diocese in writing the proposal for the nomination of the Boka Navy to the UNESCO list of world intangible cultural heritage as well as in the lack of seeking support for its nomination. lt is somehow about us, but without us. Therefore, we begin this communique with an invocation from the oldest preserved Statute of the Boka Navy kept in our archives: Adsit nobis gratia Spiritus Sancti - Let the grace of the Holy Spirit be with us, wishing to not offend anyone, blandly and with respect expressing the facts that we as an institution represent. Whom does the Boka navy belong to?! The identity of the Boka Navy is characterized by its manifoldness. lt could not have been otherwise in its survival of over a thousand years. If we leave out the constant tradition, as a historical but not primary and safe source, the Boka Navy attaches its beginnings to epigraphic safe sources dating back to 809 or depending on the reading 805 and the bringing of the relics of St. Tryphon from Constantinople to Kotor. Its first documented written mention dates back to 1353. lt is then referred to as Pia sodalitas naviculatorum Catharensium- a pious association of Kotor seamen. The prefix pia (pious) essentially determines its character as a religious fraternity- an institution known only to the Church in the West. Its spiritual constant is present to this day. At the heart of this spirituality is the celebration of the city patron Saint Tryphon, in a form that has certainly changed throughout history, but remained preserved in its deepest matrix in the dancing of St. Tryphon kolo (chain dance) or the Boka Navy kolo, in the bishop's blessing and his joining the kolo and saying praises (Loda) in honour of the Lord, the Virgin Mary and St. Tryphon. Without these components, the Boka Navy would have been only a folklore association not different from any other folklore association in the world. lt is necessary to emphasize that St. Tryphon kolo carries features of an archaic ritual dance. This was first noted by Or Urban Raffaelli in the brochure 11 ballo di San Trifone (Zadar, 1844), and confirmed in her recent research by ethno choreology expert Milica llijin, a permanent associate of the Music Institute of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts in Belgrade. She writes about St. Tryphon kolo in the Monument, /Spomenikl SANU CI/I (Belgrade, 1953, p. 249). So, the Boka Navy is part of the Catholic culture. Its first known Statute Liber fraternitatis divi Nicolai marinariorum de Catharo dating back to 1463, places it under the protection of St. Nicholas with the desire for the name of God Almighty to always be celebrated. Celebrated also with a ritual dance, which represents gestura! symbolism and nonverbal communication with God and the patron saint. The kolo is also characterized by pictures- figures linking it to the sea and sea storms. lt is a sort of story about the arrival of the relics of St. Tryphon, which repeats year after year, the protagonists of that story being seamen, today not necessarily in a professional capacity. Asked rightfully so these days by numerous public communication means about whom does the Boka navy belong to, we answer: the Boka Navy is part of the Catholic tradition represented in by the Kotor Diocese. lt is a spiritual good, which no one has ever tried to negate in any way through history, apart from the 1947 to 1989 atheistic ideology. True, through history it was occasionally banned and abolished by various states, but never because of the connection to the cult and celebration of St. Tryphon, as was done by the communists in 1947, by separating it from the Church and thus transforming it into a folklore association. Bearing this in mind, the then Admiral Rudolf Gjunio gives the seal of the Navy for safekeeping to the Kotor Diocese and never again dresses in the Admiral uniform. He did not want to be part of an institution losing its main purpose, regardless of how many navy members supported him at the time, and the only one supporting him was adjutant Mirko Homen. The seal has been preserved to date as a testimony of a time for which we are not certain it remained just a part of the past. We have clarified the religious character of the navy. To understand the ethnic identity of its members, it is necessary to know the causes and consequences of the revolutionary 1848 in Europe and the awakening of modern national consciousness. In Boka it first appears among Orthodox inhabitants who identify with Serbs, and is incited by Vuk Karadzic and his associates in these areas. So in 1860 they are the first to leave the Boka Navy (about 40 of them) and form the Serbian Guard. At that time, the Boka Navy counted 300 members. Around 150 members were taking part to the Tryphon Day ITripundanl in folk costumes (Jar Parall, The Boka Navy and Tryphon Day IBokeljska Navy i Tripundan/, Kotor, 1899, p. 27). He states that the members of the Boka Navy were coming from the following places: Kotor, Spiljari, Skaljari, Dobrota, Muo, Prcanj, Stoliv, Lastva, Tivat and Krasici. Perast had its own independent squadron. The aforementioned places were mostly Catholic, as can be seen from the list dated 17 July 1850. This was precisely the time of national differentiation, and the majority of Catholics pronounce as Groats. And in 1848 all together in favour of the union of Dalmatia and Boka Kotorska with Croatia, which was confirmed on 12 June 1848 by the Grand Assembly in Prcanj and strengthened with the arrival of and splendid welcome to Croatian ban Josip Jelacic in 1849 to Boka (Anton Milosevic, Boka and the Constitutional Movement/Boka i ustavni pokret/, Narodni list, Zadar, 1912, p.69).

The statistics of religious affiliation of these places in 1850 are as follows:

Place: Catholic: Orthodox: Kotor and Spiljari 1430 1171 (soldiers 1050) Skaljari 489 13

Dobrota 1196 0 Muo 498 65 Prcanj 1080 123 Gornji Stoliv 284 0 Donji Stoliv 358 65 Lastva 838 23 Tivat 718 30 Krasici 197 0 Perast 659 173

In the daily paper "Pobjeda" dated 25 December 2017, the Admiralty and the Steering Committee of the Boka Navy wrote that at the end of the 1ih century Boka covered the area from Sutomore to Sutorine, and that Catholics accounted for a third of the population. As regards the Boka Navy, this information is no indicator at all, because given statistics confirm that the Boka Navy membership was recruited from places with a Catholic majority. Due precisely to Orthodox people leaving the Navy in 1860, which was the result of failure to accept the participation of the Boka Navy in the celebration of the Day of the Holy Three in Kotor, in 1866 Captain Paul Kamenarovic wrote the song The Day of the Lawyer of Kotor lOan odvjetnika Kotorskogl inviting Orthodox people to return to the Navy with these words: ... come on all together, let us join the kolo, hand in hand, let us show to all that we spread fraternal harmony I svi zajedno, svi u kolo, rukama ruke pruiimo, potvrdimo svim okolo da bratsku slogu vrijeiimo I. The Serbian Guard never danced St. Tryphon Kolo because it did not consider it its own. The Groats of Boka have never changed the name of the Boka Navy into Croatian Navy and remained open to all those who wanted to accept the Boka Navy Statute and the traditional values that it inherited. In the scope of these events, there is also the saying of Loda in the Croatian language as of 1871 and not as before in Italian (prof. G. Zarbarini, La festa di San Trifone, Spalato, 1888, p. 34). The presence of the Croatian language in Boka in archival 1 sources and historiography can be traced back to the 15 h century. We only give one example. In 1740, we come across Antun Paskvali, a member of Kotor nobility who signed in Cyrillic, one of the three Croatian scripts, as interpreter of the Croatian language /istomacitelj od jezika harvatskogal (IAK, UP LXI, 1144). In 1878 the singing society Jedinstvo in Kotor gets the prefix Serbian, while ten years the establishment of cultural societies with a Croatian prefix starts in Boka. After this presentation, we have to answer yet another question as to whom does the Boka Navy belong to. To the greatest extent, since 1860, the Boka Navy has been preserved and inherited as intangible cultural and spiritual heritage, by members of the Catholic Church and the Croatian people, not diminishing the significance and contribution of all the others who are embedded in it and who have identified with it. Nowadays it is undoubtedly an intangible cultural and spiritual heritage of Montenegro, but not a Montenegrin intangible cultural and spiritual heritage. The grammar itself makes that distinction. Bene docet qui bene distinguit- one who differentiates well learns well. This does not impoverish but enriches the cultural heritage in Montenegro. Otherwise, the terms multicultural, multi-confessional and multi-ethnic do not make sense and have no footing, because if everything belongs to Montenegro, why even refer to those. They then represent only the subject of political games aimed at concealing hidden agendas. We tried to be brief, not wanting in this case long and monotonous historical exposes. We conclude: The Boka Navy today belongs to those who accept its Statute, to those who appreciate and respect it, to those who want to get to know it, to those to whom St. Tryphon kolo feels as part of their spiritual identity, those who wish to spread fraternal harmony, who wish to praise (Lode) the Lord, the Virgin Mary and St. Tryphon. If there were more of such people, there would be no square in Kotor or in Boka that could accommodate and embrace us all. We are witnesses - it is not so.

Kotor, na Lode, 2018.

Bishop's Ordinariate Kotor