ZAGORAA Cultural/Historical Guide to the Zagora (Inland) Region of Split
A cultural/historical guide to the Zagora (inland) region of Split-Dalmatia County ZAGORA THE DALMATIAN ZAGORA (INLAND) Joško Belamarić THE DALMATIAN ZAGORA (INLAND) A cultural/historical guide to the Zagora (inland) region of Split-Dalmatia County 4 Zagora 14 Klis Zagora 24 Cetinska krajina 58 Biokovo, Imotski, Vrgorac 3 Zagora THE DALMATIAN ZAGORA (INLAND) A cultural/historical guide to the Zagora (inland) region of Split-Dalmatia County Here, from Klis onwards, on the ridge of the Dinara mountain chain, the angst of inland Dalmatia’s course wastelands has for centuries been sundered from the broad seas that lead to a wider world. The experience of saying one’s goodbyes to the thin line of Dalmatia that has strung itself under the mountain’s crest, that viewed from the sea looks like Atlas’ brothers, is repeated, not without poetic chills, by dozens of travel writers. To define the cultural denominators of Zagora, the Dalmatian inland, is today a difficult task, as the anthropological fabric of the wider Dalmatian hinterland is still too often perceived through the utopian aspect of the Renaissance ideal, the cynicism of the Enlightenment, or the exaggeration of Romanticism and the 18th century national revival. After the fall of medieval feudalism, life here has started from scratch so many times - later observers have the impression that the local customs draw their roots from some untroubled prehistoric source in which the silence of the karst on the plateau towards Promina, behind Biokovo, the gurgling of the living waters of the Zrmanja, Krka, Čikola and Cetina Ri- vers, the quivering of grain on Petrovo, Hrvatac and Vrgorac Fields, on 4 Zagora the fat lands along Strmica and Sinj, create the ide- al framework for the pleasant countenance, joyous heart and sincere morality of the local population of which many have written, each from their own point of view: from abbot Fortis and Ivan Lovrić during the Baroque period, Dinko Šimunović and Ivan Raos not so long ago to Ivan Aralica and, in his own way, Miljenko Jergović today.
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