Veli Lošinj
| Veli Lošinj | |||
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| Basic data | |||
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| State : |
 Croatia
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| County : |
 Primorje-Gorski kotar
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| Island : | Lošinj | ||
| Municipality : | Mali Lošinj | ||
| Height : | 0 m. i. J. | ||
| Residents : | 901 (2011) | ||
| Telephone code : | (+385) 051 | ||
| Postal code : | 51 551 | ||
| License plate : | RI | ||
| Boat registration : | ML | ||
| Structure and administration | |||
| Community type : | settlement | ||
| Website : | |||
Veli Lošinj [ ˈvɛli ˈlɔʃiɲ ] ( German Groß-Lötzing , Italian Lussingrande ) is a village on the Croatian island of Lošinj . The place is at the foot of the mountain Sv. Ivan (St. John) in a narrow bay on the southeast side of the island. In a further southern indentation is the district of Rovenska with a fishing port. The now much larger town of Mali Lošinj (literally: Little Lošinj ) is about 4 km away. Veli Lošinj has about 900 inhabitants and was originally the first settlement on the island. Today the residents mainly live from tourism. Numerous villas and several parks bear witness to a rich past. It was shaped by shipbuilding and sailing ships until the end of the 19th century. After that, a special healing climate spa tourism developed during the winter months, later the summer tourism, which is now widely dominant. The vegetation is characterized by dense pine forests with a variety of other subtropical plants. A colony of up to 150 dolphins is at home in the marine environment ("aquatorium") .
Attractions
- Port in Veli Lošinj and in the district of Rovenska
- Breakwater at the port of Rovenska, built in 1856. It protects the place from the hurricane gusts of the bora .
- "Kula" tower from the 15th century, since 2001 set up as a museum and gallery. There is a permanent exhibition on the history of the city and its surroundings, as well as changing art exhibitions. From the upper floor the tower offers a panoramic view over the city. Today the tower is the symbol on the coat of arms of Veli Lošinj. A special feature of the museum is the exhibition of a replica of the “ Croatian Apoxyomenos ”: in 1999 a large, exceptionally well-preserved bronze statue from the 2nd or 1st century BC was recovered from the seabed between the islands of Veli Orjule and Lošinj. It shows a Greek athlete cleaning himself with a scraping instrument after a competition. The original was shown in a special exhibition in the Louvre in Paris in autumn 2012. It is now being presented in Mali Lošinj.
- Marine protection center "Blue World" with research station: Research into dolphin populations in the Adriatic began in the 1980s. In 1999, the Plavi Svijet Institute for Marine Research and Protection (“Blue World”) was founded in Veli Lošinj . In addition to researching and protecting the sea and the organisms that live in it, the task is to educate people about the protection of the ecosystem and the endangered species. For this purpose, the "Educational Center of the Sea in Lošinj" was founded in 2003 , the first of its kind on the Adriatic. It contains an exhibition, shows audiovisual presentations and makes special offers for children. International volunteers accompany the research work in the summer months. Individuals or organizations can "adopt" individual dolphins. The aquatorium near the island was declared a dolphin sanctuary by the Croatian government in 2006. Since 1993, Veli Lošinj has celebrated “ Dolphin Day” at the beginning of August ; In 2012 the date was moved to the beginning of July.
- Churches: Parish Church of Sv. Antun Opat (baroque building, built from 1767 to 1774, with rich furnishings, was at times the cathedral of the last bishop of Osor, Rakamarić). Gospe od Anđela Church (built in 1510, renovated in Baroque style around 1730). Church of Sv. Nikola from the 14th century, possibly older. Church of Sv. Ivana Kritelja (1755) on the top of Sv. Ivan, as well as other chapels.
- Podjavori Nature Park at the former winter residence of Archduke Karl Stephan von Habsburg (now there is a spa facility in the house for the treatment of allergic diseases of the respiratory system and skin). More than two hundred botanical species have been settled in the park.
- Gallery Nenad Levinger
history
colonization
Until the 16th century, the island of Lošinj was also referred to on maps as the "island of Osorski" because it was owned by a noble family from Osor . In 1384 the name "Isola di Lussin" is mentioned for the first time. The first settlement is dated to 1280. At that time, Obrad Harnovic is said to have brought 12 families from the mainland to Javorna Bay. Harnovic had previously clarified the requirements for legal settlement with the political and religious authorities in Osor. The first settlement "Velo Selo" ("Big Village") was built around a small single-nave church Sv. Nikola (St. Nicholas) around. A remnant of the old development, called Hramina, still exists as a ruin on the mountain top. The origins of Sv. Nikola Church even dates back to the 12th century, where monks of the Basilian order are said to have lived before the island was "officially" settled. In the 18th century the church was renovated and expanded in the baroque style. She also got an altar dedicated to St. Anna and therefore bears the name Sv. Ana. The oldest part of the village is now called Harnovicevo (after Obrad Harnovic). Some of the residents later moved from there to the Trzica hill and founded the Garina settlement. More developed between the two settlements: Brdina, Podjavori, Strazica and Grbica. In the 16th century, fishermen settled on the Rovenska Bay.
Veli Lošinj developed further in two parts: the “upper village” and the “lower village”. The upper village was inhabited by Croatians who were called "Zgorinjci" and who lived mainly from agriculture and seafaring. This district today consists of Grbica, Rialto, Kunsil, Harnovicevo and Podjavi streets. The "lower village" was mainly inhabited by Italians, called "Dolinjci". They were fishing and trading. This district today consists of the streets Kastel, Slavojna, Garina, Sestavina, Kaciol and Zad Bone. In the 15th century the predecessor of the current parish church of Sv. Antun Opat (St. Antonius Abbot). From the 18th century the town grew in the form of an amphitheater around the Veli Lošinj bay, with a central square at the port.
Political history
Veli Lošinj largely shared the political history of the entire island of Lošinj with a number of changing rulers: Osor, Venice , Croatia-Hungary, Austria-Hungary , France, Italy, German occupation, Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia . Under French rule, Veli Lošinj was granted independence from Osor. Thus, on August 24, 1806, the Mali and Veli Lošinj municipal council was established, and on February 11, 1808, the independent Veli Lošinj municipal council was established. The first mayor was Captain Simun Budinic. The town hall building at the harbor was built in 1870. The municipality remained independent until 1945. In the meantime it belongs administratively to Mali Lošinj.
Veli Lošinj as a shipbuilding and maritime center
In the middle of the 19th century Lošinj was the second largest center of sailing in the eastern Adriatic. Ships from Lošinj went to the large seaports in North and South America. The height of development was reached in 1869, when the ship owners from Mali and Veli Lošinj owned 127 long-range sailing ships. Ship building reached a first peak during the Crimean War (1855 and 1856) and a second in the 1870s.
A number of famous captains come from Veli Lošinj. Petar Petrina (1606–1693) sailed from Trieste to London in 1650, making him the first to cross the Strait of Gibraltar under Venetian rule . In 1784 the brothers Petar and Anton Budinic sailed to Jamaica on behalf of a Venetian trading company. Captain Petar Jakov Leva became famous as the first seafarer from the east coast of the Adriatic, who in 1834 sailed around Cape Horn on the southern tip of South America with a crew of only 10 men and drove to Valparaiso in Chile. The Cape Leva at the entrance to the port of Veli Lošinj bears his family name in his honor. In 1843, Captain Antun Busanic from Veli Lošinj sailed around the Cape of Good Hope on a trip to India .
At the beginning of the 1850s a Veli Lošinj shipping company was established. She planned the construction of the pier in the Rovenska Bay and built a shipyard there for the construction of sailing ships.
At the end of the 19th / beginning of the 20th century, the time of sailing with ships and captains from Lošinj ended. However, it left behind a large number of representative houses of ship captains and owners in the two places Mali and Veli Lošinj. These houses were comfortably furnished, had large gardens with plants, some of which had been brought back from the boat trips, and served as accommodation for the first tourists arriving at this time.
Development of spa and tourism
The main reason that Lošinj became the first tourist island on the then Austrian Riviera was the very mild climate with an average temperature of 15.7 degrees Celsius per year. The Lošinj meteorologist and biologist Ambroz Haračić had published his systematic meteorological studies during the 1880s. As a result, the Lošinj climate was viewed in medical circles as potentially beneficial. Two respected Viennese doctors, Leopold Schrötter and Conrad Clar, wanted to find out personally. Clar had his son with him in 1885, who was suffering from a severe throat disease. The two doctors were so impressed by his rapid recovery that they enthusiastically recommended Lošinj to their Austrian colleagues. In doing so, they also gave Professor Haračić and the island's officials a strong impetus to prepare the island as a future spa island. In April 1886 a "Society for Afforestation and Beautification" was founded. In four years she planted 250,000 pine saplings and thus laid the foundation for today's lush vegetation. The Mali Lošinj Tourist Association, the forerunner of today's Tourist Association, was founded in March 1887 as a branch of the Austrian Tourist Club. In 1888 the first travel guide for Lošinj was published in Vienna. At that time Veli Lošinj had about 2000 inhabitants.
A key role in the development of tourism on Lošinj was the establishment of steamboat services with Trieste , Rijeka and Pula . As a result, the island was linked to the newly built railway lines to Vienna and Budapest. As early as the 1880s, Lošinj was on the timetables between the centers in Central Europe and destinations first on the northern and then on the southern Adriatic.
Another strong impetus for tourism came from members of the Austrian ruling family. Archduke Karl Stephan came to Veli Lošinj for the first time in 1885 and stayed there with interruptions until 1915. He first bought a former captain's villa here. In 1890 he built his own new castle with a large park in the Podjavori district. Crown Prince Rudolf visited the island in 1887, while Archduke Franz Ferdinand recovered from tuberculosis there for six weeks in 1895. Emperor Franz Joseph came to Lošinj several times. In the wake of these lords, numerous court servants, nobles and other wealthy people visited the island. A noble Austrian society founded their first children's home.
In 1892 Mali and Veli Lošinj were declared climatic health and winter resorts by law. The entire spa system was subordinated to a spa commission, which consisted of the mayors of the two cities, the district doctor and representatives of the city councils of both places, including representatives elected by the spa guests. The season lasted from October 1st to May 31st. A German-language spa newspaper was published and distributed two to three times a month (“Kur- und Fremdliste”).
Since the beginning of the 20th century, bathing tourism has also developed in summer. The connection with winter spa tourism led to what was then an extraordinary year-round season with a peak in 1913 with an estimated 250,000 overnight stays (Mali and Veli Lošinj together).
The First World War brought an abrupt breakdown, which was initially caused by the interruption of shipping. The Italian rule (from 1918) then forbade the hospitalization of the sick on the island. The economic crises of the interwar period brought a further decline. After the capitulation of Italy in 1943, the German Wehrmacht quartered in earlier hotels. Towards the end of the war, this resulted in their partial destruction by bombing by the Allies.
In the course of nationalization in 1948, most of the still existing tourist facilities were taken over by the “Jadranka” company, which gradually rebuilt them or transferred them to other companies as recreational facilities for their employees. Formerly private villas were also nationalized and used as recreational facilities for businesses. A special feature was the use of the children's hospital in the former castle of Archduke Karl Stephan for children from the GDR from the end of the 1960s until German reunification. The house lost its status as a hospital in 1993 and is now operated on a small scale as a health resort (Lječilište Veli Lošinj).
In the early 1990s, some of the vacant holiday homes as a result of the war in Croatia housed war refugees from Eastern Slavonia and other parts of Croatia, and later also from Bosnia. In addition to humanitarian aid from local organizations, the non-governmental organization “Suncokret” (“Sunflower”) organized programs there, especially for children and young people, and also brought a large number of international volunteers to the town.
Infrastructure development
- In 1910 a power station was built in Mali Lošinj. The power line was installed as far as Veli Lošinj so that hotels, guesthouses, public buildings and also some private buildings could be supplied.
- In 1963 a drinking water supply system was built from Lake Vransko on the neighboring island of Cres to Veli Lošinj.
- Lošinj has received electricity from the mainland since 1964.
- In 1965 the Hotel Punta I was opened with 314 beds
- In 1968 the road from Porozina to Veli Lošinj was paved.
- In 1971, a retirement home was established, which has been named after the benefactor Marko A. Stuparić since 1996.
- In 1986 the Punta II hotel complex was opened with 516 beds.
- In 1987 the aqueduct was extended to Rovenska and a sewer system was built throughout the place.
- In 1995 a new municipal kindergarten was opened.
- In 2008, Veli Lošinj received the “Blue Blossom” award as the best-kept holiday resort on the Adriatic. This award was given again in 2012 in the category of places with up to 1000 inhabitants.
literature
- Goran Ivanišević: Velo Selo. - Veli Lošinj. Crtice iz proslosti. Zupni ured, Veli Lošinj 1997, ISBN 953-97216-0-1 (Croatian). Contains a depiction of the history of Veli Lošinj as well as a comprehensive collection of historical postcards. Available in the parish of Veli Lošinj.
- Lošinjski Muzej (ed.): Lošinjski Hoteli, Pansioni i Lječilišta 1887.-2012. Hotels, Pensions and Health Resorts on the Island of Lošinj 1887–2012. Catalog for the exhibition from 28.03. until April 18, 2012 in the Palaca Fritzy, Mali Lošinj. ISBN 978-953-55837-8-3 (Croatian / English).
- Museum-Gallery Exhibition Center Kula, Veli Lošinj: Guide to the permanent Exhibition. Adult education center, Museum-Gallery Department, Mali / Veli Lošinj 2005, ISBN 953-99919-1-9 (English).
- Mali Lošinj City Tourist Board (ed.): Discover Lošinj! Brochure, Mali Lošinj 2012.
The city of Veli Lošinj
Veli Lošinj ("Lussingrande") around 1900
The port of Rovenska
Entrance to the port of Rovenska
The old swimming area in Rovenska
Remarks
- ^ Croatian Bureau of Statistics, Census 2011 Results [1]
- ↑ http://www.muzejapoksiomena.hr/en/
- ↑ Historical images and descriptions of the history of the individual houses can be found in the catalog for the exhibition Lošinjki Hoteli, Pansioni i Lječilišta 1887. - 2012., see under literature
- ↑ "The Paradise of the GDR Kurkinder", in: Freie Presse from October 20, 2011 (PDF; 269 kB)
Web links
- http://www.blue-world.org/ Lošinj Marine Education Center, Blue World Institute of Marine Research and Conservation
- Historical postcards from around 1910 to 1934