Have you ever revisited a book and wondered why you hadn’t paid more attention the first time you read it? That has happened to me with the book Čarobni kvarnerski trokut (Magical Triangle of Kvarner), in its new edition, titled Adriatic Reverie. I believe that things happen or don’t happen for a reason: sometimes things just turn out a certain way, we don’t have time, can’t focus at a given moment, have other interests or obligations, or . . . 

It all started with a call from Zdenko Velčić who was asking me to write a brief essay as ethnologist about a diorama of the open hearth (tornica), which he’d been making. I knew about his dioramas because I’d visited his Art Terrarium exhibit a few years earlier, but the dioramas of the open hearth and other spaces in and around the house he showed me were totally beyond my expectations: Zdenko captured not only a typical part of a house in the north-eastern Adriatic—in this case the Brseč area—but also a moment from the life of that area with every tiniest imaginable detail. I had read about the open hearth—tornica—and he suggested that I read what he wrote about it in his book, in its first edition. I quickly read that short section but soon found myself 30 pages ahead—the book drew me in. And I know why: some of the text was written na domaći, in the Čakavian dialect, which I speak myself. I deeply enjoyed discovering the variants of speech from villages just a few kilometers away from my small town. I consider the sections in Čakavian dialects to be particularly valuable. 

While talking with Zdenko, I learned that a second, expanded edition of the book in English was in the works, and that it was going to be published as an ebook. Not only did I have an opportunity to read the book to which I didn’t pay enough attention earlier, but I got an advance look at its expanded version. That must mean something. Maybe it’s better that it turned out this way—maybe I needed to get older and more experienced to better appreciate the book’s importance and understand why Zdenko does what he does. He admitted to me once, with some sadness and incredulity, that people used to ask him why he was writing a book and what was his benefit. Does there need to be a benefit beyond a sense of satisfaction? Maybe that can be appreciated only by someone who’s lived away from his birthplace for many years and is returning to it, understanding that a good part of life has already passed and that there’s still time, desire, and willingness to create something for our children who will appreciate it when they mature and start returning themselves. Many will not return to their homeland, nor will their children who speak neither Croatian nor local dialect, yet with this English edition they will be able to read stories from the Brseč area.

The book opens with the editor’s preface and a few short sections that will be highly valuable to an English speaker—these explain how the book was translated and what the differences are between the Čakavica and Cakavica dialects, both used in the original edition. Following the text of the book will be easier thanks to a short explanation about the pronunciation of Croatian words. With this, the readers who are new to Croatian or the Čakavian dialect can overcome the pronunciation challenge more easily.

The table of contents, which is more detailed in this edition, facilitates orientation, and the main 12 chapters cover the Land, Sea, Open Sea, Brseč, Sundays and Holidays, Ugly Years, Tourism, Sports and Entertainment, Money, Mystical Trebišća, Beli and the Tramuntana on Cres, and Life on a Postcard. The book is now somewhat broader although the number of chapters has decreased from the first edition.

In his memories, the author is returning to the places that had marked his life—his childhood in Golovik, and youth and adult life in Rijeka and Beli on the Cres island. When circumstances finally allowed, Zdenko returned to his native Golovik, which I’d say holds a central place in the book. 

The text is accompanied by photographs and author’s artistic depictions of landscapes or moments from everyday life. Zdenko is, as the reader will learn from About the Author, an artist—a painter, sculptor, illustrator, poet. This books proves that he is a talented writer, which isn’t surprising. His detailed descriptions reveal his attachment to his homeland and a discernible warmth when he talks about the cleaning of the attic (šufit) and how recklessly people discard old things, about a child’s excitement over the electrification of the house, or about a hope that parents will buy the kids a candy after the Sunday mass, as if he himself became a child again. 

The amount of detail in the themes the author narrates is impressive. He talks about the everyday life of a common man from the Brseč area—where he lived, what he did in and around the house, how he spent his free time, what was done in the garden year around, what the nature was like and what animals lived here, the trades and crafts—and he paid particular attention to the life near and on the sea. From the ethnographical perspective, Zdenko documents a world that is foreign and unimaginable to many—a life in harmony with nature. Those descriptions, chock full of details that could be used in reconstructing the traditional lifestyle of this area, are already valuable today, and will become more valuable with time because significant changes have already taken place. 

The author points out that as he worked in hospitality, and later as a painter, he gained many acquaintances and friends who helped him find interviewees for the themes that he covered in the book. He identified the people who knew more about particular themes than he did, and he correctly determined whom to ask what. We are privy to exceptionally detailed information about the life of the people, for example when he talks with his brother about what gets done in the fields each month of the year, when a former oil mill master tells a story about working in the mill (toš), when through personal stories of survivors he talks about the horrors of wars, when we hear from the local fishermen about fishing techniques, or when the the poetess and retired teacher Cvjetana Miletić talks about the Brseč school. There are many such stories, and they add authenticity to the book because we know who is telling them. The author’s descriptions of his visits with the interviewees reminded me of my own on-site ethnographical research, when I too had to explain who I am (ka san) and whose I am (čigova san)— very frequent and important questions to the people from this area—after which everything proceeded smoothly and without problems.

Zdenko writes in a relaxed style, as if chatting with us, frequently sharing humorous anecdotes like the one about the broken eggs from a school bag, about having a picture taken, various moments from fishing, and many others that compel us to read further.

The second edition has gained a list of people in trades and professions, namely in fishing and tourism [available at www.intunepress.com/AdriaticReverie.html]. This is where one can find valuable information about the history of the Brseč Fishing Association as well as a list of fishermen and trap fishermen, not only from the Brseč area, but from today’s entire Municipality (Općina) of Mošćenička Draga, and that information isn’t easy to find in written documents. Referring to the chapter in which Zdenko talks about the education in today’s Hotel and Tourism School in Opatija and his work in Hotel Marina, he mentions other people from this area who worked in this field. 

As the book will be published in English, I believe that it will find itself in the hands (or on reading devices) of the people who emigrated from this area, as well as their offspring who may have retained a more archaic version of the local speech because it didn’t get contaminated by other dialects—but also those who are not from the Brseč area. That’s why the Dictionary—Besedar in Appendix A is of particular value. Words disappear: When people stop engaging in certain types of work, both the knowledge and the vocabulary of that trade vanish, and when the man dies, his language dies with him unless it’s documented. We witness this every day and that’s why this documentation is such a valuable contribution to the preservation of the language of this area. The aforementioned dictionary also facilitates following the text [where many key terms appear in their original form, in dialect]. Also added in this edition is the dictionary of marine life and nautical terms (Appendix B), which is essential because the author mentions many species of animals. Some species of fish, for example, have three different local names, and it’s great to have them all listed in one place together with their English and Latin names.

There is a dearth of publications that cover the area of today’s Municipality of Mošćenička Draga from the perspectives of ethnography and cultural anthropology, though their number has increased somewhat during the last 15 or so years. An expanded edition of Zdenko’s book will tell the story of our common man in other, distant parts of the world.

And last but not least, the editor and translator of this book deserves to be thanked for the resolve and effort in this decade-long journey— in 2013 he met Zdenko and saw the book Čarobni kvarnerski trokut [Magical Triangle of Kvarner] for the first time. The result of that journey is the book you are reading. It’s not easy to capture the spirit of the people of the Brseč area in another language, as he himself pointed out in his preface, but I believe and hope that the readers will enjoy and feel at least some part of what I’ve felt while reading this book.

Ana Montan Velčić, ethnologist, librarian
Mošćenička Draga branch of the Library “Viktor Car Emin,” Opatija, Croatia

Without diminishing the importance of Zdenko Velčić, the author of this book, I want to emphasize the contribution of Mario Igrec to this second edition in English. He is not only the translator and editor, but in some way the book’s co-author because he transformed its original contents before translating it. There were two reasons why this was necessary: in the first edition the text that was written in standard Croatian was not differentiated from the text written in the local Brseč dialect, and that was a hurdle for translation; and he felt that parts of the original text wouldn’t be interesting to the English-speaking readers of the Croatian diaspora. His interventions were bona fide and well meaning, and in all cases enriched the original text. It was especially valuable that he sorted out the terms written in the local, Brseč variant of the Čakavian dialect. His interventions in the text of the first edition have raised the possibility of creating a second, digital edition of the Croatian version of the book, of course with the illustrations as they appear in the new, English-language edition. 

What motivated Mario Igrec to translate Čarobni kvarnerski trokut [Magical Triangle of Kvarner], as this book was titled originally, to English? Born in Zagreb, Mario gets to know Brseč during summer vacations. Here he finds an environment that’s completely different from the city life in Zagreb. He spends time and plays with children. He discovers the beauty of our Istrian-Liburnian area and the charms of the medieval old-town center of Brseč, in which his family’s vacation home is located at the time. He discovers the sea and an enchanting coastal landscape. After graduating from the Music Academy in Zagreb, he leaves for the United States where he becomes a recognized pianist and composer, eventually becoming an expert in piano technology, and joining one of the best-known music schools, the Juilliard School, as chief piano technician and manager of piano maintenance.

For years he lives in a modern world, in an American metropolis—one can say the world center of business and culture. Three decades later he rediscovers a part of his childhood in the book by Zdenko Velčić. He finds details and remembers what had become a part of him in Brseč when he was a child. This is something he longs for, this is the place which he’d left for the big world but never forgot its unique character and culture. Thrilled by the book Čarobni kvarnerski trokut, he uses his free time to start rearranging its contents and translating it so that he can share that part of his childhood with a world-wide readership. 

In his humility, Mario Igrec calls himself translator and editor, but he is much more than that. His contribution to the second English edition goes beyond translating and editing. He is not even concerned about the fact that publishing this book would raise awareness of the Brseč and Liburnia areas to the entire English-speaking readership. Thanks to Mario Igrec and of course the author, Zdenko Velčić, the book now has a clear path to the world. Zdenko Velčić can be happy that this edition raises the book to a higher level, and I recommend publishing a modified Croatian text with the illustrations from this edition as the second revised edition in Croatian. While congratulating the author, I also congratulate Mario Igrec who, with this English edition, has elevated the Brseč area in the eyes of the world.

Prof. Dr. Bernard Franković
Faculty of Engineering, University of Rijeka, Croatia
President, Association Jenio Sisolski (Udruga Jenio Sisolski), Brseč, Croatia

Zdenko Velčić’s book is unique in that it is a meticulous and thorough document of the old traditions from the Brseč area, a tresure trove of natural history, and an expression of author’s empathy toward all of its inhabitants. The book’s value is inestimable in the wider scope of the Mediterranean, but especially in the context of the area it covers, which has experienced persistent historical turmoil and migrations, and in which the influences of the many settled peoples have merged in cohabitation with the native population. 

Although not a trained biologist or sociologist, Velčić skillfully describes the landscape of which he himself is an inseparable part. Velčić nostalgically remembers his childhood and his growing up, the best time of his life. He documents the living world of plants and animals with lyricism, but also with documentary precision. The book is a natural history document of sorts, recording that which no longer exists. Certain plants and insects that were widespread and ubiquitous during Zdenko’s childhood are now either endangered or have disappeared entirely due to the changes in climate and environmental conditions. 

That is another reason why this book is an invaluable document of the natural wealth of the Brseč area, and is a permanent testament of its environmental changes.

The book also describes the customs and everyday lives of the locals as they use objects made of various plants and wood species. This constitutes valuable ethno-botanical and ethno-ecological documentation, while the photographs of the author’s sculptures and paintings in various techniques perfectly complete this unique and highly valuable art book!

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Ivana Vitasović-Kosić
Faculty of Agriculture, University of Zagreb, Croatia

Modern lifestyle with rapid technological changes and political turmoil leaves us with less and less peace, prompting the author to want to recall this lost calm. He ventures back into the past and leads us on a trip, looking for the land of his birth and the inception of his life. That’s where he finds refuge and discovers his foothold, realizing that almost everything he needs always has been here, within reach, in his own backyard.

To better learn about himself and his homeland, the author embarks on a voyage of discovery in his own special way, using not only written word but his talent for visual artistic expression. Understanding that he can’t succeed in this quest by himself—just as in everyday life—he takes along his friends, neighbors, and relatives to keep him company and, as he says himself, to help him by lending their knowledge and experience. He is aware that in isolation a person won’t go far, that as humans we are part of a whole, and that we can achieve results only when working together.

In an autobiographical discourse, there are many ways in which writers have described their lives. The uniqueness of this book is that it’s written by a painter. Carrying a rich life and artistic experience, he ventured to pour his observations into words, text, and images. The paintings, drawings, reliefs, and photos give this book a specific discourse, deepening and broadening the impact of the written word. Zdenko Velčić is aware of the significance and complexity of this, as he called it, voyage. He invested years of labor and patience into this book, and this is especially noticeable in many interviews in which he lets the interviewee take over. Without calling on witnesses, the book would be robbed of much understanding of the sea, crafts, school, land, tourism, various events, jokes, etc. Whereas parts of the book are written in standard Croatian language, a large part of it appears in the Čakavian dialect, adding dynamism to the story. Almost all his interviewees—and he too—speak Čakavian, resulting in naturally flowing communication. It’s not surprising that the author managed to name all phenomena, objects, and living beings consistently from story to story using the authentic Čakavian dialect. He let his interviewees, as he says himself, say things in a way that was easiest for them. Their speech reveals not only the linguistic and content diversity of the Čakavian dialect of Liburnia, but also how open it is to adopting foreign words. This is how the book gained linguistic value, revealing one of the important roots of the Croatian identity in the writer’s homeland, Golovik, the Brseč area, and farther. The dictionary at the end of the book will greatly help non-Čakavian speakers understand the text while ensuring that many native words won’t be forgotten. 

Content-wise, the author divided the book in three parts. He starts his journey in his native Golovik, which is his whole world in the beginning. That’s where he plays, herds the sheep, helps work the land, goes to school, and observes nature. Impressions from his birth house are very strong, pulling the writer in and transporting him to that time like a time machine. That’s why he can give us detailed descriptions of experiences and surroundings from the not so distant, yet quite different past. In the second part the author widens his observation lens, descending down steep slopes toward the sea and revealing many of its secrets. He participates in fishing, sailing, and other activities that were always—and still are—a significant part of life for coastal residents. In his text he reveals his fascination with the sea—its beauty, mystery, might, and horror. In the third part he moves “across the sea” to island Cres, where in the small town of Beli, he finds his third home, closing his “magical triangle” with Golovik and Rijeka. 

With this book, in words and images, Zdenko Velčić succeeded in expressing an important part of the history and cultural heritage of his homeland. His family home, the village of Golovik, Brseč, Mošćenička Draga, and other towns of the Liburnian coast including Rijeka and Beli, are the framework of his life. Understanding this area so profoundly, he traces how changes in social and economic conditions transformed people’s existence from a patriarchal rural life into a modern life. The changes are so quick and dramatic that one struggles to follow them. Having lived in a city, he was exposed to various encounters, exhibitions, poetry readings, met many interesting people, and experienced all kinds of content, sharpening his picture of his homeland. The complexity of the changes and the people’s behavior in new conditions are a historical backdrop for the way their relationships with other people, animals, and nature are getting altered.

This book is a daring intellectual undertaking aimed at preserving the authentic value of our heritage and its integration with contemporary development. This is the author’s hope and, despite huge exodus from the Brseč area, he notices new tendencies—people returning and breathing new life into this area. Perhaps the greatest significance of this book is that it’s an urgent call to all communities and officials to systematically explore their historical heritages in order to build a better future. We must not allow ourselves to forget the authentic values of our history and culture, or we will permit the negative aspects of globalization to cut the roots of our Croatian identity. 

Prof. Veseljko Velčić, founder
Čakavian Society of Mošćenička Draga, Croatia

A book that focuses on the sea attracts attention by the author’s perceptive view of the sea and the life by and around the sea. The text is chock full of data, information, and descriptions of various aspects of life that benefit from the sea in the Brseč area and wider. In the book we find extremely valuable testimonies collected by the author from the people of our wider homeland. 

The author’s intimate knowledge of the sea is a result of his direct experience with it, as well as his strong emotional connection to it. Parts of the text are written quite romantically and impressionistically, illustrating the author’s personality and his artistic perception of the sea. Throughout the text, one easily recognizes his love for and special relationship with the sea. At times he speaks about it with youthful fervor, which clearly originates from his earliest experiences with the sea.

Illustrations (paintings and photos) add a lot of value to this book by directly depicting and enhancing the text. In addition to their factual value, most illustrations also have an artistic value, highlighting the author’s artistic habitus and sensibility for these topics.

The whole book, including the part that focuses on the sea, certainly will be a contribution to the study of the past from the lives of our people from and by the sea, especially from the Brseč area. That’s why this work is of great significance for the Čakavian Society of Mošćenička Draga (Katedra Čakavskog sabora Općine Mošćenička Draga) whose mission is to shed light on the past of our homeland. These efforts are particularly significant at the threshold of our entry into the EU, where one must maintain one’s identity by, among other things, valorizing one’s heritage. This book will certainly make a significant contribution to the aforementioned goals.

Prof. Dr. Robert Mohović 
Faculty of Maritime Studies, University of Rijeka, Croatia

Zdenko Velčić is an interesting person whose talents are manifested through painting and writing. A question that arises is, which is Velčić’s most significant vocation?

Until recently the answer was simple because Velčić is a recognized painter, an author of mature poetics that’s developed in the wake of the classical painting aesthetics. However, [this] book in which Velčić describes life in his native Brseč and its surroundings, shows with almost documentary precision the unique features of the region, consistent with the features of a wider geographical segment, and speaks of the author’s other expressive value. Motivic determinants of Velčić’s expression are informed by his internalization of the space, respect for its ambient values, and love for tradition.

His interest is dominated by vedutas, especially those he remembers from childhood. Living in their vicinity, Velčić frequently revisits them. A constant dialog with the beauty he cherishes lends his visual stagings a fresh spark of poetic realism, Velčić’s central style. In his paintings of mixed colors, built with free strokes and a dense texture with a visible impressionistic shimmer, he perfectly conveys the atmosphere of the moment. The light from the south enhances the ranges of the open palette in the interpretation of plants, buildings, openness of the sky, rocks—both the details and the overall scene. He approaches the color directly, captures what’s characteristic in the motif, achieving the legibility of appearance through the clarity of the compositional order. Coloristic sonority makes the scene pulsate lightly, organized in a balanced rhythm. Velčić is a painter of indisputable skill and certainty in realizing an idea by giving vitality to the chosen frame. Some of his angles are intriguing, bringing new dimension to the familiar in the veduta by bringing out its monument value or just its simple picturesque corners. Those same principles apply when Velčić finds himself in front of and inside the picturesqueness of Brseč, Beli, Opatija, Rijeka, and Zagreb. He is also comfortable with interiors, but in those he will seek the harmony of certain kinds of still life.

Velčić has also proven himself as an excellent illustrator, in a segment of fine arts that requires a skillful hand. After all, these are just the trips of an artist who finds the meaning of his painting in the splendor of the landscape. When he paints a specific motif, it seems that all the earlier layers are written into its content. It’s as if the present and history are intertwined. With his creativity, Velčić brings forward that arc of time, and the pages of his book belong to one side of that arc. He begins with a description of the birth house, all its rooms, functions, and it seems that Velčić has taken on the role of a professional who analyzes the features of traditional architecture with rooms, a cellar, an attic . . .  Domestic animals such as sheep, chickens, or donkeys go with the house. The difficulty of life is also reflected in the dependence on agriculture and seasons. The topics that Velčić illustrates with a series of endearing stories encompass knowledge about the specifics of the region—about asparagus, but also about chestnuts, mushrooms, olives, grape vines. The arrival of drinking water and many stories about the sea and fish are also told. In a way, this is also a manual on fishing, understandably accompanied by jokes that ease the difficulties of the job. Velčić also lists other professions, some of which are gradually disappearing, through which people found their existence: weavers, cobblers, carpenters, basket makers, blacksmiths, masons, hairdressers, electricians . . . Tourism has brought new habits and greatly changed life. Velčić also observes art events, describing Opatija’s Montmartre, and he gets to know poets such as Franjo Švob Franina, Josip Stanić, Rajka Jurdana-Šepić, and their realizations of the Čakavian and Kajkavian verse.

Velčić brings back memories of the elementary school in Brseč, the ugly incidents from the Second World War, but also the brighter side of sports and games. Religious life is deeply woven into the lives of generations, and Velčić pays the necessary attention to it as well as to the people who have left a mark on the community or Croatian culture. The book has a much needed addition—a systematized Čakavian dictionary that reveals the richness of the dialect. The book is written in simple language, with nicely rounded sentences and well-structured treatments of certain topics. It introduces us to various threads of life with illustrations that help us visualize them. Sometimes bitter in the text, life gains joy through images, their radiance, and the framing of events. And Velčić gave it its soul.

Prof. Stanko Špoljarić, art critic and curator
Art Pavilion (Umjetnički paviljon), Zagreb