5. SOCIAL LIFE
Towards the end of the 19th century, the social life in Zagreb gradually moved to the cafés and pubs of Donji grad. However, several pubs in Gornji grad, such as Taverna, Stari krovovi, and Stara vura, managed to maintain their cult status during much of the 20th century. These meeting places, formerly popular among the citizens, are unfortunately closed.
In this chapter we bring anecdotes about the social life in Gornji grad during the 19th and 20th centuries, which were taken from literature and the printed media. We also bring information which we got from the people who were regular guests of the Stari krovovi and Taverna pus (Maria Braut, a photographer and chronicler of Gornji grad, and NIko Gamulin, urban developer and a Gornji grad resident).
GORNJI GRAD BALLROOMS
After the Napoleonic wars, the young bourgeoisie took up an important role in organizing social life and entertainment. From the 1830s on, ballroom dancing was primarily an important social event where political ideas were spread, and only secondly was it a party. Dances were organized in about ten ballrooms, even though Zagreb had a population of only 15 000. The popular dances were the waltz, the mazurka, the Slavic kolo, the gallop, as well as the complicated 18th century dances, cotillion and quadrille. The order of dancing was always strictly determined. The organizers of the ball took care that upon arrival, every lady and every gentleman receive a decorated ticket, a fan, and a booklet with the dance list. There were ballrooms in the theatre building (1 Demetrova Street), the brewery (2 Pivska Street and 4 Pivska Street, now Basaričekova Street), the City Hall, the rifle range (Tuškanac 1), the People’s House (8 Opatička Street), the Governor’s Palace (1 St Mark’s Square), and the “K Paradiselu” hall (6 Jurjevska Street).
<a name=”musicpavilion”>serious</a>MUSIC PAVILION ON STROSS
In the early 19th century, with the citizens’ donation, a promenade was built along the southern city wall of old Gradec. Later it was named Strossmayer’s Promenade. Numerous benches were installed there, from which people could listen to the music coming from the near-by music pavilion. There was an outdoor café on the promenade as well. Both the café and the music pavilion are now gone.
Pavilions appeared in European architecture in the 18th century, and since the beginning of the 19th, they have been increasingly used for music performances. They are usually placed in public gardens, parks and promenades. Through the direct influence of Vienna, Zagreb soon adopted the trend.
THE OLD CROATIAN PEOPLE’S THEATRE ON ST. MARK’S SQUARE (the Upper Town City Hall is located there today)
It was built in 1834. The theatre was erected owing to Kristofor Stanković, a Zagreb merchant who won 30 000 pieces of gold in the Viennese lottery and donated the money to the city to build a theatre. On the ground floor of the building there was a vestibule, a barber shop, a pastry shop, and other auxiliary chambers. During the relocation of the theatre in 1895, the auditorium was partitioned to serve the needs of the city hall. In the front part of the auditorium, above the vestibule, there was a ballroom with a gallery. Today it is used for the City Council sessions.
POD STARIM KROVOVIMA (Under old roofs)
The Pod starim krovovima buffet was founded in 1830, and until it got closed in 2008, it was the oldest pub in Zagreb. The local people gathered there, and others, everyone who liked Gornji grad. In Pod starim krovovima they could eat čvarci (cracklings or greaves), smoked cheese form Dolac market, boiled Kranj sausages with mustars, pickled cucumbers, hot peppers, and black bread, and the most popular drinks were mulled wine, young portugizac (wine), and gemišt (white wine and carbonated water). The pub’s menu remained unchanged for 174 years. Matoš, Cesarić, Krleža, Šovagović, Novak, and many others drank their gemišt in Pod starim krovovima. The cult Croatian film „Tko pjeva zlo ne misli“ (“One Song a Day Takes Mischief Away”) was filmed in Pod starim krovovima.
Marija Braut about Pod starim krovovima:
It’s sad that Krovovi are closed. The owners were two sisters, one of them died, I guess. Their nephew took over the renting of the restaurant, his renting prices were horribly high. He lives abroad and doesn’t really care about it. It used to be a lively place, there was always something happening there, exhibitions, concerts… Even Karamazov came to play in Pod starim krovovima! Parliament members used to go there and drink their coffee as well. That culture is lost today. Vienna, Prague and Budapest take care of their cafes, with particular attention, renovating them for years in a row. They take care of their history! We are not familiar with ours, that’s why we don’t know how to guard it.
Zagreb, March 2010.
MATEJNA
Matejna was a popular tavern in the Upper Town on the corner of Pivarska (Basaričekova) and Demetrova streets. It was an old 17th century stone and wood burgher house. Its little courtyard used to acommodate the well-known schnapsen tournaments. Bohemians and craftsmen frequented the inn: “… Zagrebers of all classes, nowhere was democratism as ideally implemented as here”, said Matoš who loved the old inn and was its faithful guest. The tavern was torn down in 1936. and a new residential house of the industrialist Arko was built in its place by the plans of Alfred Albini.
TAVERNA KOD FANIKE PUB (FANIKA’S TAVERN)
Niko Gamulin about Taverna:
When I was a kid, Gornji grad seemed so lively. I was especially interested in the Taverna cafe, which was then called Fanika. In the 1950s and early 1960s, Fanika seemed to me as the center of the world. The cafe was full of students, and my brother and I would accompany my dad to work. The Art History department of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences was situated in Gornji grad at the time, here in the same building where Law School is today. It seemed to us as if we were in Paris, students sitting on the sidewalks, everyone in Fanika. That place was the center of social contact in Gornji grad, especially in the 1960. Everyone was there, Maković, Marković. Čorak… The cafes up here were not more numerous than today, but the significance of Gornji grad in the people’s consciousness was different.
Zagreb, April 2010.
Marija Braut about Taverna:
Taverna kod Fanike was very popular for some time, that was an atique interiror, with boards on the floor. The Taverna was a place favored by students. I remember that a friend of mine, upon failing an exam, went to the Taverna with the professor, to drink rakija (brandy). He paid for all the drinks, and when they reached their seventh rakija, he was out of money, so he started urging the professor to allow him to take the exam again. And he succeeded, he passed the exam. You could eat in Taverna as well, you could get baked beans. Several of us would sometimes order one portion of beans and four forks. Nobody cried back then because they didn’t have enough money, get it?
Zagreb, March 2010.
LAPIDARIJ
Lapidarij club, located in Habdelićeva Street on Gornji grad, is the legendary spot of the Yugoslav Novi val (New Wave). Between 1977 and 1983, famous concerts took place there, including Azra, Električni orgazam, Pekinška patka, Pankrti, Haustor, Prljavo kazalište, and Idoli. The bizarre government inspection labeled those bands as trash, making them pay additional taxes and raising the selling price of their records. Except for the harmless “trash inspection”, Novi val in Yugoslavia had no serious problems with the communist structures, although it was critical towards the social anomalies. Polet, a weekly magazine for youth (publisher: Socialist Youth Union of Croatia), gave an absolute support to Novi val, and had a crucial role in spreading the movement among the urban youth. Novi val in Yugoslavia, as well as in the UK and the USA, lost its vigor in 1983, when bands turned to a pure rock’n’roll sound. Lapidarij and Kulušić, however, remained important places for alternative youth until the 1990s, when the authorities closed them.
Attempts to re-open the club (articles in daily newspapers, published during 2006):
- Mayor’s empty promises
Kulušić and Lapidarij, clubs with cult status, should re-open their doors this summer, said Mayor Milan Bandić during today’s talk on Radio 101.
The city’s authorities have been talking about a solution to the problem of these two spaces for some time now, and promising to open the clubs, but today a deadline has finally been set.
The two clubs were closed several years ago, but Kulušić lost its recognizable identity already in the late 1990s after its owner was changed, organizing even techno parties.
The last owner has taken the city to court, supposedly asking millions in damages for closing the club. Because of the trial, it has been impossible to rent the club to new owners. Duško Ljuština, a member of the City Government in charge of culture, confirmed the Mayor’s announcement.
“The clubs will certainly be open before summer. Our goal is to ensure that young people get spaces for alternative programs, and we are trying to find a way to do that,” Ljuština said, and added that the dispute with the former owner is complicated. Nevertheless, the City is finally about to solve the problem.
Kulušić and Lapidarij remain trademarks of a time when rock’n’roll was growing in this region, but even before their shutdown they have become unprofitable and lost their rock’n’roll reputation.
Apart from organizing techno parties, the former owner even registered a religious community in Kulušić. The city inspectors closed the club, alcohol was forbidden, and neighbors complained about loud noise.
Meanwhile, a regulation was introduced that a club cannot attain a license to be open longer hours without the neighbors’ consent, so it is questionable what kind of program the re-opened club would be allowed to organize.
Darko Putek, the manager and founder of Tvornica, and the program selector in Kulušić and Lapidarij during their ”golden years”, agrees with the decision to re-open the clubs, but thinks they are unlikely to be as influential as they used to be.
“The golden years of Kulušić were when Novi val was born. Everyone gets sentimental about these clubs thanks to the programs which were consequential for the whole of the former Yugoslavia.
It would be wrong to expect that the clubs will have the same importance, or to turn them into museums of what used to be. That wouldn’t last more than five months,” says Putek who thinks that those who rent the clubs should offer something new, adapted to the present generations, but still in accordance with the former identity of the clubs.
source:http://www.vjesnik.hr/html/2006/11/07/Clanak.asp?r=zag&c=2
- attempts to squat in Lapidarij
During 2008, the squatters of Zagreb, together with the ATTACK! organization (which has not had a space for its activities since 2003), organized illegal parties in abandoned and closed spaces in the city. After about twenty squat parties in various warehouses, factories and courtyards, the squatters organized an action, asking the authorities to give Lapidarij to the alternative culture scene. The action was unsuccessful.
source: http://www.vjesnik.hr/html/2009/01/10/Clanak.asp?r=kul&c=1 published in 2009
Present situation: Lapidarij is closed, and its owner filed a lawsuit against the city authorities because of the official decision to close the club.