A Walk through Konavle’s Year

Konavle is an agricultural region. In the past, when people lived only by their own resources, they had to live in accordance with natural cycles. They tracked the weather and followed the annual rhythm in order to be as successful as possible in producing their goods. Natural cycles determined economic activities, which in turn affected the rhythm of social events throughout the year. Festivals became the markers between the different agricultural activities. Thus, the seasons changed with intervals that the peasants knew well, and in between them were saints’ days and holidays.

Ploughing

Konavle has been a Catholic region for centuries, so the “holy day” or “day of rest” is Sunday. The other non-working days are the days of the patron saints and holidays. In addition to these days, the people of Konavle also celebrate saints who are village patrons, or saints who are specially commemorated in certain villages. On these days, it is forbidden to work in the fields, sew, knit, or perform other non-essential activities. Besides resting, people visit each other and go to the churches to attend holy mass.

The most common saints in Konavle are those whose days are celebrated in autumn and winter. The choice of holidays from the Catholic calendar is in accordance with the natural cycles in which the people live. The schedule of holidays is mostly concentrated in the winter, especially around Christmas, when the days are shorter, the nights longer, and there is no work in the fields.

Celebrations are not organized in spring nor in early summer when the agricultural year is just getting started. Most of the celebrations of Konavle peasants take place in autumn and around Christmas, including engagements and weddings. That’s when the chests are full, and there are many holidays on which to have weddings. After all, losing a winter working day is less of a shame than losing a summer working day. Thus, the weddings of our ancestors were always organized on non-working days such as Sundays or saint’s days.

Olive picking

The annual rhythm of Konavle begins in winter. St. Blaise’s Day, February 3rd, is considered the beginning of the agricultural year. From Christmas to St. Blaise’s Day, the light stays long enough for sowing to begin.

Lent follows. Spring is reserved for work and penance, and for renunciation in food and drink. No celebrations take place at this time of year. All household supplies are used up, so it is said that “Lent has eaten all the grains and drunk all the oils”. The first meat meal is on Easter, after which the year warms up. Since the date of Easter varies, the transition to the warmer part of the year is calculated from St. George’s Day (varies but usually on April 23). Thus, Konavle spring begins on that day. Nature has awakened and there is no more winter.

People mark time by counting the intervals from New Year’s to summer in the periods before and after St. Blaise, before and after Lent, and from Easter to Corpus Christi (Korosante). The end of the first part of the year are the saints’ days around the solstice: St. Peter and St. John. The day of the solstice is when the night is shortest and the day is longest. These are days of maximum temperature increase. The weather heats up, so Ilindan (July 20; St. Elijah Day) is considered to be the peak of the hot season (“Peter heats, Ilija burns”)

Mid-August weather relaxes from heat when some rain and cooling are expected. The days are shorter and the extreme summer heat slowly disappears. This is the time when a new agricultural cycle of planting vegetables and grains is started, which will last almost until the end of the year.

Grape picking

The Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary or Velika Gospa on August 15 (“The Great Lady”) is the holiday that marks the beginning of agricultural events until the end of the year. Likewise, from this day on, time is measured until Christmas in intervals that the people call Trice.

Trice are periods of 3 weeks, between which there is a saint’s day. In the six Trice that make up the period until Christmas, autumn agricultural work takes place. People organize their activities depending on which Trice they are in. Thus, from the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary to the feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary (September 8; “The Little Lady”), cabbages and turnips are planted, hence the proverb: “The Great Lady—big head and the Little Lady—small head”, referring to the heads of the cabbages that will result from early planting or late planting.

After the Little Lady, grape harvesting begins and lasts until St. Michael’s Day on September 29. The next three weeks are from St. Michael’s Day to St. Luke’s Day on October 18, when wheat is planted. After that, from St. Luke’s Day to St. Martin’s Day on November 11, broad beans and other legumes are planted. From St. Martin’s Day to St. Nicholas’ Day, olives are harvested and oil is made, although this work was sometimes extended into January. Also in this period, St. Kate on November 25th and St. Barbara (Vara Barbara) on December 4th are celebrated, which the people of Konavle especially love.

Wine making

In agricultural activities, from St. Nicholas Day to Christmas, the time is reserved for meat processing. The end of the slaughtering season (December 29). In times before refrigeration, meat was prepared in various ways to preserve it for the whole year. Salting, smoking and drying of pieces of meat or sausages and blood sausages (đevenica), processing fat and other tasks related to the slaughtering of animals take place in the cold season of the year in order to preserve the meat. It is precisely at this time that the most meat will be needed for various celebrations.

The last month before Christmas is the time of successive saints and celebrations, engagements and weddings. Meat is mandatory for these days. Through those weeks, and especially in spring, people ate less fatty food than today. They ate a lot of cabbage and other vegetables with lard or olive oil. Bread was made from whole grain wheat, so this simple food was of better quality than it is today. Therefore, menus for holidays were predominantly meat-based.

In the last Trice before Christmas, Saint Nicholas was celebrated on December 6, Our Lady of Nicholas on December 8, and Saint Lucy on November 13. There are also the days that count down from Advent (3 weeks before Christmas): Mothers Day, Fathers Day and Childrens Day, following Christmas Eve and Christmas.

The festive spirit lasts until Epiphany, or the Feast of the Three Kings, and during that week those who worship Saint Stephen (December 26), Saint John (December 27) and New Year’s will also celebrate their patron’s day. After that, the days begin to slowly grow longer and there will not be any festivities until Easter.

That is in brief the social and agricultural annual rhythm of Konavle. Coexistence with nature has given birth to the occasions of everyday life for the people of Konavle in a way that best supports them. In this rhythm, the patron saints have found their rightful places in order to ensure blessings and prosperity throughout the year.

Visuals in the blog are paintings and drawings of Mijo Šiša Konavljanin  (1946 - 2017)