Fojnica // The Amazing Intelligence of Crows
© Ahmet27 // Shutterstock.com
The Franciscan Monastery in Fojnica sits gently above the town, leaving no viewer unclear as to its lofty position in the town’s history. The word ‘lofty’ isn’t really correct, as that implies something raised to a position above its station, educated beyond its understanding. Quite the opposite, as this graciously beautiful celebration of pastel-tinged facades and the joy of reading is one of the most impressive structures in a country full of them.
It took me a while to find it, however. You see, despite somehow managing to convince enough people to pay me to be a travel writer, I’m actually quite rubbish at it. Once the short journey between Kiseljak and Fojnica was completed, I jumped off the bus and immediately convinced myself that there must be a secret road to the monastery, a winding path known only by a few that will reveal to me a whole new view of this beaut. Simultaneously, this misguided assumption was accentuated by an insistence on taking the crow’s route. What this means is I headed directly towards the monastery, guided by small roads and the view in front of me.
Of course, you can fill in the rest of the gaps yourself. Crows are very intelligent, but not on the human scale, and my crow impression wasn’t doing me any good. I walked around a few back streets, finding nothing but idle houses and the baking sun, the monastery coming nearer but simultaneously further away. I wasted 20 minutes on this futile endeavour before tapping out, heading back to the main road for a more conventional route. Or, more accurately, the only fucking route. There are no secret paths to anything, so stop avoiding the obvious.
© John Bills
Once in the centre of Fojnica, all I needed to do was turn left and head up a small hill. The ‘turning left’ part is easy, but the hill? Needless to say, I’m not a fan. If the grand love of my life lived up a hill, I’d almost certainly spend a moment weighing up the worthiness of eternal happiness against heavy breathing and self-loathing.
The Franciscan Monastery in Fojnica is worth the frustration. Sat on the gentle (to the ordinary person) slopes of Križ Hill, the story of Fojnica’s most famous building is every bit as tumultuous as, well, everything else around here. History brings tumult. Don’t kid yourself.
The story begins in the middle of the 14th century, although it obviously begins way before that. We’re on the clock here, buddy. The Ottomans destroyed the original monastery at the beginning of the 16th century, but those persistent Franciscans weren’t about to shuffle off into the sun. Permission to build it anew was granted in 1527, and by the end of the 1500s, it stood once more.
Alas, fire. It burnt to the ground in 1664 because the entire planet was obsessed with fire in the 1660s. Two years later, it was rebuilt again.
© John Bills
The 1664 fire is a key moment in the history of the Franciscan Monastery in Fojnica, and not just because of the whole ‘burning to the ground’ thing. How did the Franciscans respond? Well, the fire made them batshit crazy, no fear, no doubt, all in, balls out. The fire destroyed the monastery’s precious library, paper not doing so well with fire and all that, but this particular tabula rasa gave the Franciscans a real impetus to focus on books moving forward. Fast forward to the modern day (again, we’re on the clock), and you’ve got yourself one of the most impressive book collections in this part of the world.
What does the library in Fojnica’s Franciscan Monastery hold? Pffft, what doesn’t it hold?! We’ll start with the 13 incunabula. Incun-what-now?! Books printed before 1501, basically. Pamphlets, broadsides, that sort of the thing. The library is home to more than 50,000 books, most of which are from the post-1850s, although there is no shortage of earlier stuff on the shelves. The archives house masses of theology and philosophy written between the 16th and 19th centuries, when Europe was stumbling from the pre-Ottoman dark into the light of the Renaissance. “They brought us wisdom, they brought a zero to our tired calculations, they guarded knowledge we’d forgotten.” Ignore the influence of Islam on European culture at your peril.
Alas, we’re not talking about Islam, we’re talking about the library in a Franciscan Monastery. A gorgeous library hosting plenty of documents in the Turkish languages, records of the Ottoman centuries covering everything from a 15th-century Sultan’s firman to population registers. A collection of works and newspapers in Bosančica. Books about medicine, history, geography. A library accentuated by no small amount of art, from oil paintings to embossing and engraving, utilisation of the silver that made Fojnica a magnet for people in the early days. A stunning collection, one of the most important collections of literature in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
© John Bills
You’ll have to take my word for it because the place was closed when I was there. The whole visit had been futile. It hadn’t, obviously, I was still blessed with a beautiful view and the serenity that the area around a monastery provides. There was also a pretty sweet mock-up of the Last Supper, Jesus surrounded by his disciples and the enormous weight of what history knew was about to happen. People often mock the image of the Last Supper, commenting on the length of the table and how all of the individuals seated around face the same way. All I’ll say is that I have no desire to sit with my back to the restaurant. It feels wrong.
But yeah, the monastery and library were closed. If you’re visiting, be sure it is on Friday or Saturday between midday and 4pm, not around 10ish on a Tuesday morning. As I said, for someone who does this for a living, I’m not great at this travel lark.
I sat in the shade of a cafe and ordered a kisela voda. A lazy crow idled up next to me and began lapping at what was left of a puddle. An old woman and who I presume was a granddaughter made their way slowly to a nearby table and sat down. I say ‘granddaughter’, she could have been a daughter, or maybe even a great-granddaughter. There is no way that the older woman was less than 100 years old, yet she belied her age to immediately bust out a cigarette and take as deep a breath as she could. The crow stopped lapping up the puddle and went off in search of something new, something better. Eventually, the crow who steals the eyes of a real child will be king.
