January 10, 2021 – After the initial opening in Umag in 2018, on the 200th anniversary of the lighthouse services on the Croatian coast, the exhibition "More than light and salt – 200 years of Croatian lighthouses" will open in Biograd na Moru.

The exhibition opens on January 12, 2021, at the Homeland Museum Biograd na Moru, regarding Saint Anastasia's feast and a city day. It was also organized regarding the 200th anniversary of the lighthouse service on the Croatian coast, which officially began with the commissioning of a dedicated facility in Savudrija in 1818.

Today, the lighthouse in Savudrija is a protected cultural asset. After two centuries, it testifies to the rich Croatian maritime tradition and the challenges of being a lighthouse keeper, a very rare profession.

Savudrija Lighthouse / Copyright Romulić and Stojčić

To mark this significant anniversary, the exhibition was organized in April 2018 in the Umag City Museum, showing objects from the history of the lighthouse service, documentaries, marine lighting technology, and photographs from private collections.

After the initial opening in Umag, in partnership with the Croatian Maritime Museum Split and the Maritime Waterways Institution Plovput d.o.o., the exhibition was organized in numerous museums along the Adriatic coast – Rijeka, Zadar, Dubrovnik, Split. The last exhibition was held in February 2020 at the Technical Museum Nikola Tesla in Zagreb.

Visitors have the opportunity to see Croatian lighthouses from the period of the countries that once ruled the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea. For example, the Austro-Hungarian postcards from the collection of the prominent collector, the late Luka Dragičević, and photographs from the extraordinary little-known album of the Croatian Hydrographic Institute.

Lighthouse Veli Rat, Dugi otok / Copyright Romulić and Stojčić

The exhibition touches on questions about how lighthouses' construction changed the locations where they were built and how the lighthouses themselves changed through wars, modernization of technology, and man's abandonment due to automation.

In addition to exhibits that testify to the long list of duties of today's extremely rare profession of lighthouse keepers, a documentary material is presented that provides valuable information about lighthouse keepers' activities throughout the last century: living and working in almost unimaginable conditions.

The significance of this vocation in the 21st century is thematized on the example of today's Savudrija lighthouse keeper Mario Milin Ungar, who is the fifth generation of lighthouse keepers in his family.

The exhibition dedicated to Croatian lighthouses will be open until February 28, 2021, and the opening event will be held in compliance with prescribed epidemiological measures.

Source: Biograd na Moru

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