| Popis: |
The Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Gora, Croatia, went through different complex transformations, depending on its various owners and their needs. The first church (or two sequential churches?) in the Romanesque style was built here during the time of Christianisation, probably in place of a former pre-Christian Slavic tribal territorial unit. The church’s two semi- circular apses were discovered during archaeological excavations. During the reign of Bela III of Hungary, the Knights Templar gained possession over the church and in the mid-13th century, they demolished the old and built a new, high-quality Gothic church. As well as other estates that formerly belonged to the Knights Templar, after 1312 it was inherited by the Knights Hospitaller. The church was built on with time, and it was considerably redecorated and extended in the Baroque. Until it was blown up by large number of mines put inside the church in the 1990s war, the only thing that had revealed its Gothic origin was the floor plan. But that brutal act revealed multiple original Gothic elements beneath the Baroque interventions, and after the war, the church was reconstruction in the Gothic style, with a couple of compromises and clashes of conservator-restorers’ concepts with those using the object. The restoration of the church was followed by salvage archaeological excavations, which, among other aspects, explored 424 graves dating back to different phases of the church’s history. Authors will show how architectural remains and grave findings correspond and provide evidence of the shifts in the importance of this area, but also of the traffic route this church was situated on during the Middle Ages and the modern period. Their characteristics are a clear reflection of changes in social and economic relations which marked the history of the surrounding area. |
