Dear colleagues, associates and friends of the Stari Grad Museum,
we are pleased to invite you to the presentation of Vinko Ružević’s book Moja sjećanja i prisjećanja o životu u Pajizu (engl. “My memories and recollections of life in Pajiz”) on Thursday, 19 July at 9pm in the Stari Grad Museum (garden of the Biankini palace).
The book of memories and recollections (as the title says) by attorney Vinko Ružević, one of the last living citizens of Stari Grad who shaped it’s cultural image in the second half of the 20th century, is an unpretentious story of life in Stari Grad from the 1930s to the recent past. Through the course of his life, Ružević tells stories of events in Stari Grad, “about things now unimaginable, but then completely ordinary and everyday – the fears of war, the conditions in refuge, the problems of education at that time and later conditions.” Ružević does not paint a great history, nor wants to give a final evaluation of a difficult period in the long history of Stari Grad. Through the thumbnails of life, often anecdotal, thoughtful, sometimes understandably sentimental (because it is his life), the author easily and proudly portrays Stari Grad as it has been until recently and gives us the basis for our own reflection on the city in times of great ideological fervour and collapses, demographic decline and slow rise, poverty and material recovery that began with tourism in the 1960s. The author as an interested witness of time, but also a precise observer, and he strives to achieve the greatest objectivity in describing the period in which he lived his life.
Vinko Ružević was born in Stari Grad in 1927. The first year of high school he attended in Bol, and further education because of war he continues at home and at the El Shatt refugee camp in Egypt. He completed the gymnasium in Split and continued with his education at the Faculty of Law in Zagreb where he graduated in 1953. After serving the military term, he started his internship and until the retirement he worked as an attorney in Stari Grad. During all this time he has been active in the community – he founded the Tourist Office, participated in the work of the Centre for the Protection of Cultural Heritage in Hvar, and wrote tourist guides and leaflets. In cooperation with the Centre he writes the occasional articles. Later he published articles in “Corona” about cultural monuments and important persons and events related to Stari Grad.
Besides the author, the book will be presented by dr.sc. Mladen Domazet, Damir Carić and the director of Stari Grad Museum dr.sc. Aldo Čavić.
We look forward to your visit!