The Rama Cross author Mile Blažević, sculptor, academy of art, Zagreb. The cross is in bronze, 4m. tall. We are in front of a cave that inspires the caller to listen in silence to the everlasting messages from the Heaven. Set in front of the Franciscan monastery in Rama – Šćit, this monument is a sign of mournful recollection of those who victims of the lasting afflictions in Rama.
The cross is a powerful spiritual sign of the sacral architecture in Rama, it is the only element in folk ornamentation, a measure of beauty, a fundamental canon of all values. The epitaph of the gravestone found in the foundations of Our Lady’s Church in Šćit bears witness to the deep faith of those, who have, through the centuries shed in tears in front of our crucified Lord: “I am justificate in coelis, quamvis corpora eorum iacent in terries.”
St’ Barbara’s Roman basilica at the spring of the river Rama shelters the place where the cross was first stuck into the soil of Rama. Today the archeological site Gradina protects the remains of an ancient municipality from the 4th century. It was, once, a free Roman community on the road between Salona and Central Bosnia. The cross from Rama is stuck into a “stećak” (a standing gravestone) amidst the circle of the Croatian Catholics from Bosnia. The cross does not intersect the perfect, round shape of the circle, but gives a profound dignity to the dancers and perseverance to those eyes that recognize the presence of beauty. The cross in Rama is a modest, bronze sign of gratitude for all the sparkling diamonds of true faith, for the resurrections and rebirths from the ashes. Rama is a small region with a surface of 432 sq. km. It is cut off from the main roads by a mountain chain of Raduša, Vrana, Bokševica and Ljubuša. A few fertile valleys and plains along the cold, clear waters of the river Rama were flooded in 1968 and converted into a storage reservoir for the newly built hydro-power plants of Jablanica and Rama; it was with bitterness that the population of the Rama valley set out on their exodus to other parts of the country. There are about 10.000 emigrants who still long for Rama – their homeland.
The first historical traces of Rama can be found in the titles of the Hungarian and Croatian kings – e.g. Bella II in 1138, the king Sigismundus in 1405 had a title of “dei gratia Hungariae, Dalmatia, ramaque rex. It was the time when Rama stood as a synonym for the whole of Bosnia: “rex Ramae seu Bosnae”.
In the 15th century the spiritual and cultural center of the Rama population were the Franciscan monastery and Our Lady’s church on Šćit. The monastery chronicles recorded numerous examples of wisdom, courage, purity, love and devotion of the people, who over the years of famine and misery endured the hardships. Who could forget the remarkable characters of Diva Grabovčeva, the famous outlaw Mirko, the guardian of the Franciscan monastery? When powerless, they would grieve over the miseries and pains around them.
During the invasion and rule of the Turks the monastery and the church were set on fire four times. The first major exodus from Rama started after the Vienna war in 1687, when the Catholic population fled to Cetinska Krajina and took with them the worshiped picture of Our Lady of Sinj (Gospa Sinjska).
The second tragedy struck in 1942, when, on July 13th, a group of communist partisans set on fire the church on Šćit, the library and many valuable archives and art collections.
When the church on Šćit was burning,
Every Croat in the world was mourning.
In 1942 900 people in Rama were killed by the chetniks. During the Communist regime Rama was a “terra non grata”. The hardships of this last war are immense and tragic. The strength of spirituality of our national architecture is at stake. The trials our people went through should give a full swing to the national culture and economy. The cross-stuck deeply in the soil of Rama should be a sign to the Croats in Rama parishes of Šćit, Rumboci, Prozor, Gračac, Uzdol, Doljani, Solakova Kula – to endure the hardships and overcome the fears and difficulties and above all to remain in Rama – the holy land of our ancestors. It is also a message to the Croats and Muslims that the eternal values and beauties are to be shared and not divided.
