CAVE FESTIVAL
(orig. "GROTTENFEST", dial. "BELAJTNGA", "BELAJTUNGA")
Historical
overview
On 7 December 1884, a contract
was signed between the Primorska Section
of the German and Austrian
Mountaineering Society and the Naklo Tax
Municipality by means of which the latter leased
the Škocjan
Caves to the Society for a period of five
years, starting from 1 May 1885. On the first
anniversary
of the entering into force of this lease
contract, the Society organized a festive opening
of
the caves, entitling it "Grottenfest" or,
in English, the Cave Festival. For this occasion,
the trails leading to the Schmidl and Rudolf
Halls were arranged. This practice was followed
in the following years. Visitors were attracted
to the Cave festival by newly established
trails in 1888, 1889 and 1891.
In 1904, visitors from Trieste were attracted
to the caves by means of an advertising poster
made by the self-taught painter and dentist Robert
Hlavaty from Trieste, who was Srečko Kosovel's
(renowned Slovenian poet) roommate in the Oražem
Students' Hall in Ljubljana during his student
years. In the same year, a special train was
organised that transported visitors from Trieste
at a reduced price during the Cave Festival.
Between 1901 and 1904, the number of visitors
rose to an estimated six hundred, perhaps a thousand.
The number of visits, however, declined after
1908, the reason being heavy rains. A decision
to abolish the festival was adopted in 1911.
The festival took place every year between 1886
and 1911, except in 1895; in total twenty-five
times. It was organized in the first half of
May or June, taking place on Whit Monday from
1894 to 1900.
The Gombač Inn in Matavun
where tickets for Škocjan Caves visits were sold.
In
1914, World War I began and, in 1918, these parts
came under the Italian occupation. In 1920, the
remaining Section of the German and Austrian
Mountaineering Society organized the Cave Festival
again after many years. This would be the last
time in its history. In 1923, the festival was
celebrated for the first time under Italian rule,
symbolically marking the authority of the Italian
society. Promotional activities included the
already proven approaches, such as bus transportation
from Trieste. Moreover, in 1933, a bridge across
the Hanke's Channel was built. According to the
available data, this festival under the auspices
of the Italian Mountaineering Society took place
eleven times between 1923 and 1933 on the first
or second Sunday in May. No written records about
this festival exist after 1933. Janko Gombač,
who still remembers the festival well, says that
the festival was organized once more after the
war in 1946, when the cave was managed by a special
agency called "Kraške jame Slovenije" (Slovenian
Karst Caves) from Postojna. "It was illuminated
for the last time in that year."
Concealed
in this sentence is the people's perception
of the festival. According to Gombač (born in
1917),
the son of Matavun inn-keepers, on the occasion
of the cave, the name "belajtnga", from
the German "Beleuchtung", was used which
means illumination, lights, lighting and is thus
connected with the illuminated cave that used to
be the festival's main attraction.
Organisation of the
festival
The cave festival was always organised by the
society that managed the cave. The festival represented
a means of popularizing the cave among nearby
sightseers who mainly came from Trieste and its
surroundings and, consequently, among tourists.
The festival was also attended by locals, albeit
in smaller numbers. The locals remember the festival
as a day of merry festivity on which people were
able to walk around the cave on their own, without
being accompanied by a guide. The recollection
of the informants goes back to the time of Italian
authority, therefore we cannot state with certainty
that on this day during the German and Austrian
Mountaineering Society's management that the
visits were guided or not.
The
main attraction of this festival was unequivocally
the cave's illumination. Let us not forget
that this was when the cave was not yet
electrified and was visited with candles,
acetylene lamps and magnesium pieces. Records
show that on this occasion the cave was
lit with 3,500 candles in 1903, with 5,000
candles in 1905, while in 1908 other forms
of illumination were also used, i.e. a
special illumination programme reaching
all the way to the end of the Silent Cave. "The
great illumination of the cave" remained
the key element of the festivity under
the authority of the Italian Mountaineering
Society as well. The cave was illuminated
with candles that were arranged on the
ground along the trail at some distance
from one another. Special acetylene lamps
in wooden barrels with burners (dial. "bren'rji")
provided more light at larger intervals.
Such an acetylene lamp in the shape of
a star was burning in front of the Silent
Cave, preserved in the photograph made
by professor Ivančič and published in the
book, Two Thousand Caves (in Italian "Duemilla
grotte") by Bertarelli and Boegan
from 1926. Also mentioned was the acetylene
lamp in the form of "fascia."
The illuminated
Svetina Hall with the no-longer existing
Svid Bridge on one of the cave festivals.
Under the Italian
authority and probably even before that, the
local inhabitants were included in the preparation
and realization of the festival. Janko Gombač
claims that, in addition to the persons employed
around the cave, other locals were also involved.
In general, the Italian society was not very
much involved in the organisation of the festival
itself as the festival was well established.
They simply notified the date on which the festival
would take place and the locals would arrange
the candles and lights around the cave. Guides
and locals would then stand in the cave, replace
burnt candles with new ones and make sure that
visitors would not stray off the trail. The event
was something that was taken for granted and
part of daily life of the inhabitants in this
area.
In addition to cave visits, a merry festivity
was organized on this occasion in the village
of Matavun.
People put up ash tree or beech tree maypoles
on the opposite sides of the road, booths along
the
road attracted visitors, there was a merry-go-road
in the Nan't' backyard in front of the stables
while a dance floor on a wooden platform (dial. "brjar")
was each year put up in different corners of the
village that had to be as flat as possible and
in the vicinity of the main road. The Gombač Inn
yard was filled with four-metre collapsible tables
on trestles with benches. The villages of Škocjan
and Betajna were not decorated as nothing was happening
there.
The festival under the Italian authority
was not marked by speeches, recitations or similar
programmes.
The main attraction was the cave visit and a
modest festivity before setting off home.
Conclusion
Some thirty-six years of tradition, perhaps even
more, is not little. Why invent new things
when the history offers us a solid record of
a festival so inextricably connected with the
Škocjan Caves? This is why the Park's Management
has decided to take the initiative of reviving
this festival with the aim of connecting the
management and locals in a joint Škocjan Caves
Park Festival.
