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001 LICITARSKA SRCA

6/12/2018

4 Comments

 

Learning Croatian through experiences #001

Licitarska srca

Before we begin ... 'Licitarska srca' is plural. What is the singular'
I have two friends (bračni par) from Perth who were in Croatia at the same time that I was. As it happens, they are also learning Croatian and are students of the SpeakCro Online Learning School.

Mateja was a wonderful host to her students (us) while we were in Zagreb, and gave us whatever time she could.

But a teacher is a teacher. On several occasions when she had to work, she sent us off into the city centre – each time with a different challenge

These challenges were designed to make us more comfortable with conversational Croatian. And they were indeed challenges, but they provided a motivation, and were possibly my most interesting and successful learning experience.


One of these challenges was to find out, speaking only in Croatian, as much as we could about the significance and origin of licitarska srca.

Of course you have seen licitarsko srca, the heart-shaped ornaments which have become the symbol of the wonderful city of Zagreb, capital of Croatia.
​

Picture
A licitarsko srce. Always heart-shaped and red, they come in quite a variety of decorations.
Licitarsko srce is a singular, neuter noun, so the plural is licitarska srca.

I had long conversations with the owners of two souvenir shops near Trg Bana Josipa Jelačića and found out the following fascinating stuff. I am only repeating the stories as I understood them with my limited Croatian language skills, so cannot guarantee their accuracy. Perhaps you can correct me, or add to my story ….

Well, it seems that davno, davno, in and around Zagreb, heart-shaped biscuits were traditional fare at Christmas and at Easter, and especially at proštenja – celebrations of the various saint's days.

Their size ranged from small biscuits about 3 or 4 cm diameter to much larger 25 cm cakes.

This tradition is dying out, but still survives – especially in the villages on the outskirts of Zagreb.


Meanwhile, there developed a rather unusual and intriguing use. Licitarska lica were produced with a mirror embedded into the biscuit material.

​
Picture

The story goes that if a young man (or an older one, I suppose) was sure that he wanted a particular young lady to be his wife, he would give her a licitarsko srce that has a mirror.

And he would ask her to look into the mirror and see if she could see herself in his heart. If her answer was “Da, mogu!” the world turned to honey and they lived happily ever after. Of course, “Ne mogu” was the dreaded reply.

Some traditions fade away. Now licitarska srca are merely souvenirs to help travellers recall their visit to Zagreb. They are made of a biscuit-like material which is not edible.

Picture
Picture
On a wander past the souvenir shops between the Zagreb cathedral and the Dolac ope-air market, you will find all sorts of exotic licitarska srca on display.

What a fascinating story! I am sure that there are more accurate, and more full, versions in the minds of older zagrepčani (purgeri). Or in sources that can be found by Google. Comments or corrections invited .....
 ​

​Post script ….

According to my Croatian-English dictionary (editor Bujas), licitar is a gingerbread man, licitarka is a gingerbread woman, and licitarsko srce is a gingerbread heart.

That suggests that licitarska srca are made of gingerbread. But that seems odd because the word for ginger is đumbir.

Mateja has commented: I would say that a licitarsko srce was something like gingerbread, but not really gingerbread as there is no ginger in it, definitely not originally. Actually some cookies are called medenjaci, and they are more like gingerbread.

The licitarska srca nowadays are not edible, but I'm not sure whether originally the dough for licitarska srca and for medenjaci was the same or not...
​
In the times when they started making them, nobody had probably even heared of ginger. (We hadn't heared of ginger until basically few years ago.)


Well, given Mateja’s reference to medenjaci, I was reminded that Bujas gave medičar as an alternative word for licitar, so I guess that a medičar sold medenjaci.

And because of this, I now realise that Bujas’s translation of licitar as a gingerbread man means a person who sells gingerbread. Isn’t language interesting? I had interpreted gingerbread man to mean (as in our English tradition) gingerbread biscuits made in the shape of a man.

And the term medenjak (singular of medenjaci) presumably means that these cookies are made with honey?
​
Please don’t take this story as a factual historical account. It is merely the uncertain level of understanding that I had reached throught my conversations in pidgin Croatian. A basis for discussion ….
 
By the way, as an exercise in learning Croatian, in the sense of becoming more comfortable conversing in Croatian, Mateja’s challenge worked brilliantly.


​

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4 Comments
Jacob Compton link
25/10/2023 00:26:30

Interestting thoughts

Reply
sosyal medya uzmanı link
19/4/2025 16:14:42

Wow, what a nice article. You can be sure that I will visit you frequently from now on.

Reply
instagram takipçi link
19/4/2025 16:15:24

Wow, what a nice article.

Reply
sancaktepe evden eve nakliyat link
19/4/2025 16:16:15

thank you nice post article.

Reply



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Getting around

You can browse or search this website in the following ways:
  • Use the drop-down menus from the buttons at the top of each page to browse page titles.
  • Click to go to the ROAD MAP (also from the drop-down menu under the NAVIGATION button).
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  • Home
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    • Posts 1 -15 >
      • 001 Kosa, koza, koža
      • 002 Pronouncing 'au'
      • 003 Can language influence behaviour?
      • 004 First day of the week
      • 005 Do Croatians assign gender to objects?
      • 006 Za četiri dana, na dva dana
      • 007 My brain becomes full!
      • 008 Sretan rođendan ti
      • 009 Na kavu, po kavu, za kavu?
      • 010 Until you don't do it
      • 011 Nazvati nekoga, telefonirati nekomu
      • 012 If she were a man ....
      • 013 Streets with two names?
      • 015 Tri, četiri, sad!
    • Posts 16-30 >
      • 016 I feel like crying!
      • 017 I felt like crying, I will feel like crying
      • 018 Picking up place names by ear
      • 019 Where did the "j" go?
      • 020 Koliko kiše smo imali?
      • 021 Požuri polako
      • 022 Mi, mi, mi, mi
      • 023 Why should we learn the grammar?
      • 024 Words for youngsters are neuter
    • EXPERIENCES >
      • EXPERIENCES: POSTS 1 - 15 HOME >
        • 001 Licitarska srca
        • 002 My Aussie accent
        • 003 The upside down SIM card
        • 004 Buying fritule in Split
        • 005 Jučer ili sutra?
        • 006 Što rade ućitelji?
    • VICEVI >
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    • CHALLENGES FOR YOU >
      • 001 Crossword puzzle 1
  • GRAMMAR
    • Posts 1 - 15 >
      • 001 Where are the pronouns?
      • 002 Padeži and noun endings
      • 003 Endings of pronouns and adjectives
      • 004 "u" ili "na" ?
      • 005 The declensions of Tko? and Što?
      • 006 Ja sam na Trgu bana Josipa Jelačića
      • 007 Going and coming: u-iz, but na-sa
      • 008 Sav - All, every
      • 009 Number of subjects and the verb 'biti'
      • 010 Koga nazoveš? Komu telefoniraš?
      • 011 Declension of place names
      • 012 Dati - dativ
      • 013 Verb endings: Who is the doer?
      • 014 Sibilarization and palatalization
      • 015 Iotation (jotacija)
    • Grammar: Posts 16-30 >
      • 016 Vodice su grad u Hrvatskoj
    • Grammar reference section >
      • NOUNS >
        • 001 Questions that define the case of nouns
        • 002 All nouns have gender
        • 003 Nouns in the nominative case
        • 004 Nouns: Declension categories
        • 004a A universal declension table?
        • 005 Declension of regular masculine nouns
        • 006 Declension of regular feminine nouns
        • 008 Masculine plural - infix or not?
      • VERBS >
        • 001 Transitive and intransitive verbs
        • 004 Conjugation types
  • SAYINGS
    • Posts 1 - 15 >
      • 001 Ne daj se!
      • 002 U tom grmu leži zec!
      • 003 Baš me briga!
      • 004 Mačji kašalj!
      • 005 Što je, tu je!
      • 006 Eto ti ga na!
      • 007 Na licu mjesta
      • 008 Sve si to ti kriv!
    • DAKLE, ŽELIŠ BITI KAO PRAVI HRVAT, JE L' DA? HOME >
      • 001 Ovako ....
      • 002 Je l' tako?
      • 003 Tako je!
      • 004 Izvoli! Izvolite!
      • 005 Eto!
  • VOCABULARY
    • POSTS 1 - 15 >
      • 001 Even dying is not easy!
      • 002 To laugh or to smile?
      • 003 Nahraniti, sahraniti .... schmahraniti
      • 004 Prefixes that modify verb meanings
      • 005 Prefixes on base verb stati
      • 006 Country names - noun or adjective?
      • 007 Names of towns: A grammatical nightmare
      • 008 Countries: What do we call their citizens?
      • 009 Baš
      • 010 What a joke! vic or šala?
      • 011 Čak
      • 012 Još or više? (More of something)
      • 013 Još or više? (Time-related)
    • FRAZEOLOGIJA - HOME >
      • Based on NOUNS >
        • 001 RUKA
      • Based on VERBS >
        • 001 UZIMATI/UZETI
    • VERB BUILDING: HOME >
      • 001 GOVORITI verbs
    • Vocab THEMES: HOME >
      • 001 In the time of coronavirus
    • Što je korijen riječi?: HOME >
      • 001 Nadimak
      • 002 Zora, prozor, zoran, ….
      • 003 Uništiti
  • CROATIA
    • Republika Hrvatska: HOME >
      • 001 Anthem: LIJEPA NAŠA
      • 002 Map of Croatia
      • 003 Županije: The counties of Croatia
    • Where/What/Who is that? HOME >
      • Where/What/Who? Pages 1 - 15 >
        • 001 A girl and a bird
        • 002 His left foot
        • 003 A rebel
        • 004 Čuvarica Omiša
        • 005 Giorgio or Juraj?
        • 006 Tovar and friend
        • 007 Up on high
        • 008 On an island
        • 009 Water wonderland
    • REGIONS, CITIES, TOWNS: HOME >
      • ZAGREB: HOME >
        • THE CITY >
          • 001 Zagreb cathedral
        • PEOPLE and CULTURE >
          • 001 Advent in Zagreb
          • 002 Interliber book fair
          • 004 On the tramvaj in Zagreb
          • 005 A night at the ballet
      • DALMACIJA: HOME >
        • BEING AND SPEAKING DALMATIAN: HOME >
          • 001 Molin?
          • 002 Eleven Dalmatian commandments
          • 003 Dalmatinski rječnik
      • Zagorje: HOME >
        • 001 Autumn tones
  • NAVIGATION
    • A ROAD MAP
    • INDEX, ALPHABETICAL