Although Brac does not possess like other Mediterranean regions, some monumental cultural objects, this island has, nevertheless, its settlements which are on their own, of specific monumental value, Through them, Brac has achieved modest but sincere and valuable, although miniature, town-planning solutions which are conditioned by the highely developed land configuration, historical events and climate conditions. Selca is an outstanding example of such a successful achievement. There the inherited Mediterranean architectural patterns almost reach the high level of the town life. Selca is a link and a bridge in the transformation of a Mediterranean village into town. All the houses serve their specific purposes, with clear level surfaces, free from decorative excess, with tidy yards, with gardens of a high horticultural standard. All these created the basic element of the local atmosphere in which one stays with pleasure.
Situated on the gentle slope of the hill Plisi, Selca does not break its harmony with nature, which gave it the building material and decided its final form. It is situated there as if according to some ancient Mediterranean custom, at moderate height halfway between the sea and the plateaus in the backround. They appear as if caught in the middle by the blueness of the sea, by the bluish peaks of the remote Biokovo, and the bright blue sky. The reflections of white stones upon all this blueness! Up there on Plisa, Selca seems to enjoy the sea more than her people would where they to live from it.
Selca is in love with stone. Everything is from stone to which the diligent hand of Selca’s stone masons knew how to give the site and form, sometimes giving in to asphalt patches and the unsuitable versatility of semichrome marble. There we find the stone doorways, staircases, terraces, balconies, with decorative stonebalustrades. The paths and yards are covered with gravel and stone slabs. Of stone are the gutter-pipes under the eaves, the sinks in the kitchens, the table surfaces, the vases, of stone are the seats in the squares and near the yard-walls the graves and the childrens toys-everything is made of stone. Stone was chosen not only because of its abundance here but also because it is durable. Hardly ever is it destroyed by bad weather, it has protected the ancient inherited buildings up to the present day. The Selcans have grown side by side with stone from the time when as cattle-breeders, they dug in it ponds for their cattle, when as farmers, they sorted out stone in the terraced fields in order to cultivate wines, olives and sour cherries: all back to the times when the Stambuks emigrated from Bohemia and developed here the stone-masonry which was and remained the most profitable profession for the Selcans.
Today in Selca’s harbour of Radonja, there are more than 150 workers employed on the modern machines that produce stone blocks and marble slabs of good quality, which they bring from the neighboring quarries. Among other things, this stone was used in the building of the United Nations Palace in New York. If we are to accept the statement that the stone gives to the irregularly built villages on the Mediterranean coasts the appearance of little towns, than we should point to Selca as the most prominent example. That it is not due to the lack of wood as a building material, is confirmed by the neighboring regional names Zagvozd (suma-wood), Smrcevvik, Grabovik and some others, all suggested by wood.
Although burnt down in the Second World War by the invaders (in 1943), Selca remained faithful to its traditional architecture. Love for the new was not conditioned by neglect of the beautiful in the old.
Tourism will inevitably knock on its door, because the evenings are fresh here and the nights more pleasant than those on the coast and the view towards the sea more beautiful from these slopes.
It is irresistibly attractive and not far to reach.
History. Selca is mentioned in the register of Povlja from 1184 (1250). At that time it could only consist of shepherds dwellings which were deserted afterwards, similiar to many other drywall settlements. Various infectious diseases wiped out many of the original villages in Selca’s inland.
Selca grew and developed partly from the original old inhabitants coming from Podgracisce (q.v. Gornji Humac), and partly from the newcomers coming during the Venetian-Turkish wars in the 12th century and later.
In 1614 the priest N. Simunovic records how, at the eastern end of Brac, there are some thirty scattered houses on the pastures and only Selca has eight shepherds’ houses. That year, a Margareta Scepanovic, who lived in the wood in the place Selca 7-8 miles away from D. Humac was recorded.
In 1633, a church Gospa na Selcih (Our Lady of Selca), founded by D.G. Simone together with the inhabitants of Radonja, is noted. Selca is also noted in 1645 in connection with the church which some call Mad(onn)a na Selcih and others B.B de Radovgna Obviously enough, the very name of the settlement was neither established nor generally accepted. So that in 1668, the bishop Andreis records that Selca and Lokanjac(a part of Selca today) were under the authority of the parish of Gornji Humac.
Only when Selca passed to stone-masonry, did it experience a sudden and rapid development. In 1678 it had as many as 124 inhabitants and a century later, 400. Such a growth was fostered by constant immigration and the development of stone-masonry. In 1720 Selca came to be a curacy and in 1815, a separate parish. The real blossoming in its economic and cultural life took place at the end of the 19th century. In 1888 the Selcans founded the society Hrvatski sastanak (The Croatian Meeting), under the patronage of Bishop J. Strossmayer. This society had a very important role in the nourishing of the native language and literature. After the Secong World War the society was called Jedinstvo (The Unity), and it was restored under the patronage of V. Nazor. The library of Selca was the best eqipped on the island. There lived for a long time, serving as doctor, the prominent Slovak writer Martin Kukucin-Bencur (1844-1911), who drew the plots for his stories from the patriarichal life of the Brac peasants. His novel Kuca na Proplankus (The House of Glade) refers to Selca where we still find the shabbey house which, supposedly, Bencur described. At the beginning of the 20th century Selca’s students from Prag and Graz, brought the panslavistic ideas here, to edge of the Slav world, which was for centuries suppressed and alienated. This is why Selca was the first place in the world to erect, in the park, the monument to Lav. N. Tolstoy (1828-1910) in 1911, a year after his death, at the time, when in his native Jasna Poljana, this idea was only being considered. Already in 1938, Selca was the first village in Croatia to erect a monument in their square to the peasant leader and prominent politician Stjepan Radic whose bust was sculptured by the then young Croatian scilptor Anton Augustincic (1900-).
Name. In the surroundings of Selca, almost all the regional names are of Croatian origin, but many of them bear old, lost meanings like the hamlets Zagvozd (wood), Dunaj (a name for water, the well), Gradac (fort, stronghold), Nakal (the ditch). There we also find the hamlet Sela (The Villages) which belong to Selca (although selca expresses something less than sela). Selca in its original form denoted a small estate and therefore its traces were often lost and the name changed. It is seen best in the name of the church. The first record of it it Stimorice, which is a Croatized form of the Latin sancta Maria. This language data could direct us to think that in ancient times here was the shrine of St. Maria, which was later on in 1645 restored and called Madonna na Selcih or B.B. de Redovgna. In view of the proved existence of a cult, the preservation of the sacred place; on could suppose that in Selca, probably on the site of the old parish church, there was a little wooden church, the nucleus of the present settlement.
Monuments. In the neighborhood there are several exceptionally valuable little Early Croatian churches from the pre-Romanesque period, the roots of which reach as far back in history as the 10th century. These small stony places of worship are raised on the more prominent places on the southern side of the road to Gornji Humac. Some are erected next to the prehistoric cairns from which they borrow stone. They follow the cult of worshipping the heights, known from ancient Slav mythology and they continue to pay homage to the sacred places of the primeval and unidentified cultures on the island.
These sacrificial posts with the dwellings and graves round them are the first beginnings of medieval architecture after the Croats had settled on the island. They came as the result of the synthesis of the Croatian soul with the Roman architectureal heritage on the island.
Saint Nicholas, set between Selca and Sumartin with a beautiful view (1400, above sea level) to the east coast of Brac, St. Cosimus and Damianus on the high Smrecevik (449m above sea level), St. Thomas on the same hill, to the west of Selca and St. Dominica on Gradac dominate from above the whole southeast part of the island. These are all Saints of the Christian East which the Croats had already chosen when they first embraced the Christian faith. Their temples are of small proportions so that they could easily be covered with the barrel-vault, over which is the stone-slab roof. On the top of this, St. Nicholas has a dome like some other little Early Croatian churches. The walls of the little churches are decorated with arcades which give the impression of monumentality.
The Croats, unused to stone in building, used to fasten the roughly cut stone with the lot of plaster. These little churches together with the one on Gradac, were several times described and evaluated. It is worth while seeing these ancient monuments of Croatian religious architecture not only because they are of such rare and exceptional forms, but also because of these prominent places on which they stand. They lead the imagination into the remote, fascinating world of Slav mythology and primeval Christianity on the island, and it leads the eyes towards the magnificent landscape composed of vast areas of Karst and the distant sea.
Appearing as a foreign body in Selca’s square, we find the parish church dedicated to the Slav apostles Ciril and Metod. The building started in 1919 based on the plans of the Austrian architect Schlauf. Apart from the beauty of the clean, level surfaces and the purity of contours that surround that square he succeeded in uniting in the styles of the Early Christian basilicas and the Romanesque and Gothic churches. And thus it broke with tradition, spoiling its harmony with the environment and genuine feeling for the mystery of stone.
In the church we find the bronze statue of the Heart of Jesus which was in 1956 presented to the church by our great sculptor Ivan Mestrovic. It is interesting to notice that the statue was cast out of the guns shells, left over in profusion after the Second World War, because the German forts were here for long very strong and unconquerable. The statue thus built was particularly dear to the Master, because, as he wrote, from the murderous grenades meant for the destruction of men, he created a stature with a heart to symbolize love and peace.