International Archives Day celebrated throughout the week at the Croatian National Archives, dedicated to the 200th anniversary of the bicycle patent, and began on Monday with the opening of the "Bicycle" exhibition, which gives an insight into the history of cycling and biking in the area, but also invites citizens to make the most of it this cheap, healthy and eco-friendly means of transportation.
Through a series of photographs, bicycle racing maps, documents, posters, items, newspaper and magazine clippings and depictions of different areas in which bicycles were inevitable, from sports and war to the postal service and daily life, the exhibition shows how well the bike received in Croatia and Zagreb from its inception.
The first bicycles delivered from the World Exhibition in Paris in 1867, and in 1885 the First Croatian Cyclists' Society was founded, after which the trend continues throughout Croatia. The first cycling race organized at Zrinjevac in 1886, while the first road race in Croatia, with 12 riders, was held in 1892 on the Zagreb-Petrinja route.
The exhibition opened by Minister of Culture Nina Obuljen Koržinek, who said that the topic of the history of the bicycle would be covered through the programs of other archives in Croatia. "For International Archives Day, the archives are once again drawing attention to everything stored in them. These are heritage institutions that may be the least visible to the citizens, and present such activities to the rich heritage and send the public a message how important they are and how they should be invested," she said.
According to her, the more she invests in digitalization, the more the archival material and heritage are made, and thus the interest and knowledge about what is stored in the archives become closer to our citizens, and this exhibition is important because it invites citizens to use bicycles and you are tearing up the city center.
The author of the exhibition, Ana Stimac, said that the exhibition aimed to show the popularity of cycling in these areas because it is the most popular sport of the second half of the 19th century, but also to show the ubiquity of bicycles in everyday life.
"Danes ride their bike at all times of the night and day"
A representative of a country with a long cycling tradition, Denmark, its ambassador to Croatia, Christian Thorn, said that bicycle is a primary form of transportation there, children learn to ride a bicycle before school and learn from a young age about road safety.
"The Danes ride at all times of the night and day, in all weathers, to do their jobs, but also for pleasure, so a special bicycle infrastructure has been made in all parts, including a freeway that makes cycling faster and safer," he said.
Thorn said that since the 1920s, the bicycle has been a kind of symbol of freedom and equality because people of all classes have been cycling side by side, no difference between them.
Zagreb had three racetracks in the 19th century
HDA Director Dinko Čutura recalled the long tradition of cycling here, for example, that Zagreb had as many as three racetracks in the second half of the 19th century - at Mimara and Botanical Gardens and in Maksimir, and also has a "bicycle" street, or Koturaška. at the root of the word roll, as the bike was called.
The secretary of the Cycling Union, Tena Saric, said that the union was founded to encourage better quality cycling infrastructure in Zagreb and Croatia, but also to increase the number of citizens using the bike more often than cars.
The exhibition, for which material has been borrowed from the Croatian National Archives, the Croatian Sports Museum, the City of Zagreb Museum and the Association of Cyclists, will be open until 30 August.
As part of the opening of the exhibition, a women's city bicycle and a reflective vest, a visit to the HDA vault and a poster with an exhibition motif were donated, and a cyclone was organized which, by pedaling, enables the projection of movie records with a bicycle motif from the Croatian Film Archive.
The International Archives Day will be celebrated in the coming days with expert guidance through the exhibition "Bicycle" and on June 12 with Children's Day with the play "With People through the Archives" by Darius Hofgräff and a screening of a children's movie record and a prize for best literary and visual work on the theme Bicycle at heart.
The HDA Open Day announced for June 14, when it will sell Archive editions at a convenient discount and organize tours of the HDA building, the Central Conservation and Restoration Laboratory, and the Central Photo Lab.
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