Tradition&Heritage
Every August, Sinj closes its streets for the alka, a jousting contest so famous it now protects UNESCO intangible cultural heritage status. Fewer people know that Makarska once ran its own version, on horseback and then, when horses proved too expensive, on the sea itself. The story goes back further than most visitors would guess.
What is the Makarska sea alka?
The sea alka, known in Venetian Italian as the giostra in mare, was Makarska’s own maritime version of the alka, the ring-tilting contest better known today from Sinj. Where the land alka needed a good horse and a lance, the sea alka moved the same contest onto boats, making it accessible to the fishermen and sailors who made up most of Makarska’s population at the time.
It started with a liberation, not a game
A stone plaque in a Makarska park marks the date: 13 January 1684. However, the wider liberation of the town from Ottoman rule took place over that year, as Venice and its allies pushed into Dalmatia during the Morean War. The plaque records that jousting contests and shooting competitions, held in memory of that liberation, were once run for centuries on the very site where it now stands. The town did not just celebrate the moment; it kept celebrating, year after year, with a riding contest in which a competitor aimed a lance at a small iron ring while riding at full gallop.
Poems were written about it
The Makarska alka was significant enough to be written down. In 1782, a priest and poet named Ivan Jurišić Akčić published a small book of two poems in Venice, titled Striljanje alke, describing a land alka held in Makarska near the Franciscan monastery. Nine riders competed. Judges came from Hvar, and guests arrived from Sinj, Omiš, Imotski, Kaštela and Split to watch. Only two copies of that original booklet are known to survive today, kept in the Franciscan monasteries of Makarska and Zaostrog.
The poem itself named the visiting towns in verse:
…“Klemente je Ivaniševiću,
Među svima, ko ruža u cviću
On je glavar i vođa za diku,
S golom sabljom na konju veliku.
Sviju glavar tada se obrača,
Družbi reće Odite do Mandrača,
Nek vam sluge kopja nose sprida,
Krajem Doca a fratarskog zida.
Od Mandrača, od onoga brista
Trčat čete do ovoga mista
Neka zemlja strese se i sječi
Kad tamburin udre i zazveči.
Konjima vašim razljutite zube,
Onda trčte, kad ovdi zatrube,
Svak po redu kako se pristoji,
Slišajte me vitezovi moji.“…
…“Imadoše konja ko Labuda,
Trčali po redu tri puta,
Veselje je ne može se više,
Jer svaki put Alku pogodiše.
To gledajuč izvanska vlastela, pisac nastavlja
Bolje nam je mučat neg reč malo
O Makarska diko i pofalo,
Kad porodi take vitezove,
I junake sive sokolove.“…
The land version of alka wasn’t for everyone
Competing in the traditional, horseback alka required a good horse and expensive equipment, both well out of reach for the fishermen and sailors who made up the majority of Makarska’s population. A ring-tilting contest run on land only ever included the people who could afford to enter it.
Enter the giostra in mare
So the town did what it knew best: it took the contest to the sea. The Brotherhood of St. Peter, said to be the oldest in Makarska, organised its own version, the sea alka, called giostra in mare in Venetian Italian. Same spirit, different arena, and one that put the contest back in reach of the people who actually lived off the water.
A tradition that outlasted its time
According to the official history of the Sinjska alka, the Makarska alka ranked among the most notable chivalric contests in Dalmatia, and it continued until 1832. When Makarska’s version ended, Sinj’s carried on, eventually becoming the internationally recognised tradition it is today. Makarska’s alka faded, but the story behind it, the liberation it marked, the poems written about it, and the sea version invented to include everyone are still worth telling.
