NETWORLD - 100 YEARS OF SOLITUDE UNDER THE SEA
22-08-2018
Institution INOVAcija has prepared an exhibition with the title "100 years of solitude under the sea". An exhibiton has prepared in cooperation with National Museum Zadar. An axhibiton was held in Mali Arsenal.
The ship's wreck was protected in 1995 and is considered as one of the largest and most beautiful monuments of the Croatian submarine.
The pride of the Austro-Hungarian Navy the Austro-Hungarian battleship SMS Szent István was built as the fourth ship of the dreadnought class Tegetthoff. Three sister ships Viribus Unitis, Prinz Eugen and Tegetthoff carried Austrian names while the fourth was named after the first King of Hungary. Ships serving the Austrian part of the Monarchy were built in Trieste while SMS Szent István was built in Rijeka in 1914. SMS Szent István sank on the 10th June 1918 after being hit by a torpedo fired from the Italian torpedo boat MAS 15 near Premuda. In sinking of the SMS Szent István 89 sailors and crew members were killed, 35 were Croats. For the Austo-Hungarians it was a big loss while the Italians are still celebrating the day as the Day of the Navy. The wreck of the ship is located 9 nm southwest of Premuda at a depth of 66-68 m and is registered as the Croatian cultural heritage. The first shipwreck was shot in 1974 for the purpose of the Croatian Televison series ’’Treasures of the Adriatic Sea’’. In 1990 an official expedition of the Italian television was organized and in 1994 a wreck was visited by three Austrian and one Hungarian diving teams without the official approval of the Croatian Ministry of Culture. In 1995 and in 1997 the wreckage was investigated on two occasions by the Hungarian-Croatian team, it was the co-operation between the Office for the Protecion of Monuments of the Republic of Hungary and the State Administration for the Protection of the Cultural and Natural Heritage of the Republic of Croatia. In 1998 the wreck was investigated by the Croatian team – the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of the Interior - and the branding was removed at that occassion. Expeditions undertaken from 1995 to 1998 had the purpose for the first time to scientifically determine the state of the wreckage, its damage caused by the sinking itself and the action of the sea and to remove the movable finds that had become extremely vulnerable to possible devastation. On the occasion of marking one hundred years after the sinking of the ship and the end of First World War, the Croatian Restoration Institute in co-operation with the Special Police and private companies Dragorlux, St. Lukas and Shark organized expeditions in 2017 and 2018 aimed at checking the condition of the wreck itself as well as a setting up a memorial board in memory of all killed/lost sailors.
The exhibition is organized within the framework of the NETWORLD project financed from the Danube Transnational Programme and you can visit it from Monday 13th every day, from 8,30 am to 12,30 pm and from 6pm to 10pm.
The aim of the project is to raise awareness of the social and economic impacts of the First World War and contribute to the development of cultural tourism.
The total budget of the project is 1.869.698,00 EUR, of which, for INOVAcija was approved EUR 114.278,00.
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