In 1911 a great tragedy struck the village of Popov Dol in the parish of St Mary beneath Okić. The then parish priest Roko Kučas recorded these tragic events in the parish Chronicle, and his curate Ivan Stanković wrote about them in 1912 in the Samoborski list. I present here the most essential passages from those accounts.
"From time immemorial, in the valley opposite the parish house, below the village of Poljanica, between the southern and northern slopes that form a hollow in the hillside and two small streams fed by modest springs, there lay a little village known as Popovdol. Originally the village consisted of five old joint-family households. Over the years these five households divided into a greater number of separate dwellings, so that by 1911 there were twenty-five house numbers in all.
Early in the spring the snow began to thaw rapidly and a fine, persistent rain set in. On 5 April of that year, at the upper end of the hollow, to the left below Poljanica, the ground began to crack and slide ever lower, creeping towards the uppermost houses. As the earth cracked and shifted, it rose in some places and sank in others. Above the upper houses, running across the hollow from south to north, there grew an oak wood known as Pavlaka. The great oaks held back the sliding earth for a time, but by 10 April the oaks too had begun to topple; the earth engulfed them and continued its advance towards the houses. The matter was reported to the district office in Jastrebarsko, whereupon the royal district prefect, Mr Mahin, arrived from Jastrebarsko with a surveyor, Mr Šram, and the situation was officially assessed.
On 12 April, which was Holy Wednesday, and continuing until 15 April, the inhabitants of the upper village began to flee their homes and to haul their belongings wherever they could — to sheds, cellars and nearby villages.
After Easter the weather settled, the rain ceased and fine days followed. The evacuees from the upper houses returned to their homes. People calmed down. The government sent an expert, the surveyor Ivančić, to investigate the terrain and submit a report. Mr Ivančić reported on everything and proposed that deep channels be dug above the village to carry the water off to the right and left into the small streams. For this purpose the government allocated 7,000 crowns. But before the channels could be completed, the catastrophe struck.
On 10 June 1911 a torrential rain began to fall once more, continuing day and night. The ground started to crack again and to shift with ever greater force throughout the entire village. On the night of 14 June the wooden buildings began to creak and the stone ones to crack and lean. On 15 June, the very feast of Corpus Christi, the stone buildings began to collapse and the wooden ones to lean still more severely. At noon the sun broke through. The people were in despair; women and children wept and wailed, rushing hither and thither in a panic. Everyone was driving out their livestock, carting away furniture, clothing and provisions — gathering up everything, carrying it off and fleeing in all directions, intent only on saving whatever could be saved. The parish priest Kućas wrote of these events: "The earth creeps ever faster and faster, the buildings fall ever more and more, and the wailing and weeping grows ever louder and louder; a sorrowful sight — one's heart breaks with pain at beholding the misery, the misfortune and the despair of these people."
The authorities brought all their energy to bear in helping those unfortunate people. Gendarmes went from village to village, by persuasion and by force, driving men with their carts to pull down the remaining houses and carry all the timber to safe ground. For three full days hundreds of men and carts were at work. Within those three days every house had vanished, and the timber was carted off to the roadside by the church and towards Repišće. The village of Popov Dol was no more. Only the ruins of the masonry buildings remained, with the chimneys of the wooden houses jutting into the air, and the odd cat sitting on the rubble, unaware of where its masters had gone. The 180 inhabitants of Popov Dol scattered in all directions. What remained on the southern slope of the valley was only the parish house with its farm buildings and the chapel of Saint Matthias; and on the northern slope, the house and farm buildings of the Kelečić noble brothers, house number 8. These buildings faced no danger, as they stood to the left and right of two small streams respectively.
The parish priest wrote that the people were immeasurably downcast and despairing, yet patient; not a curse or an oath was to be heard, only sighs and expressions of grief and sorrow. Men, women and children — wretched, hungry and filthy — worked with frantic haste to carry their meagre belongings to safety. The parish house and its farm buildings were filled with the goods of these unfortunate people. The church storehouse and the other storehouses nearby were likewise packed. The older livestock was tethered beneath the trees, while calves were lowing in the storehouse and the parish stable. Six families had taken up residence in the sacristan's house. For three whole days these people ate virtually nothing, toiling like ants to save what little they had. Neither man nor beast suffered any fatality or serious injury. And so in three days they were left without home or hearth. But where were they to go? Where were they to build their houses? And with what means? These poor souls had no bread, let alone money for building. Their first relief — enough to buy bread — came from the Croatian Peasant Cooperative of the Blessed Virgin Mary beneath Okić, which provided 260 crowns.
On 17 June, Franjo Forko, the parish priest of Samobor and dean of the Okić district, arrived to inspect his schools. He saw the misery and suffering of these people with his own eyes, and on 19 June, as a county assembly delegate, he described that misery and hardship in moving terms before the assembly and called upon the county authorities to send help without delay.
On 22 June, the first commission from Zagreb County arrived. The commission formally recorded the disaster, petitioned the Croatian Regional Government for assistance, and charged the local parish priest Rok Kučas, headman Šolić and Jura Valečić with collecting donations and identifying a building site. They designated as the building site the benefice arable land of 4 acres known as "Plac", where the annual "Kljukovo fair" had been held on the Monday after the Feast of the Holy Name of Mary, along with the lower Koluder arable strips. All the houses, as well as a new school, were to be built there without delay, since until then the children had attended school in a room in the house of the bell-ringer Lafter.
On 2 August the foundation stone was laid at the house of Jure Tandarić, and by 1 November all twenty-three houses were under roof. Fortunately the autumn was fine, allowing work to continue for a long time, and progress was such that by Christmas all the inhabitants had already moved into their new buildings — not yet fully fitted out, but habitable. Almost all had built stables and farm outbuildings from materials they had salvaged. The people worked diligently and endured much toil and hardship — but they forgot it all when they saw that they had received houses far finer than those they had before. Built from the foundations in stone and thereafter in brick, with a tiled roof, and a built-in range in the kitchen.
In the following year, 1912, work continued on finishing the houses as funds permitted. The inhabitants themselves carried out a good deal of this at their own expense. In the spring, the district officer distributed 250 saplings — walnut, pear and apple trees — free of charge to the villagers, to be planted in their gardens. In autumn, a road through the village was put in order.
This new village was given the name "Okićka Sveta Marija". In 1947 its name was changed, and today it is known as "Novo Selo Okićko".
Among the local people there persists a belief that the disappearance of the village of Popovdol was a kind of divine punishment, because the statue of Our Lady of Okić had been stolen from its place in one of the walls of Okić. (See the gallery!) This can still be heard from older inhabitants of the surrounding villages, particularly in Klake, on whose land Okić itself stands.
There is no scientific evidence for this, and many people today regard it as no more than a tale, yet the mystery remains: how is it that only the church buildings — the parish house and the chapel of Saint Matthias — were left standing? The ways of the Lord are strange indeed.
