An exhibition entitled ‘Drenovske maškare’ was held for the Drenova Days in 2006 and featured around 150 photographs, documents and newspaper articles related to the history of the Drenova carnival tradition, from before the Second World War to the latest days.
Vilim Štefan, in his book “Drenova – schooling and historical development”, says about the carnival days on Drenova:
During the carnival, Drenova was lively and cheerful, much more than today. The few weeks that carnival days lasted, and especially the last week, groups of masks visited the place, sang, cheered and danced, always accompanied by music, at least accordion and drums. The highlight of the festivities was the last Sunday when masked dances were held until late at night and a smokey Tuesday when deserted was lit. Groups of masks would come from Kastav and Grobinština, and Kastav bell ringers would also come.’
Vilim Štefan, ‘Drenova – education and historical development’
It should be added that these dances were especially popular after the People's Home on Lokva was built in 1929.
After the Second World War, the then government tried to present carnival customs as historical remains that were overcome by the then ideology. However, the people of Drenovci did not just forget the old customs, and in this text I will refer to two events that were remembered and marked Drenovska, and one can say the post-war Rijeka carnival tradition. Despite the ideology and even prohibitions of the time, the Carnival of Drenovci is marked in the same way as their ancestors did.
The Fifty Years
Already in the early fifties, they began to disguise themselves, first in a cowboy uniform that was a traditional Drenov mask for the next ten years.
The first of the two events occurred during the carnival days of 1954. A group of Drenovski young men, masked in what is now a much more beautiful traditional cowboy ‘uniforme’, first took photographs to remember in the iconic Foto ‘Belveder’, and then descended and walked down Rijeka’s Korzo. According to the story of one of the cowboys, Dušan Štefan, they caused great attention, astonishment and approval of the people of Rijeka , and especially of the people of Rijeka I found on Korzo. The following day, however, the press at the time, read the government, published an article in the then ‘Riječki list’ (later ‘Novi list’) entitled ‘Where is their pride?’
In the pictures below, Dušan Štefan recognized the majority, and it is no wonder that he could not remember the name of some, but it has been 67 years.


What the 70s bring
In the early 1970s, the people of Drenovci began to introduce cars with allegorical figures and satirical messages into carnival columns. Such a motorized column passed through Kastav, Grobinština, it would ride through Bakar, Šmrik, and go to Lovran. On such an expedition ‘La voce di popolo’ from Rijeka on 14 February 1971. He published an article with a multitude of photographs by photographer F. Morić, accompanied by a text by L. Superina.
The next day, February 15, 1971. , in the same newspaper L.Superina published an article which I will translate from Italian:
As we reported yesterday in our photo service, the allegorical caravan organized by the people of Drenovci has achieved great success throughout our region and will remain recorded (although not in official form) in the annals of local carnival events. The caravan itself followed intensive preparations that lasted practically two months. A group of young enthusiastic people worked in the afternoon (after hours of work in the workshop or in the office) and at night in the characteristic basements of Drenova. Without any help, only with their own financial resources and with great will, Alberto Mihich, Vincenzo Segnan, Livio Benzan, Rino Stefan and others worked as architects, painters, modelists, electricians, etc. The taverns and cellars were turned into real craft workshops for the occasion (as in Viaregigio in Fan (albeit to a lesser extent). This is how the most diverse, allegorical figures and dolls were created, which caused so much hilariousness. Alberto Mihich, mechanic at ‘R. Benčić’ – the main organiser of the group – told us: “We do not lack enthusiasm and have willingly sacrificed all the free hours in the last two months. I have a suggestion. To complete all these events, it would be advisable to organise a general parade on Korzo in the future, that is to say, all masked groups and allegorical parades in the region, with prizes for the best. Hopefully someone will carry it out..
La voce del popolo February 14, 1971
That is how the people of Drenovci or, more precisely, Bertić, predicted something that began 11 years later, in 1982, when, for the first time, in the organisation of the then Rijeka Tourist Board, three carnival groups – We Easy Go, the Pehinar Festival and the Halubajski Bell-ringers – passed through Korzo and launched the famous Rijeka Carnival.
After the text was published on our site, Ms. Silvana Šuperina commented and, among other things, wrote:
Otela bin just adds that these "two unknowns" to Mr. Dušan Štefan, from a 1954 flight picture (another dream recognized Dad's handwriting) at the top right stands Lino z donje Drenove (Lino Mihić, op.a.), and squats (third from left) my dad Rino Štefan.
Silvana Šuperina
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