The Krizevci Statutes, the most prominent intangible monument of Croatian wine culture, have been proclaimed a cultural good of the Republic of Croatia. They have been entered in the Register of Protected Cultural Goods of the Ministry of Culture and Media under number Z-7973, announced the Ministry of Culture and Media of the Republic of Croatia. The custodians of this intangible cultural good are the City of Krizevci and the Society for the Preservation of Krizevci Heritage “Krizevacki Statuti”, and, indirectly, the cultural and artistic societies of the Kalnik area, as well as all the people of Krizevci and the guests who actively take part in them.
They are a body of customary rules for the drinking of wine, accompanied by toasts, wine songs and folk theatre. Three toasts in the Krizevci Statutes are obligatory: to the homeland, to fellowship, and to the fair sex. The songs come from the wine canon of the so-called horvatska dobrovolja (Croatian good cheer), and the folk theatre is composed of the roles of the stoloravnatel (master of ceremonies), the fiskus and oberfiskus, the barilonosac (barrel-bearer), the govorac (speaker), the kantusminister or popevac (song-leader), the vunbacitel, and the pajdasi and pajdasice (male and female companions), who are divided into old and young companions and newcomers. In this company they abide by the wine statutes, and if they do not, they are punished with the so-called strofovi (penalties), of which there are five: the penalty of dry wine, the penalty of mixed wine, the penalty of cold or lukewarm water, the penalty served elsewhere, and the sweet penalty. The Statutes are performed alongside annual and working customs, or at any time, if the pajdasija (fellowship) decides to gather and make merry over a drop of wine according to the statutory roles and rules.
Senoa, Gjalski and Matos wrote about the Statutes
Because of their name the rules are associated with Krizevci, although they are known throughout Croatia, especially in the north-western part. They arose among the people and were written down in the 19th century, and their content, embedded in both high and low culture, in both the oral and the written, in both the urban and the rural, has always been thematically intriguing, so writers such as August Senoa, Ksaver Sandor Gjalski, Antun Gustav Matos and others wrote about the Statutes in their literary works. The first complete edition of the Krizevci Statutes was recorded and published by Zvonimir Puzar in 1912. Since then that edition has been reprinted to this day, alongside private and public performances of the Statutes, which over the course of history have had their ups and downs. They were revitalised in 2014, when the Society for the Preservation of Krizevci Heritage “Krizevacki Statuti” was founded, which in 2023, in cooperation with the City of Krizevci and the company Prigorski Media, and with editor Tanja Baran, published the latest edition of the Krizevci Statutes with its accompanying House Protocol and Fellowship Membership Card. 
That edition was also published as a supplement to the popular-scientific monograph Croatian Wine Culture by author Tanja Baran in 2024. The Krizevacki Statuti Society, chaired for a second term by president Sinisa Katavic, has so far also organised five national competitions for Croatian wine photography. Because of their antiquity, continuity and living presence today, the Krizevci Statutes are recognised as a centuries-old tradition. They are the best known of the Croatian rules of wine and fellowship, and on them rest the lesser-known and shorter Koprivnica Rules, the Varazdin Furess, the Krapina Vandrsek, the Turopolje Statutes, the Zagreb Puntarija, the Ivanec Smesancija and the Sveta Jana Lumparija. Linked to them is also the Great Ritual of the “baptism” of the must, performed across Croatia on the feast of St Martin, 11 November.
25 February 2026
