The famous Slavonian mountain resort Jankovac is located in the Papuk Nature Park. It is a romantic mountain valley located at an altitude of 475 meters, which is 500 meters long and 200 meters wide.
In the 18th century, there was a settlement of German glassmakers who worked in the glassworks "Skakavac", named after the waterfall Jankovački potok. The factory stopped working when the forests from which the wood needed to produce soot was taken were exhausted.
n 1801, Josip Janković, a nobleman from Voćin, built a hunting castle on the ruins of a former glassworks, where numerous meetings of the then noble Slavonian lords were held, and the Bishop of Đakovo, Josip Juraj Strossmayer, often spent his time there.
Count Janković shaped his valley as a land of fairy tales: he built castles, dug lakes and created waterfalls, and his tomb is in a cave from which a view of everything he created can be seen.
"When I climbed these rocks, my soul could not get enough of the view of the valley… I chose this place as my lookout in the coming centuries," said Count Josip Jankovic, who built his last resting place in the Jankovac valley, building a tomb in caves.
Near the castle, Count Janković had two ponds dug in which trout were later raised. At the end of the 19th century, the castle was abandoned and today it has disappeared without a trace.
What Jankovac is best known for, however, is the picturesque waterfall created by Count Janković when the Jankovački stream directed over 17 meters high rock. This is how the Skakavac waterfall was created, which collapses into the deep bed of the Kovačica stream, crashing into limestone rocks.
Above the valley and its two lakes is the tomb of Count Janković. In the eight-meter-deep and three-meter-wide cave were the remains of a red marble sarcophagus in which the count was buried in 1861, as well as candlesticks and a small altar. A plaque was placed on the sarcophagus with an inscription in gold letters in Hungarian and Church Slavonic Cyrillic:
Josip pl. Janković of Pribir and Vučina, a knight of the order of Emperor Leopold and a royal chamberlain. He was born January 15, 1780, died July 31, 1861. His eternal memory.
Everything was destroyed after the First World War, and the cave was closed for a long time with an iron grate.Today, it houses a restored sarcophagus, but entry is allowed only with the special permission of the ministry for the purpose of scientific research.
It was in honor of Count Janković in Jankovac that the "Count's educational trail" was built, which passes through the most beautiful parts of the Forest Park. Along the trail, there are educational boards with contents that explain certain natural or cultural-historical curiosities along which the trail passes.
The cave of the hajduk Maksim!
In the immediate vicinity above the tomb, there is about 20 meters long Maxim's Cave, which is the only speleological object open to the public as part of the instructive "Count's Trail". Maksim's cave is named after the hajduk Maksim Bojanić who hid in it during his robbery in that area between 1850 and 1862.
He was afraid and trembling with those in power and loved by the poor people for whom he sometimes paid taxes. He hid in his cave where his friends brought him food, drinks, dust and even lead. In time, Maksim pretended to be famous, got drunk, and started bothering the village women, so one of the villagers reported him to the gunmen. It is said that a man from Ogulin surrounded him with a company of soldiers, captured him, and then shot him.
The legend of Catherine!
In the Papuk Valley until 1839, ie until the arrival of Count Janković, there was a Glass Cemetery where three monuments can be seen today: the manager of the glassworks, his family and the grave that legend says belongs to the girl Katarina.
It is the story of an unfortunate girl, whose spirit allegedly continues to tread the forests of Jankovac.
Katarina, a young girl, fell in love with the tall and handsome son of the glassworks manager. It was a forbidden love that the warden did not even want to hear about. In her accident, Katarina decided to throw herself from the top of the Skakavac waterfall, hitting the rock with her right shoulder, repelling her right hand and exhaling.
Even today, the stone cross located in the Glass Cemetery where she is buried, with a corpse head symbolizing suicide, has no right side and is waiting for the ghost of the unfortunate girl to return.
Jankovac, one of the most beautiful mountain valleys. I have been there many times.