From May 1 to 3, Vukovar becomes the center of intangible cultural heritage and the celebration of City Day
From May 1 to 3, 2026, Vukovar will once again host the 8th Festival of Intangible Cultural Heritage, Tourist Events, Attractions and Destinations “SVI zaJEDNO HRVATSKO NAJ”, an event that brings to the city center a three-day program dedicated to tradition, music, customs, children’s activities, eno-gastronomy and the public presentation of protected forms of cultural heritage. The program was presented on Friday, April 24, 2026, at a press conference in the City Hall of the City of Vukovar, where Mayor Marijan Pavliček with his associates and Marina Sekulić, director of the Vukovar Tourist Board, spoke about this year’s edition. The festival is held as part of the broader celebration of the Day of the City of Vukovar and the feast day of its heavenly patrons, Saints Philip and James, celebrated on May 3.
This year’s edition has additional symbolic weight because it builds on the commemoration of 795 years since Vukovar was proclaimed a free royal town. According to the announcement by the City of Vukovar, the City Day celebration program will last almost ten days and will include cultural, sports, music and other content intended for different generations. The central festival section will be held from Friday to Sunday at several city locations, with the main events connected to Republic of Croatia Square, the Vukovar corso and other public spaces in the city. Due to the expected greater interest in visiting, the program text particularly emphasizes the practical importance of timely arrival planning and
accommodation in Vukovar during the festival days.
A festival connecting heritage, tourism and public space
The “SVI zaJEDNO HRVATSKO NAJ” festival was conceived as a platform on which bearers and guardians of intangible cultural heritage, tourist events, local attractions and destinations are presented in one place. In the program announcement, the Vukovar Tourist Board states that the event brings together cultural heritage, eno-gastronomy, music and the creative industry, while the City of Vukovar emphasizes that it is an event that fits into the celebration of City Day and the great jubilee. Over the previous years, the festival has gained the status of a recognizable spring event in eastern Croatia, and the organizers state that it has been recognized as a TOP event of the Croatian Tourist Board, the holder of the European EFFE label for significant cultural festivals and the winner of the Simply the Best tourism award.
In the program structure of this year’s edition, the BAŠTINA.HR program particularly stands out, conceived as a presentation of Croatian traditional customs, musical expressions, dances and other forms of intangible heritage. Such a concept builds on the broader framework of the protection of intangible cultural heritage, which UNESCO defines through living practices, knowledge, skills, customs, performing arts and traditions that communities transmit from generation to generation. Croatia has several inscribed elements of intangible cultural heritage on UNESCO lists, including, according to UNESCO, bećarac, the silent circle dance, the Međimurje folk song, klapa singing, the Sinjska Alka, gingerbread craft, the art of dry-stone walling, Lipizzan horse-breeding traditions and other forms of living heritage.
Such a context gives the festival a broader meaning than that of a purely entertainment-tourism event. It introduces into public space traditions that are often preserved in local communities, cultural and artistic societies, families, associations, schools and smaller places, and then presents them to a wider audience. Marina Sekulić, director of the Vukovar Tourist Board, emphasized at the presentation of the program that for eight years the festival has been bringing together bearers and guardians of intangible cultural heritage from Croatia and abroad, with the aim of presenting the richness of tradition and identity and connecting people through the idea of togetherness.
Opening with Vukovar performers and the first meeting of majorettes
The ceremonial opening of the eighth edition of the festival has been announced for Friday, May 1, on Republic of Croatia Square, starting at 4 p.m. The program titled “Welcome to Vukovar” brings a music and dance performance by Vukovar performers and groups, including Eltz’s Pandurs, Vukovar Little Doves, Vukovar Music School, Mambo Dance Club and vocalists Mateja Ištuk, Marta Mičić and Ana Ajduković. In this way, the opening program relies on local performers and the city’s cultural forces, placing the festival from the beginning within Vukovar’s public and cultural space.
After the opening, the “Vukovar Dances” program follows, in which the Majorettes of the City of Vukovar will present themselves. This year’s festival edition also brings the 1st Meeting of Majorettes in Vukovar, where majorettes from Rijeka, Karlovac, Bjelovar, Glina, Sinj and the island of Krk are expected to participate. In the program announcement, the Vukovar Tourist Board states that this very meeting is one of the special attractions of the eighth edition of the festival, and the ceremonial opening will be connected with their presentation and the festival atmosphere in the city center.
The first festival day will end with a music program intended for a wider audience. The concert “Believe in Love”, dedicated to Zdenko Runjić, one of the most important authors of Croatian popular music, will be held on the main stage. Songs from his opus will be performed by the finalists of the first and second seasons of the show The Voice Kids Croatia. Later the same evening, at 9:30 p.m. on Republic of Croatia Square, Trio Gušt will perform, announced as the performer who will give the first day of the festival its final concert tone. Visitors planning to stay throughout the entire weekend can, along with the festival program, check
accommodation offers in Vukovar in time, especially because of several evening events at the same location.
Day of remembrance, patriotic songs and a program marked by reverence
Saturday, May 2, will have a different tone in the festival program due to the commemoration of the 35th anniversary of the deaths of 12 Croatian police officers in Borovo Selo. In its publications, the Ministry of the Interior states that the tragic events in Borovo Selo occurred on May 2, 1991, when twelve Croatian police officers who were taking part in an operation to rescue two colleagues captured during a police patrol were killed in an ambush. For this reason, the second festival day is programmatically adapted to a commemorative atmosphere and remembrance of one of the most difficult early events of the Homeland War.
In the evening part of the program, a concert of patriotic songs titled “Voices of Remembrance” has been announced. According to the organizers’ announcement, the best-known patriotic songs will be performed by finalists of the first and second seasons of the show The Voice Kids Croatia. The program is conceived as a musical expression of reverence, but also as a way for the anniversary to be marked in public space, with an emphasis on remembrance, respect and togetherness. Mayor Marijan Pavliček emphasized at the presentation that on May 2 Vukovar remembers the suffering of 12 police officers in Borovo, which is why there will be no larger entertainment events that day, except for the evening program of patriotic songs.
Such a program schedule shows the organizers’ effort for the festival not to be merely a series of stage performances, but also an event that adapts to the calendar of local and national memory. Vukovar is a city in which cultural, tourist and memorial content often overlap, and precisely this layering is an important part of its public identity. In this sense, this year’s festival connects the celebration of City Day, the presentation of heritage and the commemoration of events that have a strong place in contemporary Croatian history.
Sunday brings City Day, BAŠTINA.HR and a concert by Danijela Martinović
The third festival day, Sunday, May 3, coincides with the Day of the City of Vukovar and the feast day of Saints Philip and James. On that day, the central cultural and artistic program BAŠTINA.HR has been announced, in which Croatian gems included on UNESCO lists of the world’s intangible cultural heritage and a wider circle of traditional customs and performance practices will be presented. Cultural and artistic societies and vocal ensembles from different parts of Croatia will participate in the program, with special attention devoted to the traditional customs of Croats from Vojvodina and Bosanska Posavina.
The inclusion of customs of Croats outside the borders of the Republic of Croatia gives the program an additional dimension, because the festival does not view heritage only through administrative borders, but through communities that preserve language, song, dance, costume, family and religious customs and other forms of cultural memory. Precisely such forms of heritage are often the most sensitive to change, migration, demographic pressures and the weakening of transmission between generations. For this reason, their presentation at large public events also has an educational role, especially when it takes place before an audience that does not encounter these traditions every day.
The Sunday program also includes children’s activities. The traditional parade of children from Vukovar kindergartens with the spring greeting “Flower Corso” has been announced, as well as the program “We Are Small but We Are Important”, in which Vukovar kindergartens participate. In this way, the festival also addresses the youngest audience, not only through entertainment, but also through the inclusion of children in city programs and public events. In the evening, starting at 8:30 p.m. on Republic of Croatia Square, Danijela Martinović will perform, whose concert has been announced as the final major music event of the festival weekend.
Eco-ethno fair, street performers and attractions for families
Alongside the main stage programs, this year’s festival also brings an Eco-ethno fair on the Vukovar corso, with exhibitors from different parts of Croatia. The fair section is important because it combines the tourism and economic dimensions of the event: it brings visitors closer to authentic products, traditional skills, local flavors and handicrafts, while enabling exhibitors to have direct contact with the audience. Such content is often one of the reasons why cultural events have a broader effect than the festival program itself, because they include small producers, family farms, associations and creative crafts.
Special attractions for families will include the Flintstones car race, the promotion of Mammothfest from Mohovo, a guest appearance by the Toy Festival from Ivanić-Grad and the first arrival of the Christmas Village from Velika Gorica, which will bring elements of Christmas atmosphere into the May festival setting. The organizers have also announced the “Heroes of the Street” program, in which street and circus entertainers, clowns and performers will participate. This type of program is especially important for enlivening public spaces because it does not depend exclusively on the stage, but takes place among visitors, in streets and squares.
Guests from Ukraine, the Vuala group from Lviv, are also arriving in Vukovar for the first time, with the street theatre program “Colors of the Circus”. Their arrival expands the international dimension of the festival and shows that the event, although focused on Croatian heritage and identity, remains open to cooperation and cultural exchange. Alongside theatre programs and performances for children and adults, the festival thus gains a performance layer that complements the folklore, music, fair and memorial content. For visitors who want to follow several programs during the day, a practical option is to plan
accommodation near the main festival locations in Vukovar.
Free program and organizational support
According to the organizers’ announcement, all content and programs of the 8th “SVI zaJEDNO HRVATSKO NAJ” Festival will be free for visitors. This is an important element of accessibility, especially for events held in public city spaces and involving different age groups. Free admission allows for greater audience flow, easier inclusion of families with children and spontaneous attendance at individual programs, which makes the festival part of city life and not only an event for visits planned in advance.
This year’s festival is taking place in co-organization by the City of Vukovar and the Vukovar Tourist Board, with the Croatian House Materina priča as the bearer of the creative concept of the festival program. The agency Organizers Without Borders and the Croatian House “Materina priča” are also listed as organizers in the Tourist Board announcement. Financial support is provided by the City of Vukovar, the Croatian Tourist Board, the Tourist Board of Vukovar-Srijem County and Vukovar-Srijem County. Such a circle of partners shows that the festival is positioned as both a cultural and a tourist event, with local, county and national significance.
For Vukovar, the festival comes at a time when the city presents itself through several layers of identity: as a place of memory, as a city on the Danube, as a tourist destination, as a space of cultural encounters and as an environment that marks an important historical jubilee. The program from May 1 to 3 therefore brings not only a series of concerts and performances, but also a broader message about heritage as living content that is transmitted, performed, shown, learned and shared in public space. At the end of the festival weekend, on City Day, that message will be joined with the celebration of 795 years of Vukovar as a free royal town and with a program that, according to the organizers’ announcements, wants to emphasize togetherness as the fundamental idea of the event.
Sources:- City of Vukovar – official announcement on the presentation of the program for the Day of the City of Vukovar and the 8th Festival “SVI zaJEDNO HRVATSKO NAJ” (link)- Vukovar Tourist Board – announcement and festival program from May 1 to 3, 2026 (link)- SVI zaJEDNO HRVATSKO NAJ – official festival website with program information (link)- Glas Slavonije – report from the press conference in Vukovar on April 24, 2026 (link)- UNESCO – overview of elements of intangible cultural heritage connected with Croatia on UNESCO lists (link)- Ministry of Culture and Media of the Republic of Croatia – context of the protection and promotion of Croatian intangible cultural heritage on UNESCO lists (link)- Ministry of the Interior of the Republic of Croatia – official context of the commemoration of the deaths of 12 Croatian police officers in Borovo Selo (link)
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