Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 16:04, 28 January 2006

The Morava or Great Morava (Морава or Велика Морава) is a major river system in Serbia.

Length

The Velika (Great) Morava is created by the confluence of Južna Morava (Southern Morava or Јужна Морава) and Zapadna Morava (Western Morava or Западна Морава) located near the small town of Stalać, a major railway junction in central Serbia. From there, until it flows into the Danube northeast of town of Smederevo, Velika Morava is 185 km long. With it's longer branch, Zapadna Morava, it's 487 km long. Južna Morava, which represent natural headwater of Morava, used to be longer than Zapadna Morava, but due to the regulations of river bed & melioration, today is shorter. Regulations were made on all three Morava rivers, and they all used to be much longer, so Morava was over 600 km long. Today, the most distant water source in Morava watershed is the source of river Ibar, right & longest tributary of Zapadna Morava, originating in Montenegro, which gives Ibar-Zapadna Morava-Velika Morava system length of 550 km, and that still makes it the lognest waterway within the Balkan Peninsula.

Geography

The area of drainage basin of Velika Morava is 6,126 km2, and of whole Morava system 37,444 km2 (of that, 1,237 km2 in Bulgaria), which covers 42,38% of Serbia. Velika Morava flows thru the most fertile and densely populated area of Central Serbia, called Morava river valley, or Pomoravlje. Pomoravlje actually was formed in a fosil bay of a vast, ancient Panonian Sea which dried out 200,000 years ago. On about half of it's length it passes thru beautiful Bagrdan gorge (Bagrdanska klisura). In past centuries, it was known for it's seemingly endless forests, but there is almost nothing left today of those big old woods. It flows into the Danube between villages of Kulič & Dubravica, in a big coal mining basin of Kostolac, one of two major in it's drainage basin, other one being Resava coal basin, in valley of the Velika Morava's right tributary Resava. Average discharge of Velika Morava on it's confluence with Danube is 255 m3/s (120 m3/s brought by Zapadna Morava, 100 m3/s by Južna Morava, and 35 m3/s amounted by Velika Morava itself).

Tributaries

Tributaries of Velika Morava are short in length, longest one being Jasenica (79 km) and others rarely exceeding 50 km. Right tributaries are: Jovanovačka reka, Crnica, Ravanica, Resava and Resavica (or Resavčina). Left tributaries are more numerous, including: Kalenićka reka, Lugomir, Belica, Lepenica, Rača, and Jasenica. Many of them don't carry much water, but in rainy years, they are known for causing major floods, which is the big problem of the whole Morava river system. Before it meets Danube, Morava splits, creating 47 km long arm called Jezava, which flows into the Danube separately, in the town of Smederevo, and it's joined by longer (51 km) river Ralja, from the left.

Melioration

Morava represents text book example of a meandering river. It used to be 245 km long, but from it's origin, until it flows into the Danube, there is only 118 km in length, so it's meandering ratio (118:245) is one of the highest in Europe. River bed is 80-200 m wide and deep as much as 10 m. Notorious for it's flooding, Morava changed it's course many times, and old river bends became small lakes, known as moravište. Južna Morava, with extremly high erosion in it's drainage basin, brings huge amounts of materials which are elevating Velika Morava's river bed making floods even more often. Begining in 1966, huge works began on all thre rivers to prevent future floodings. Series of reservoirs were made on tributaries (lakes Bovan, Ćelije, Gazivode, etc), and meanders were cut thru, making river courses straightened, which made them shorter (in case of Velika Morava, from 245 to 185 km). It was projected that it will get short as much as 152 km, and that it will became navigable again. All together, 18 reservoirs are projected, 23 meanders to get cut, a series of embankments and intensive afforestation. However, since late 1980's and especially since 1990's, with ecomonic crisis and later series of wars in former Yugoslavia, this all stopped. Morava and it's tributaries still floods often so as it's bed still gets elevated, despite opening a dozens of gravel digging companies in cities & villages near the river's upper course (Lozovik, Lugavčina, Lučica, Velika Plana, etc).

Navigation

Today, Velika Morava is only navigable for 3 km, near it's mouth. In history, it was navigable all the way to the city of Ćuprija, for about 3/4 of it's length. But, as mentioned before, Velika Morava literally gets burried under the materials brought by Južna Morava. When melioration program began in 1966, it was projected that it will become navigable again, in the first phase to Ćuprija, and in the next all the way to Stalać, making it 100% navigable. Even at that time this didn't seem much likely and probably was more wish of some local politician, which was custom in Communist period. None of this was made real so far. In addition to this, now and then, idea of creating Danube-Morava-Vardar-Aegean Sea navigable canal pops up. Technical problems of making this waterway are enormous (neither Morava or Vardar are navigable), it is not sure how much it would be used, and presumably it will cost way too much, so it reamins mostly as a sort of popular curiosity.

Settlements

Even though it was always the most populated part of Serbia, disastrous floodings prevented people to settle on the river banks itself. The only city actually urbanizing river bank is Ćuprija, but it payed price more than once (including several times in the 1990's) being struck by floods. Others cities are built little bit away from river itself, including: Paraćin, Jagodina, Batočina, Lapovo, Svilajnac, Velika Plana, Požarevac and Smederevo. Smaller places and villages include: Varvarin, Glogovac, Markovac, Veliko Orašje, Miloševac and Lozovik.

Tradition

Either as a very fertile land, or as a natural path between Europe and Asia, Morava river valley attracted humans from early times. The Romans called it Margus (in addition to that, Zapadna Morava was named Brongus, and Južna Morava was Angrus). Present city of Ćuprija existed in Roman times as Horreum Margi (meaning The Granary of Morava). In Serbian history, it's valley became cradle of modern Serbian state in the beginning of the XIX century (so called Moravian Serbia; Moravska Srbija). Many songs are written in celebration of Morava, it's fertility, but most of them sing also about causalties and damages done by the river during floods. Songs are even made today about it, and the most famous are: Oj Moravo (Oh, Morava), Moravo, tija reko (Morava, you quiet river), Uz Moravu vetar duva (Wind blows up the Morava), Na Moravi vodenica stara (Old mill on Morava), Moravac kolo (Morava kolo), etc. Oj Moravo may be the most characteristic:

'Oj Moravo, moje selo ravno, Kad si ravno što si vodoplavno

Kiša pade, te Morava dođe, Te poplavi moje selo ravno

A u selu Jovanove dvore, I u dvoru Jovanovu ljubu'

Oh, Morava, my plain village, If if it's so plain, why do you flood it

Rains came, so Morava rose, And flooded my plain village

And in the village it flooded John's home, And in it, his loving wife'

References

• Mala Prosvetina Enciklopedija, Third edition (1985); Prosveta; ISBN 86-07-00001-2
• Jovan Đ. Marković (1990): "Encyclopaedic Geographiy Lexicon of Yugoslavia"; Svjetlost-Sarajevo; ISBN 86-01-02651-6

This Serbia location article is a stub. You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it.

• v
• t
• e

• Serbia geography stubs
• Geography of Serbia
• Rivers of Serbia and Montenegro
• Šumadija