Gola, Koprivnica-Križevci County

Gola is the centre of Prekodravlje, the lowland territory on the Drava’s left bank beside the Croatian–Hungarian border. It is one of Podravina’s younger villages: parish registers record the name Gola in 1822, when organised settlement brought families from Drava-side holdings, Hungary and neighbouring districts. The river shaped both the site and daily life, as old channels and floods once made access to the parish at Drnje difficult. Within Gola, the principal sights are the Church of the Epiphany, completed in 1840, and the Old School gallery, which presents artists from Prekodravlje. Naïve art is woven into the village’s identity through local painters such as Ivan, Stjepan and Mladen Večenaj. A few kilometres from the centre, Ješkovo occupies a horseshoe-shaped former channel of the Drava, bordered by reeds and supporting wetland birds, amphibians and fish. Art Centar Ješkovo brings sculpture and ceramics into this riverside landscape, where a 10.52-metre wooden pike has become an unmistakable local emblem. Gola is therefore best approached as a base for exploring Prekodravlje’s settlement history, naïve painting and surviving Drava wetlands.

Gola developed in Prekodravlje, across the Drava’s present main channel from Drnje and Koprivnica. Organised settlement began in 1822, and the village took its name from a local tract of land called Gola. The new community built a wooden Chapel of the Epiphany in 1823–24; the masonry parish church followed in 1840, with its tower completed in 1842. Gola’s later cultural identity was shaped by naïve painters from the Večenaj family and other Prekodravlje artists, whose work is displayed in the Old School gallery. This combination of a comparatively recent settlement history, parish architecture and local painting distinguishes Gola from the older Podravina centres south of the river.