An Unexpected Detour, Ten Days, Four Years on Croatia.
On the way out of Berlin,
I pull out some of my light summer reading, a paperback I found at the UCLA co-op book exchange. Balkans: Nationalism, War and the Great Powers, 1804-1999, by Misha Glenny.
The book highlights and fleshes out a lot of the themes from my interviews across the region, starting in Croatia four years ago. A particularly painful theme we saw in Sarajevo involves friends turning on friends. This theme played out in vexing form during the Cold War. In one painful chapter a Romanian describes the process of interrogation of dissidents, compelling them to name names of friends and in a final step of dissolution self, to torture them yourself.
We first traveled to Croatia, then Bosnia four years ago, learning about the war we’d watched unfold three decades prior when we were kids. I had a sense the whole time that we were looking at ourselves. That the mirror turned backwards revealed plenty about us, and our impulse to support a strongman.
The story of our ten days in Croatia unfolded in dozens of conversations, over beer and food, cooking together, on a beach, and finding something in a dialogue about a region and its history, and the conflicts that go back a thousand years.
July 28/9
Berlin to Split flight.
Arriving, its pouring, again. We stop at a waterfront bar. Two hours till our ferry leaves. No ferry. No problem. Grab a beer. Take in the view of the old city of Split. Not our first time here. Talk with Mom about her Mom's trip down the Adriatic Coast all those years ago.
Boat to Vis is from 6c, says the lady selling tickets. Leaves at 1800, she tells us. No boat at 1745. No it's 6A, says our waiter looking at the rain, pouring rain. The boats down there, he says. It's about to leave. We run to grab our boat in a downpour. Just in time for our bumpy 90 minute journey to Vis, a Croatian island off the Dalmatian Coast, in the Adriatic Sea.
Parts of the ancient city walls remain in Vic. It feels strange arriving. Our room looks out into the water. We walk through the little town, getting oriented, poking about, noting a market, nearby, stopping for a bite at a Mediterranean restaurant. Talk with our waiter about history.
He's from Serbia, working here for the summer. He feels as if his home has been victimized by history. He even he refers to 1389, the Ottoman sultan victor, beating the Serbs. With the distinct Serbian point of view that rarely forgets. Orthodox, from Serbia, he tells told us about a nationalist, anti humanist religious manifesto called Svetosavlje Kao, filosofija života by
Justin popović. But he puts the name down on our phone. (We read some passages from the nationalist track our waiter told us about. The usual Orthodox social controls).
And we walk home to blue skies in Vis, the oldest town in Croatia, dating back to 397 BCE. Bluest waters, Croatia, its good to be back, from grey skies to Blue.
The next morning, we walked out to get a sense of things, stop for a coffee. And make our way to the Archaeology Museum, originally a Habsburg Era, 19th-century Austrian fortress, that played a crucial role in the Battle of Vis in 1866. Today, it houses dozens of 2000 year old Greek amphora. These amphorae, large clay vessels used for storage and transport, were often found in shipwrecks, and the museum's collection includes examples from various shipwrecks discovered in the Adriatic Sea. One notable discovery is the "Peristera" shipwreck, which contained thousands of amphorae, possibly filled with wine. The amphorae in the museum offer insights into ancient Greek trade, shipbuilding techniques, and the types of goods transported, such as wine and olive oil.
Looking at them, an amicable archaeologist walked us through the space. Do you know anything about this place, he asked. No. Who has been here, I asked. Oh the Greeks, Romans, Byzantine Empire, the Venetian Hamburg, French, English, Italia, Yugoslavia, even the European Community. What about the Ottoman Empire? Some of Croatia were under Ottoman rule from the 16th to the end of the 17th century, particularly in Slavonia, Dalmatia, and the borderlands known as Krajina. However, the entire territory of Croatia was never fully occupied by the Ottoman Empire, he continued. What do people think of Yugoslavia here? Love and hate, he told us. Love and hate, we have a lot of Serbs here. We were in war with them thirty years ago. Now no one cares. Now it's better. You think about those days, Sarajevo beautiful Sarajevo with it's Habsburg and communist architecture. Empire after empire. He showed us a school in the hills that was made by Tito. Everyone loved Tito. Still, the tensions that put it to an end, that
conflict is everywhere, from Northern Ireland and England to Thailand and Cambodia....
July 30
Komiza, Isola de Vic
Woke up for a swim outside and made our way across the island to
Komiža, "a Croatian coastal town lying on the western coast of the island of Vis in the central part of the Adriatic Sea.. located at the foot of the Hum hill with a Mediterranean climate..." With books and beach towels in hand, we explored, taking in the Venetian architecture, stopped at various beaches, parking most of the afternoon near a tiki bar amongst Italian tourists, cavorting about, napping, swimming, and looking at their phones, reading and dreaming the warm afternoon away... After dinner we talked with our host about the civil war years here. The Yugoslav military moving in. This peaceful place becoming a military base. The Siege in Srebrenica from July of 1995, when 8000 Bosnia boys massacred.
Today, Trump scares everyone. It's the same absurd self serving logic they heard during the war. And the Gaza Riviera talk scared people. It's cruel. And too many people are feeling priced out. The only thing the EU doesn't regulate is our toilet paper…
July 31
Woke up early for our journey through the islands from Komiza...Misco is our guide. He tells us about Tito placing the military here in 1991 during the war. He was a big deal says Misco...telling us about his military moves during the wars...An Australian on the tour told me about his father escaping from Yugoslavia in the 1950's. He wanted to go to the states. He ended up in Australia. There, he became a soccer player
After Tito died, his family went back, not him. He had spent time in jail for saying he supported Croatia, not Yugoslavia. He was outspoken...Today, Croatia is making its way forward. The rhetoric from the US reminds them of the old Serbians during the war, nationalist and bellicose. Island after island, after cave after cave, we swam... More stories, more waves, all day long…
Early rise after strange dreams about new research projects, running away, on the escape, off on a small boat to the city of Hvar. Talked with an American soldier dating a German. He said he could not imagine the US really having a civil war. He didn't know who he'd shoot. Well, neither did General Lee, trained at Ft Hamilton, in Brooklyn in the Union army. He knew which side to pick.
Arriving in Hvar, it feels like Istanbul for a second, a city on the water, birds about, breakfast on a flower terrace... During the Yugoslav Wars, Hvar Island was indirectly impacted by the conflict, primarily due to its role as a refuge for displaced people. The Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) blockaded the island in 1991, leading to shortages of essential supplies like food. Later, Hvar became a haven for refugees, particularly from Vukovar and later Bosnia and Herzegovina, significantly impacting the island's economy and infrastructure.
The Hvar tourist board notes..."The former Yugoslav army (JNA) attacked Croatia in July 1991 and Hvar was blockaded the following month. The main effects of the blockade were shortages of foodstuffs normally brought from the mainland...and main medical services.
After the sinking of some JNA ships from land fire on Brac and the Peljesac Peninsula, a ceasefire was signed and the navy left Sucuraj territorial waters on December 3 1991.
The situation on the ground in the mainland was dire, with large tracts of Croatia occupied. A steady stream of refugees had to be housed, and a logical supplier of beds was Hvar, devoid of tourists due to the conflict. Refugees, particularly from the front-line town of Vukovar, began to arrive by boat.
The refugee situation deteriorated in 1992 as Croatia took in numerous refugees from the brutal war in Bosnia and Hercegovina...
A UN fact-finding mission in August 1992 found that there were 624 displaced persons and 3,727 refugees on Hvar, of whom 1,323 were in private accommodation...
Although never invaded, Hvar did experience enemy attack, and the tiny airstrip in Stari Grad was bombed at least twice. The main result of the bombing was denying local people emergency services .
Aug 1
Moms home.
What a relief.
Walked through the old town of Hvar, with 12th century walls and a so to speak 16th century Gothic Quarter of it's
Stari Grad, Faros (literally means “Old Town”) the oldest town on the Hvar island. It lies on the north side of the Hvar island, at the end of the five miles deep bay, protected to the north by the hills of the Kabal peninsula, and by the high mountain ridge of Hvar to the south
Traveling here, i'm reflecting on the fall of Yugoslavia... on personality cults which do not sustain themselves.... on the propaganda machines... the Pravda official accounts... I read that Trump fires labor statistics worker, says Washington Post... "Trump fires labor statistics chief after large revision to jobs report
Erika McEntarfer, the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, was ousted after revised data showed higher unemployment in May..." Another friend reports pictures of him at his work place. Everyone wants to deface the pics. But are afraid to lose their job. This story is not going to end well.
Aug 2
Baby C dreams about getting away from the US, spending our summers sailing between Greece and Italy, Croatia and Albania , who knows, Constantinople. These days no one really knows where to go. It's strange on the road, reflecting on what I see from abroad, compared to what I see here, looking at wind and waves, the world and our dramas, reading about the histories of the region, as Baby C reads Orwell's down and out in paris and London, giggling on the beach, back to our little nook with a garden overlooking the city below... chatting with friends here and back at home... One friend in the US suggests I read more about the Otpor movement in Yugoslavia as an example of non violent revolution. The Otpor! movement, a Serbian youth movement played a significant role in the overthrow of Slobodan Milošević's regime in Yugoslavia. Founded in 1998, Otpor utilized nonviolent resistance tactics to challenge Milošević's authoritarian rule, which was marked by corruption, media censorship, and human rights abuses. The movement's success is attributed to its strategic focus on youth mobilization, its innovative use of nonviolent tactics, and its ability to capitalize on public discontent with the regime.
A last week on the road, on the move, feeling between this and that, a view outside a window, a glimpse into another world for a second... On the way, next bus in an hour.
Aug 3
Found ourselves further out on the coast, at a secluded cove, where people camp, swim, eat. There's a travellers bar with a bartender from South Africa. She told us about life back home, apartheid possibly returning... Talked with another man from Slovenia. His parents loved Tito. I told him I was reading about the Balkans. He said the conflict goes back a thousand years. We swam all day, by the cove, with agave poking out of the rocks. Cooked some food. Jumped in bed before a wild storm, cozy in our tent... Woke up to blue skies..
Aug 4/5
Today is a holiday, Victory Day. So I got a ride to Jelsa, a nearby town in Croatia, on the island of Hvar, looking for fish, off to the market, exploring the waterfront. Picked up a few whole fish. A neighbor from Slovenia helped me prep the fish, taking out the guts, throwing them back to the sea, for the other fish, scaling them. Making a fire, grilling them for 17 minutes a side. Chatting about literature and the old Yugoslav days here before Slovenia's deceptively easy exit from the union. Chatting with a few others about travel here, to and from Sarajevo. And old novel
The Bridge on the Drina, a vivid depiction from 1945 of the suffering history has imposed upon the people of Bosnia from the late 16th century to the beginning of World War...off to swim after dinner... floating in the water... And sleep, dreams about the wild...greeted by a symphony of cicadas…
Aug 6
Each day I wake up, greeting the agave tree outside outside our room.
Swim and look about, there is the agave tree, holding the cliff together
Dignified and stoic.
Blue waves about
Holding up the cove
Tall elegant
Eternity in the lights in the waves
Korchella Island in the distance.
People on boats
Kids swimming with their moms.
Slovakians drinking beer recalling their two week early for independence.
Green blue water
The sound of cicadas in the air, along with Croatian, Dutch, French words...
Standing dividing the horizon
Above us all
Greeting us
Resolute
Back in the states, the teenager repaired their bike, told me about Too Loud a Solitude, a novel on the permanence and intangibility of ideas which may, for a time, come to manifest in the form of books and words. The indestructibility of ideas is contrasted with the material form of books, which are repeatedly destroyed.
Aug 7
Last swim and goodbye to our little camp in Hvar. Didier drove us to catch the 1130 am ferry to Split, telling us about his year of travel from Europe to India to Southeast Asia, to Australia, New Zealand, back to Malaysia, over the Pacific to Hawaii, Los Angeles, a road trip across the Southern US, South to Ecuador, Argentina, on the way back home. Some Jazz musicians from Uruguay suggested we stay there for a bit. A big world ahead. Didier was happy to be done with his trip, back to Croatia where the waters are clear. I also love the Carribbean, the Gulf of Mexico, the Pacific, even the chilly Atlantic... The Aegean, but still the Adriatic is special... The world has shown us a lot…
Arriving in Split, we explored the old market, the Archaeology Museum and Fine Arts Gallery, exploring this old Venetian town and it's complicated histories, arts and ideas. Travel days have their ups and downs, lost wires, hot sun and short fuses. Still the warm light and and white stones lifted us, sitting at a taverna for a bowl of risotto and pasta, Greek salad, and crisp Croatian white wine. A statue of Marko Marulić Splićanin, b 18 August 1450 – 5 January 1524, a Croatian poet and Renaissance humanist, in the distance. Marulić's epic poem Judita "is the first long poem in Croatian"... Something to learn in every street.
