The Dead Channel – Balkanization In Rijeka: The Italian-Yugoslav Experience (Part Two)

In the geo-political chess game that took place in the post-World War I world, the two main ethnic groups in the of Fiume/Rijeka (Italians/Croats) were pawns used to advance the interests of Italy and Yugoslavia. This was especially true of the former as Fiume became intertwined with the rise of fascism in Italy. The situation would take several years to sort out. In another one of those post-World War One concoctions which lead to strife rather than peace, the peacemakers attempted to impose a settlement with the Treaty of Rapallo. This put an end to Gabrielle D’Annunzio’s so called Italian Regency of Canaro and led to the creation of the Free State of Fiume, an autonomous entity. It would take several more years and yet another agreement – the Treaty of Rome – to put an end to the free state’s survival as Italian Fascism ensured that Fiume would become part of the Kingdom of Italy.

On the border – Susak (Yugoslavia) and Fiume (Italy) divided by The Dead Channel

A Temporary Settlement – The Free State of Fiume
The arrangement imposed upon Fiume/Rijeka was contentious. Italy and Yugoslavia were to share the city. This was a sort of precursor to the East Berlin/West Berlin where the border between the two ran through the city. The border was not a new one, rather it restored an older one known as the “Corpus separatum” which had been in existence prior to World War I. This division had been between a Hungarian administered section and one ruled by Croatians. The border used an existing natural feature. Known by the less than appealing name as “the dead channel”, it was a former channel of the Rijecine River. The river had been diverted upstream from the channel for flood control, thus it was dead. Unfortunately, “the dead channel” was alive with consternation when a new border between the Italian and Yugoslav (Croat) parts of Fiume/Rijeka was imposed upon it. A wall was also erected to better define the border between the two sides.

Fiume/Rijeka was supposed to be a relatively autonomous free city. Instead, it became a divided city with the urban core under Italian administration and the Susak district falling under Yugoslav rule. Separation and segregation led to many hard feelings. These exploded into violence during the Second World War. By then D’Annunzio’s 1919 occupation of the city was a distant memory. He had long since been trumped by Benito Mussolini, but the Italian foothold in Rijeka could not last any longer than fascism. The Yugoslavs would not tolerate Italian communities on land they now controlled. Rijeka became a Yugoslav city through and through. It would later become part of Croatia when Yugoslavia imploded. Today, Rijeka is the third largest city in Croatia with an economically vibrant port. The Italian claims on Fiume/Rijeka belong to another era. One, like the ethnic Italian population of the city, that no longer exists.

On the verge of change – Photo of Fiume prior to World War I (Credit: fortepan.hu)

Users & Losers – The Fate of Fiume
After Tito ascended to the helm of Yugoslav leadership there was only one place the Italians of Fiume could go and that was anywhere but home. Home was no longer Fiume. That city no longer existed, at least from a geopolitical standpoint. It is often said that the winner’s write history and they changed Fiume to Rijeka. This meant that ethnic Italians would have to return to a place many of them had never really been, the nation of Italy. While Fiume had been part of Italy from 1920 – 1944, it was never really part of Italy the way such cities as Rome, Florence or Naples were. It was on the periphery, an appendage that the fascists connected to Italy. The tether between Fiume and the Italian was always fragile. With Italy on its knees after World War II, there was nowhere for Fiume to go, but back to Yugoslavia.

For ethnic Italians who were either fleeing or forced to leave Fiume, going back to Italy could have been a safety valve. It was nothing of the sort. They were welcomed with anger by countrymen who considered them less Italian. The newcomers were competitors for scarce resources, namely jobs in an economy that was still in dire straits. This led to rioting. Nonetheless, for those Italians exiled from Fiume there was no going back. Tito’s Yugoslavia would never welcome back Italians. The only welcome they would have gotten was at a prison camp. Thus, they had no choice but stay in Italy. Fiume under Italian control had been a short lived thing, at least in an official sense. It had lasted little more than a generation. Of course, Italians had been the commercial class for much longer than that. The Republic of Venice and Austria-Hungary had always found them useful. And the Italians of Fiume allowed themselves to be used. It was in their best interest to do so until one day it was not. That day would not come until after Venice and Austria-Hungary has passed into history. Oddly enough, D’Annunzio, the prototypical nationalist Italian, had used those in Fiume for his personal rather than imperial interests. In the process he set them up ultimately for failure. And the Italians of Fiume were complicit in their own demise. World War II took care of the rest.

A Croatian port city – Rijeka at night (Credit: RijekaPhotos)

The Historian – You Can Never Leave Home
Fiume is no more, but its effect on Croatia and Italy has been lasting. Due to the failure of fascist Italy, Yugoslavia and later Croatia became the recipients of an excellent commercial port. The Yugoslavs and Croats needed the port much more than Italy ever did. It has served them well. As for Fiume’s Italian legacy, it is due to one of those unintended consequences that makes history so deliciously ironic. The man who reputedly gave the order that Benito Mussolini be killed at war’s end was Leo Valiani who was born in Fiume. Valiani’s ethnic background is representative of the tapestry of ethnicities that once called the city home. Valiani was the son of a Hungarian Jewish couple. He later became an Italian citizen.

An anti-fascist to the core, he received a five year sentence for his political activities. Up until the outbreak of World War II, Valiani had been a committed communist before becoming disenchanted with Stalin’s treatment of Poland. He eventually found his way into the Italian resistance where he became a leader. Valiani not only signed off on Mussolini’s death warrant, he also would become the primary author of Italy’s constitution. Perhaps as an outsider, the Fiume born, Jewish Valiani could objectively scrutinize and understand Italians better than most. He was certainly shaped by what had happened in his birthplace. Valiani’s life occupation was not as a politician, but as an historian. And Fiume is nothing, if not history.

Fences & Neighbors – Balkanization in Rijeka: The Italian-Yugoslav Experience (Part One)

Good fences make good neighbors or so it is said. The problem with that cliché is that it falls flat in the face of history, especially when it comes to the Balkans throughout the 19^th and 20th century where the borders were prone to change. In numerous cases, the neighbors had trouble getting along, in some places they still do. When relations between or within Balkan countries became irreconcilable the urge to fight a war was often overwhelming. Name a Balkan country and there was trouble with the neighbors. Just to name a few that were at odds: the Bulgars and Turks, the Bulgars and Greeks, the Greeks and Turks, the Slovenes and Croats, the Croats and Serbs, the Croats and Bosnians, the Bosnians and Serbs, the Serbs and Kosovars.

Problems with disputed borders and ethnic minorities have been the rule rather than the exception in the Balkans. The fences or geopolitical concoctions (Ottoman Empire, Austria-Hungary, and Yugoslavia) that kept the disputants apart were only temporary. Empires collapsed, borders shifted and ethnic groups took side. Sometimes the borders aligned with facts on the ground, sometimes not. Those outsiders who came into the Balkans found the place a powder keg, one that would eventually explode. Most famously, the Austrians first occupied then later annexed Bosnia and Herzegovina as the Ottoman Empire receded. When Austria-Hungary’s borders extended into the Balkans they became increasingly untenable.

The coveted port – Fiume/Rijeka in the late 19th century

From Fiume To Rijeka – A City By The Sea
The decision to annex Bosnia by Austria-Hungary was a fatal one that ended up leading to World War I and the end of an empire. Involvement by outside powers in the Balkans was a bad idea as much after World War I as before it. The Italian experience was less than successful and eventually turned disastrous. The Italians were in dispute with Yugoslavia over what they considered to be historically Italian cities, towns, and villages along the eastern Adriatic coast. The Italian-Yugoslav experience in Fiume (Italian)/Rijeka (Serbo-Croatian) has been lost to history. The Italians have vanished from a city where they were the ruling class at the beginning of the 20^th century. Rijeka is now a Croatian city through and through. The greater Rijeka area has 200,000 inhabitants, only 2,700 of which are ethnic Italians. In 1910, nine times that number of Italians called the city home. They outnumbered Croats by nearly two to one. During the interwar period, a border was drawn to separate the two sides. That border has been obliterated from maps. Borders in the Balkans have always been movable, even when a non-Balkan nation gets involved.

Today Rijeka is a bustling port city along Croatia’s coast. The third largest city in the country behind only Zagreb and Split in population. It has long been known more for commerce than tourism. This sets it apart from most other communities along the Dalmatian coast. Historically, most tourists came to Rijeka so they could leave it. The city was and still is a major stop along the ferry circuit. Some visitors are finding that Rijeka has a unique history worth exploring. In 2020 Rijeka was named a European Capital of Culture. This brought much needed recognition to a city that had one of the more complex geopolitical arrangements during the first half of the 20^th century. Rijeka might not have the cachet of a Split or Dubrovnik, but what it lacks in architectural aesthetics or tourist cachet, it more than makes up for with a wealth of history, especially during the 20^th century. A time when the city changed empires, rulers, and nations with alarming frequency. To get some idea of just how confusing Rijeka’s recent past can be, consider that it was part of Austria-Hungary, Italy and Yugoslavia, Yugoslavia and Croatia all in the span of a seventy-five years. During that time, it was also part of several strange geopolitical concoctions imposed upon it by dictatorial regimes that attempted to create the city they wanted rather than the one which already existed.

Postwar madness – Italians cheering D’Annunzio in 1920 after occupation of Fiume (Credit: Edward Alexander Powell)

A Matter of Pride – War For The Shore
The situation of Fiume/Rijeka after the dissolution of Austria-Hungary was complicated by postwar chaos. With its port and naval facilities, Rijeka was to important to ignore. This led to conflict and lasting consternation. On one side were Italian nationalists. Foremost among them was firebrand poet/militarist Gabrielle D’Annunzio who led a force that managed to occupy the city and set up a political entity known as the Italian Regency of Canaro. D’Annunzio whipped up Italian uber nationalists into a fury. During World War I certain promises had been made to Italy if they would join the allied side. These were part of what was known as the Treaty of London and included territorial inducements for Italy all along the Istrian and Dalmatian coasts. This included Rijeka. While prewar Rijeka had an Italian majority, it had little to offer postwar Italy. The city was small and unimportant for anything other than Italian national pride.

The Italians already had plenty of seaports. Having Fiume as a port would make little difference from an economic standpoint except that it would help facilitate trade further up the Adriatic at Trieste, a more important Italian port further to the north and on the edge of Yugoslavia. Italian politicians knew Fiume held little of value to their country. Unfortunately, D’Annunzio’s assertiveness meant that they could not cede it without a backlash from nationalists. Fiume was a symbol of Italian irredentist claims. Without it and other historically Italian influenced communities along the eastern Adriatic shoreline, Italian politicians would have trouble explaining that the sacrifices of World War I had been worth the hundreds of thousands of lives lost. Nonetheless, if Fiume became part of Italy it would be little more than a backwater. A place easy to forget and hard to defend.   

A Croatian city – Rijeka (Credit: Antonio199cro)

Control Freaks – Exploiting An Opportunity
On the other side was the newly formed nation of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes (renamed Yugoslavia) struggling to maintain control over the city. The Croats had a much greater interest in the city. If they could get control of Rijeka, it would immediately become Yugoslavia’s main port. The city offered tantalizing economic prospects. Facilities had already been established under the Austro-Hungarian Empire. It had been the Hungarian portion of the empire’s main outlet to the sea. When the empire disintegrated the Hungarian’s exited the scene. Leaving Italy and Yugoslavia to stake their claims.  The port was waiting to be exploited by its next owner. 

Click here for: The Dead Channel – Balkanization In Rijeka: The Italian-Yugoslav Experience (Part Two)

A Near Death Experience – Veliki Brijuni: Khrushchev, Tito & The Hungarian Revolution

Croatia has 1,185 islands, islets, and reefs, but only one played host to a secretive and highly consequential meeting that was a world historical event in the autumn of 1956. On a blustery night while storms raged over the mountains of Yugoslavia, a Soviet made Ilyushin-14 was traveling from Sofia, Bulgaria to Pula. The twin propeller plane was slammed by turbulence as it travelled through the eye of a nasty thunderstorm. Aboard the plane was Nikita Khrushchev, who was on a mission to ensure that the Communist bloc nations, even a heretical one like Josip Broz Tito’s Yugoslavia would allow the Red Army to crush the Hungarian Revolution without interference. Khrushchev hoped to overcome the residual tension between the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia which had ebbed and flowed since Tito broke with Stalin in 1949. Khrushchev’s post-Stalin thaw had tempered relations. He now wanted to meet with Tito and ensure his support for a forthcoming offensive on Budapest.

The meeting place – Tito Villa on Veliki Brijuni

Khrushchev’s journey to get Tito’s consent was a striking example of the difference between his diplomatic style and that of his predecessor. Stalin only traveled abroad a handful of times during his time in power. He had a preternatural suspicion of foreigners, a trait that was reinforced when Tito pulled Yugoslavia out of the Soviet Union’s sphere of influence. Stalin would never have traveled to persuade Tito of a forthcoming military maneuver even when they were on good terms. Khrushchev was much less autocratic, a trait that would prove invaluable while managing this crisis. He needed all the friends he could get. The situation in Hungary was an existential threat to the Soviet Union and communism. The revolution had to be put down. If not, the Iron Curtain might completely collapse. If that meant Khrushchev had to do a bit of groveling before Tito, then so be it. Saving the Soviet empire was more important than saving face with the Yugoslav strongman.

To The Limit – Stretching The Nerves
Khrushchev would long remember the night of November 2nd. While meeting with Tito would be difficult, getting to his villa on Veliki Brijuni Island off the Istrian coast proved to be an even greater trial. With lightning flashes illuminating the plane’s interior, Khrushchev wondered if he would survive the flight. Later, he would recall the flight as much worse than the ones he had taken along the Eastern Front during World War II. Khrushchev was not faint of heart when it came to flying, but his plane’s journey to Pula stretched his nerves to the limit. Once the plane landed there was yet another trial to come. This one was by water. Khrushchev and Georgii Malenkov who was accompanying him were ushered into a motorboat. To get to Tito’s villa they would have to cross the Fazuna strait. On this night, the water was churned up by extremely windy conditions. Gales buffeted the small boat. The threat of capsizing was a clear and present danger. Malenkov was laid low by seasickness. Khrushchev was in better shape. He steadied himself despite the physical toil this nightmarish trip was taking on him.

Friends of convenience – Josip Tito & Nikita Khrushchev reviewing troops (Credit: Danilo Škofič)

They finally made it to Tito’s villa at 9:00 that evening. The meeting could not have gone better. Tito acceded to Khrushchev’s wishes. He knew that if the revolt successfully overthrew the communist system in Hungary that democracy would be on Yugoslavia’s doorstep. This could not be allowed. The only choice was to send in the Red Army. An overwhelming force would crush the revolution before it could consolidate gains. Tito did exert a great deal of influence over who the Soviets would install as the Hungarian leader after the revolution was put down. The Yugoslav’s convinced Khrushchev to support Janos Kadar as the choice to replace the soon to be deposed Imre Nagy. Kadar had the type of background that was amenable to both the Soviets and Hungarians. He had been imprisoned during the worst Stalinist excesses in Hungary. Nonetheless, he was a committed communist who was loyal to the Soviets. Hungarians could stomach Kadar as their leader because he had suffered under Stalinism just as many of them had. The only difference was that he remained a committed party man.

What Ifs – Eye of the Storm
The meeting between Khrushchev and Tito lasted eight hours. Before the sun rose that morning over the eastern Adriatic, the Soviet leader departed with the deal he had risked his life to secure. Dealing with Tito was easier than Khrushchev had expected. Just getting to Veliki Brijuni had been more than half the battle for him. The trial by lightning, turbulence and a tumultuous sea turned out to be the riskiest part of his journey. In the days that followed the meeting, the Hungarian Revolution was crushed by the Red Army. Hungary would stay communist for the next three decades. Those Hungarians who could, escaped westward. Others fled to Yugoslavia where they were treated with kid gloves by the Tito regime. Ironically, Tito led Yugoslavia was a stepping stone for many Hungarians who never went home and emigrated to the west. They spent time recuperating in Yugoslavia before heading abroad. Tito was a master at playing both sides of a situation. He would spend several decades leading what was known as the non-aligned movement. In essence, these were nations such as Yugoslavia that chose to remain neutral during the Cold War. They were beyond rather than above the fray. For Tito it was a move that aligned self-interest with sensibleness. Tito was a pragmatic leader. He knew when to give and when to take.

Island paradise – Veliki Brijuni part of the Brijuni Islands National Park

Khrushchev’s visit to Tito could have easily ended in disaster. One of the great what ifs in history concerns that November night. What if Khrushchev’s plane had crashed on the way to Pula? What if his motorboat journey across the Fazuni Strait had gone awry? A capsized watercraft in those stormy waters at night would have been an almost certain death sentence. If Khrushchev had died, what would have become of the Hungarian Revolution? Would a leaderless Soviet Union have crushed the Hungarians? It is impossible to say, but that does nothing to stop the speculation. The crushing of the Hungarian Revolution was a turning point for communist rule throughout Eastern Europe. Khrushchev would lead the Eastern Bloc through the stormy crisis. His trip to visit Tito was crucial to that effort, even if almost did not happen.

Sleeping Arrangements – Making Accommodations In Eastern Europe (Rendezvous With An Obscure Destiny #66b)

The older I get, the less I sleep. That is why I now value sleep more than ever before. To function properly I need between six and a half to seven hours of sleep now that I am on the wrong side of middle age. Getting enough sleep is particularly important when I am traveling in Eastern Europe. This is not easy for several reasons. One is that it takes a couple of days for my biological clock to adjust for the time difference between the United States and Eastern Europe. The other is that a good night’s rest is dependent on sleeping arrangements. No two rooms or beds are the same.

        Ready for rest – Secret Garden Hostel in Krakow

Staying Home – The Irrational & Highly Personal
Standardization is not a strong suit of accommodations in Eastern Europe. Nonetheless, there are outliers based on history rather than hospitality. For instance, I recently stayed in East Berlin at one of those concrete conurbations that grew like mushrooms in the German Democratic Republic (East Germany). The building had been transformed from a communist youth camp dormitory to a hotel. In this case, the young communists were subjected to standardization. This made the hotel rational, but impersonal. That is not usually the case. In Eastern Europe, irrational and highly personal are the norm for accommodations. It is my experience that most hotels, hostels, homes, and flats have been retrofitted. Rental properties are a major source of income for Eastern Europeans. This is an effective way for owners to top up their income in a region where earning a living is difficult. Some of them can earn a living by renting out a handful of places. This is especially true in tourist hotspots like Prague or the coast of Croatia.  

After communism ended, families were left with little more than their flats. Entrepreneurial ones who had access to cash or loans were able to purchase other flats at bargain basement prices. Others inherited flats or properties from family members. They could alter these to accommodate tourists. It is a strange and revealing experience to be met by the owner of a flat, who lives on another floor at the same apartment building. In Novi Sad, I met one owner’s son who told me that his mother owned multiple flats in the same building. She sent her son down to greet me because his English was impeccable. This was not the first time, nor would it be the last in which I had this experience. This is part of an evolution in offers of accommodation in Eastern Europe.

After the Iron Curtain fell, it was common for westerners to be confronted by old ladies offering rooms at cheap rates to anyone who showed up in a place looking for one. This was an affordable and adventurous option. I am also sure it was a memorable one. I have always wondered what it must be like to stay with a stranger that does not speak the same language. Sign language in the form of pointing was a standard form of communication. The amount of confusion must have been incredible, as well as incredibly poignant. Many things have changed for the better in the region since that time, but I am not sure booking rooms based on ratings and reviews is one of them. Trust is the most important unspoken aspect of travel. Sleeping in a stranger’s home takes a leap of faith. Those who took that leap had experiences they would never forget, for better or worse.

       On the outside looking up – Oki Doki Hostel in Warsaw

Hostel Intent – Getting In Bed With Sofia
I have spent the night in well over a hundred different accommodations during fifteen years of travel throughout Eastern Europe. My experiences have run the gamut from good to awful. Sometimes, I have slept well in less-than-ideal conditions due to exhaustion. Other times, I spent the night tossing and turning in optimal conditions. Because sleep, or the lack thereof, can make or break a trip, my best and worst travel experiences have often been affected by it. Like anyone else these days, I often rely on ratings and reviews to decide on where to stay. Sleeping arrangements are not the crap shoots they used to be back when I did not carry a smartphone. I still booked my accommodation using the internet, but I was much more likely to take chances and book ahead only a day or two in advance. Planning and preparation can lead to pleasant experiences, but there is something to be said for adverse conditions. Spending a night among strangers can be unforgettable. The best and worst place to experience this is at hostels.

Travelers rely on guidebooks and various booking sites to tell them the best places to sleep. That still does not guarantee anyone a good night’s rest. Sleeping soundly requires more than just a nice room, firm mattress, and silence. I learned this firsthand during my early travels in Eastern Europe when I stayed in hostels rather than hotels or flats. This was before Airbn and I had yet to begin using booking.com Though I was already well past the age at which most travelers stay at hostels, I looked forward to the experience of meeting people who were young and full of energy. My first stay in a hostel was in Sofia, Bulgaria. I was already in my late thirties and did not relish the idea of sleeping in the same room with anyone, let alone a group of strangers. Fortunately, Hostel Mostel which is a legendary accommodation in Bulgaria among the young and footloose offered single occupancy rooms.

           Looking up - Oki Doki Hostel

Making Noise – Fears of Intimacy
Having your own room is well worth the cost, but I learned that silence is hard to buy. The walls can be all too thin, even at the best of hostels. A group of my fellow Americans set world records for loudness due to excessive alcohol consumption during my first couple nights in Sofia. This led to me being bleary eyed for a couple of days in the Bulgarian capital. It could have been worse. At least they were not in the same room with me. My willingness to save money led me to book a room with four bunks at the oddly named Oki-Doki Hostel in Warsaw in the hopes of having no roommates.

Luck was not with me in Warsaw. Two of my roommates were a Taiwanese mother and daughter. They were unfailingly polite and extremely quiet, but sleeping in the same room with strangers was something I found unsettling. Getting up to use the bathroom was nerve wracking. I slept restlessly and made a mental note to myself never to share another room to save money. I had already paid a small fortune to fly from Montana to Warsaw, a couple of hundred dollars more in the interest of a good night’s rest should not have been a problem. I learned my lesson the hard way. This would not be the last time.

Click here for: Sleeping With Strangers – Hostel Interactions (Rendezvous With An Obscure Destiny #66c)

Products of Their Environment – From Dalmatians To Chileans (Eastern Europeans in South America #3)

Dalmatia and the Chilean city of Punta Arenas are thousands of kilometers and an ocean apart.  It is interesting to note the similarities and dissimilarities between the two places considering that Croatians have left their indelible mark upon each of them. The dissimilarities between the two are obvious. Their climates could not be more different. Dalmatia enjoys a Mediterranean climate that can be blisteringly hot in the summer. Blinding sunlight causes fierce heat which radiates off the jagged limestone rock. For the unsuspecting, summertime in Dalmatia is a heat stroke waiting to happen.

Lasting legacy – Monument to Croatian Immigration in Punta Arenas

Final Frontiers – Infertile & Inhospitable
The climate is literally the polar opposite in Punta Arenas with damp cold much of the year, tending towards the forbidding and hypothermic. At the height of summer, the average temperature only rises to 30 C (57 F) and in the dead of winter it is just below freezing – 1 C (30 F). While Punta Arenas is close to some of the most beautiful areas on earth, these are also among the most inhospitable. Anyone who lives there needs to be tough enough to endure the climate. The weather is not for the faint of heart. Colonization of the area came very late when compared to the rest of South America. It took a people just as tough as the climate to survive in it. Croatians from Dalmatia might not have found the climate of southern Patagonia to their liking, but they responded to the challenge of making a life for themselves there.

The similarities between Punta Arenas and Dalmatia are less obvious. Perhaps that is what makes them so astonishing. Punta Arenas is the remotest city in Chile and with a population of 140,000, it is small in comparison to other cities in the country. Great masses of people will never settle there. Surprisingly, the same is true for Dalmatia despite its Mediterranean climate. The entire population of the region is less than a million. While beautiful, the land is fragile. Dalmatia is prone to earthquakes and suffers mightily during drought. While both places are bordered by large bodies of water, this does not make the land more fertile. The life sustaining skills Croatians learned over centuries in Dalmatia came in handy when thousands of them found their way to Punta Arenas and the surrounding area.

On the edge – Dalmatian town in 1905

On The Margins – Searching For Stability
Dalmatia can be as inhospitable as Patagonia. The region is agriculturally marginal. Until the rise of mass tourism, beauty was not something you could take to the bank. Dalmatia in the late 19^th and early 20^th century was an especially difficult environment for its inhabitants to earn a living. On multiple occasions, the region was an exporter of people. Many of whom found their way to southern Patagonia. Those who immigrated to the area were one of two things, either desperate or ambitious. In the case of Croatians, it was both. The desperation came from a lack of opportunity in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Those who did not own land had to work it for someone else’s profit. Political freedoms were limited as well. The stultifying class system meant that those who were lower on the social and economic ladder had very limited opportunities for advancement. This forced many of them to look across the ocean to the far reaches of South America to start a new life.

This started with the Tierra Del Fuego Gold Rush during the 1880’s and 1890’s. That was just the beginning of Croatian immigration to Patagonia. Beginning in the late 19th century, Dalmatia was struck by phylloxera, otherwise known as vine rot. The disease wreaked havoc on vineyards. This left many Dalmatians without any form of livelihood. The destruction of viticulture was a massive blow to the populace. South America was a much-needed escape hatch. A far-off land full of opportunities when compared to the pestilence that plagued Dalmatia. The yearning to escape from poverty and find economic stability brought a large wave of immigrants. Punta Arenas had a surplus of land and needed workers. The upshot was another wave of Dalmatian immigration to the area. Many of the immigrants worked on sheep farms. As they became more established, these immigrants successfully assimilated. Croatians were extremely influential in the development of Punta Arenas and Chile as a whole.

In the distance – Punta Arenas (Credit: HaSt)

Agent of Change – The Rise of Boric
That influence was never more apparent than when a native son of Punta Arenas, Gabriel Boric, became president of Chile in 2022. Only thirty-seven years old when he took office, Boric’s rise was meteoric. He was born in 1986, one hundred and one years after his paternal great-grandfather and great-uncle became two of the first settlers in the Magallanes region. They came to Patagonia as part of the Tierra Del Fuego Gold Rush. That seminal event in the region’s history brought immigrants who might not have struck it rich but still ended up settling in the region. Boric’s paternal ancestors hailed from an island off the Dalmatian coast which is part of the Zadar archipelago. They were the first wave of Dalmation immigrants to the area, part of a vanguard that would continue growing well into the 20^th century. Today, descendants of Dalmatian immigrants have become so fully assimilated in Chile that they are found throughout all strata of society. It is not surprising that someone whose descendants came from Dalmatia rose to the highest office in the land.

As the leader of a left-wing political movement, Boric was elected by a Chilean populace yearning for change. Like many who have promised change, Boric has found that turning political promises into transformative legislation is more difficult than he could have imagined. His approval rating soon plummeted after he assumed office. Boric’s advocacy of a new constitution failed dramatically when 62% of the Chilean electorate voted against it. This was a major blow to his presidency. Boric has since recalibrated his policies. It remains to be seen whether he can reinvigorate his government and bring about the change those who voted him into office expected. Whatever happens politically will not take away from Boric’s status as a hero to the Croatian diaspora in Chile and across the world.

Croatians At The End Of The World – Punta Arenas (Eastern Europeans in South America #2)

Travel and history are my way of making connections between past and present, people and places. I had stumbled upon quite a few of these connections between Eastern Europe and South America over the years. They happened quite randomly. For instance, I learned about the Polish owners of Pidhirtsi Castle in western Ukraine who fled during the outbreak of the Second World War to Brazil while doing research for a visit to the castle. Making these random connections is fascinating. Places I would never have imagined as home to Eastern Europeans demonstrated just how far they would go in the search for freedom and economic opportunity. Recently, another random connection between Eastern European and a far-flung region came to me. This one connected Croatians to one of the most remote places in South America.

Symbolic reminder – Croatian coat of arms in Punta Arenas

Greater Depths – A New Frontier
In a conversation with a friend of mine, she mentioned a coming trip to Chile with her husband. I knew she had always been interested in Spanish speaking countries such as Mexico where she spent time in a provincial city where tourists were in short supply. Now she was going to Chile and wondered if I knew much about it. I did not, but this was an opportunity for me to learn more. Instead of starting with the capital Santiago, I looked up Punta Arenas. A place that interested me since hearing about it over twenty years ago. Back then, I had a colleague who had previously travelled around the world to whatever places he thought might be interesting. He somehow found his way to Punta Arenas, which is the southernmost city in Chile and a gateway to Patagonia and Tierra Del Fuego. I can still recall how he talked in glowing terms about his experience there. The fact that it was so remote seemed to be its appeal for him. There is a reason I remembered his mention of Punta Arenas. That is because the idea of it also appealed to me.

I have always had a fetish for obscure places in frontier areas. Give me the least visited province in each country in Eastern Europe or the Great Plains in America and I will be satisfied. Punta Arenas certainly fits those parameters. While reading about the city, I was thrilled to discover that its development and prosperity had been heavily influenced by Croatians who had immigrated there between 1880- 1914. This astonished me. Punta Arenas is a difficult place to access today. I can only imagine the journey it took to get there in the late 19^th century. Back then it was not yet a city, at least not in the sense that it is today. It was on the edge of one of the wildest, most beautiful, and inhospitable regions on earth. A true terra incognito that was only beginning to be explored in greater depth. Then, as now, it was not on the way to anywhere other than Tierra Del Fuego and Antarctica. Neither are exactly the garden spots of the world. Nevertheless, thousands of Croatians made their way to the area and helped develop what is still one of the most prosperous cities in Chile.

Making their mark – Memorial plaque for Croatian Benevolent Society in Punta Arenas

Fevered Dreams – An Accident of History
Punta Arenas is billed as the end of the world. In many ways that is true. The southern tip of the South American continent is extremely difficult to access, let alone inhabit. It is remote from major population centers and not a climate where many care to live. In recent times, the area has become famous for outdoor expeditions. Mountaineers, hikers, birders, and other wildlife enthusiasts travel to it in search of experiences found nowhere else on earth. This is great for those who have the time, money, and skill level to undertake such trips. Their passion for the area knows few boundaries. Of course, most of these people are not trying to earn a livelihood in this forbidding landscape. They are not going to spend a year or a lifetime in such a forbidding landscape prone to ferocious winds and wintry weather. Their expeditions take place when conditions are optimal. That was not the case for Croatians when they first came to the area.

Anyone coming to Punta Arenas has specific reasons for doing so. That was as true in the late 19^th century as it still is today. No one then was going to end up in Punta Arenas by accident unless it was an accident of history. And that accident in the late 19th century was a gold rush in Tierra Del Fuego. The discovery of gold made men do very strange things. They would give up their lives in one place to strike off into the unknown in search of riches which were more imagined than real. From the perspective of today, “gold fever” looks like little more than temporary madness in search of a get rich quick scheme. There was a considerable amount of that, but there were also those who hoped to earn a decent living from the endeavor. This was the best option for many men who had little to lose. The search for a better life was just as much an allure as striking it rich. This seduced many to give it a try, including Croatian immigrants.

At the end of the world – Punta Arenas (Credit: Gonzalo Baeza)

Settling In – Mining For Money
The Tierra Del Fuego Gold Rush began in 1884 when a French steamship ran aground at Cape Vergenes close to the border between Argentina and Chile. Rescuers sent to save the crew members discovered gold along the way. It was not long before word of the discovery got to Punta Arenas. This sparked a gold rush. Soon the news spread to Buenos Aires, but gold deposits from the first discovery soon played out. This hardly mattered because an enterprising individual, Julio Popper, recruited Dalmatians (ethnic Croatians) who had already immigrated to Buenos Areas for an expedition in search of gold. This led to more discoveries. By the late 1890s, the gold rush was over. Those who did not return to Argentina or go back to Dalmatia settled in and around Punta Arenas. Croatians were there to stay.

Click here for: Products of Their Environment – From Dalmatians To Chileans (Eastern Europeans in South America #3)

Deep South – The Path To Patagonia (Eastern Europeans In South America #1)

I am always on the lookout for connections to Eastern Europe. This has nothing to do with flights, other than flights of fancy. Show me a place on the map anywhere in the world and one of the first things I look to discover are any connections it might have to Eastern Europe. Because empires and countries in the region – with the notable exception of Russia – largely avoided colonial adventurism, it is easy to think that there were few historical connections between Eastern Europe and the continents of Africa, Asia, and South America. The empires which dominated Eastern Europe in the age of colonialism had their hands full closer to home as trying to control their heterogenous subject populations.

Left behind – Pidhirsti Castle in western Ukraine

Into The Wild – Travels In Terra Incognito
While Eastern European nations have nowhere near the history or legacy that countries such as Britain, France, the Netherlands, and Spain have in Africa and South America, there are some surprising connections to be found in unexpected places. Some of these connections involve individuals who are famous, while others are obscure. One of the most famous is Joseph Conrad (Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski), the ethnic Pole who captained a ship up a tributary of the Congo River and wrote the novel Heart of Darkness based upon his experiences. Conrad’s literary work influenced how future generations would come to view Africa. Eastern Europe also has obscure connections to famous events. For instance, an Austro-Hungarian force was involved in the military response to the Boxer Rebellion in China. This was one of the very few colonial ventures in which the empire would take part.

There were also individuals who explored areas previously unknown to Europeans, such as Samuel Teleki in northern Kenya. And there are individuals who made a name for themselves despite failed exploits in the most obscure places imaginable. One of the more infamous was Count Maurice Benyovszky de Benyó et Urbanó, a Hungarian noble who managed to infuriate both natives and French administrators in Madagascar. These examples show that Africa and South America were on the minds of a few Eastern Europeans. By and large, both continents flew under the radar of Eastern Europeans. There was not a great deal of interaction between the two. From anecdotal evidence I have amassed in my travels across Eastern Europe I can vouch for that still being true.   

The heart of Africa – Joseph Conrad (Credit: NYPL Digital Gallery)

Vaguely Aware – Impossibly Remote
Let’s start with a distinction. There are remote places and there are impossible places. The former are places considered off the beaten path. They are found after getting lost twice. A good example is the Pampa region which is known as the heartland of Argentina. Really remote places are those which dreams and nightmares are made of. These are impossible places many would love to see, but few ever will. The possibility of visiting them is just as remote as their locations. Patagonia comes to mind. South America seems remote, but not impossible to me. It is a continent that does not often make news in the United States unless it is one of the following. Brazil winning another World Cup or Argentina having one of their periodic bouts of hyperinflation. Because so little is said about South America, it is hard to get a read on American’s opinion of the continent.

While Americans know very little about South America, I imagine that is the same for Eastern Europeans. In all my visits to Eastern Europe, I have very few mentions of a single South American country. The closest I came was while reading about Poles who fled their homeland during World War II and ended up settling in Brazil. This was confirmed when I visited Pidhirtsi Castle in present day western Ukraine several years ago. The original owners of that magnificent edifice were ethnic Poles who fled to South America. The only South Americans I have met in Eastern Europe were a handful of Brazilians who once again offered anecdotal evidence to me that they are among the happiest people on earth. The other South American, was an Argentine who I met on a Free Tour in Sofia, Bulgaria. He seemed terribly skittish. From what I could discern from a conversation with him, the poor man had been hounded out of his wits by touts in Edirne, Turkey. Just looking at him made me nervous. Anytime I read about Edirne, I feel a sense of foreboding and think of that man. The lack of South Americans in Eastern Europe is not surprising because of the distance between the two places. Conversely, it was not only distance that kept Eastern Europeans from South America. There are also very good historical reasons.

Deep south – Punta Arenas (Credit: Aakerueh)

Distant Opportunities – A New Frontier
For centuries, Eastern Europe was a land of internal colonization. There is no better example than Poland which suffered three partitions, whereby the Austro-Hungarian, German, and Russian Empires carved it up. This wiped the Kingdom of Poland off the map for 125 years. Those empires spent much of that time trying to keep their Polish subjects from revolting. This sapped energy from efforts to look further abroad at potential conquests. Both the German and Russian Empires were either minor or nonexistent players in Africa and South America while the great powers of western Europe were grabbing territories in both. The ruling authorities in Eastern Europe kept their focus at home rather than colonizing distant lands on other continents.

For their subjects, the situation was entirely different. As new lands abroad were opened to European settlement, those struggling for land and freedom in Eastern Europe decided to try their luck abroad. Most famously, this resulted in the mass migration of millions from Eastern Europe to the United States and Canada from the late 19^th century right up until World War I. While most immigrants poured into those two countries, others looked even further abroad to remoter areas that needed their labor. One of these was Chile, where Croatians left the Austro-Hungarian Empire behind to put their skills to use in everything from mining to ranching. Some of these Croatians went to the further reaches of Chile at Punta Arenas, a jumping off point for the Patagonia region.

Click here for: Croatians At The End Of The World – Punta Arenas (Eastern Europeans in South America #2)

A Book By Its Cover – Dubrovnik: Rebecca West’s Journey Through Yugoslavia (Part Two)

Dubrovnik leaves me with a range of complex and contradictory feelings. It is a town sized spectacle sculpted in stone. The quaint grandeur and sophisticated monumentalism of its historic structures are beyond compare. As blinding rays of sunlight strike the Dalmatian stone, radiance in its purest form becomes apparent. Areas in the later afternoon that become consumed by shadow are the settings of refinement and repose. Nothing could be more pleasant than the Old Town’s magical splendor in these moments, but it can also be spectacularly unnerving. There is something a little too perfect about the walled Old Town for my taste. It has reached such a level of refinement that it does not feel quite real. Dubrovnik is one of the finest examples of the impulse for historic preservation and structural restoration. Nonetheless, something about it does not feel right. Rebecca West, author of Black Lamb and Gray Falcon: A Journey Through Yugoslavia, also had misgivings about the Old Town.

Two faced – Detail in Dubrovnik

Positively Pedestrian – Staying In Gruz
In the first of two sections in her book devoted to Dubrovnik, West begins in Gruz. This outlying district was where she and her husband stayed. I could not help but feel a certain kinship with West since Gruz is where my wife and I have stayed on two different visits to Dubrovnik. Gruz offers a reminder of a much more normal world than the one found within the Old Town’s walls. Reading West’s description of Gruz brought the place back alive within me. It was fascinating to think I had unwittingly walked in West’s footsteps. We had crossed paths by traveling in the same spaces, separated by an interval of eighty years. She did not really care for Dubrovnik. West thought Gruz was much more tolerable. I would never call Gruz normal – I doubt West would either – but when compared to Dubrovnik’s Old Town it is positively pedestrian.

Like Rebecca West, I found Gruz more pleasurable than Dubrovnik. For me, this had to do with the fact that prices were nowhere near as extortionate as those in the Old Town. For West and her husband, it was not a question of affordability. The couple stayed in Gruz because they were unable to find accommodation in the Old Town and so picked this bucolic district in which to stay. When West told her husband that she did not care for Dubrovnik, he wrongly thought that it might be because they had been unable to secure accommodation in the Old Town. On the contrary, it was the Old Town which left West in a state of semi-depression. This did not surprise me. What did was that West had the courage to say it. She mentions among other things, “the appalling lack of accumulation observable in its history.”

Looking up – Old Town Dubrovnik

Splendor On Steroids – A Seductive Intensity
Dubrovnik has been prone to collapse on occasion due to natural cataclysms. This has caused a discontinuity with its past. Dubrovnik would rebuild its way back to a look of prosperity after each catastrophe. This has continued right up into contemporary times with damage from the 1991-92 siege all but swept under the marble. The Old Town does not feel like an organic development. Instead, it appears as a showpiece, a baroque display case with Renaissance and Gothic elements thrown in for good measure. One gets an overwhelming sense of wealth. Likes anything based on wealth and vanity, its character is profoundly superficial. If one cares to only judge a book by its cover than Dubrovnik’s is a gilded, beguiling. leather bound rare edition, The Old Town plays to that overweening desire for artifice that man welcomes as a corrective to the harshness of life. Dubrovnik proves that man can only stand to suffer so much of reality. The Old Town eschews the real, for a type of splendor on steroids. Its charms are showy, flagrant, and intensely seductive.

I love and hate Dubrovnik in unequal measure for its beauty and the pervasive pathos that lurks in the design of every detail in the townscape. The Old Town comes as close to attaining perfection as any place I have ever been. I find that to be terribly disturbing because in my mind, nothing could be worse than perfection. It is the end, a point of no return. Where does a person or place go after perfection? Reading West’s sections on Dubrovnik I got the sense that this bothered her as well. She does not explicitly say so, but I could sense it in her words. West admires Dubrovnik, but does not like, let alone love it. For this I can commiserate with her. The Old Town is like walking into a fairy tale, except this one is real. At times, it can seem downright ahistorical. That seems like a strange thing to say about a place that lives off its legacy.

Picturing the perfect – A photographer in Dubrovnik

Core Values – Easy On The Eyes
One would be hard pressed to find another place – other than Venice – whose present existence almost totally relies on its adherence to the past. To this end, all the main sights in the Old Town look as though they have had the past refined right out of them. I was surprised – though I should not have been – to find that even the old “medieval” walls are quite modern in places. The ramparts that afford tourists the opportunity to walk along the walls did not exist in their present form until the 1980’s. Dubrovnik is deceptive like that. Relying as much upon a restored artifice to make one believe that this was always the way it has been. In truth, Dubrovnik is one of the youngest “medieval” towns in existence today.

Besides its main attractions, the Dubrovnik that exists today is a product of the post 1667 earthquake era. The idea that the Old Town is a perfect picture of preservation turns out to be a false one, but truth and historical verisimilitude have always had an uneasy relationship. Dubrovnik is history as we want it to be. The present state of the Old Town says as much about modern historical sensibilities as it does older ones. Rebecca West saw Dubrovnik for what it was, rather than what it wanted her to believe. It may have been easy on the eyes, but that was hard for her to tolerate. I can vouch for the fact that it still is.

Penetrating The Depths – Black Lamb & Grey Falcon In Dubrovnik: Rebecca West’s Journey Through Yugoslavia (Part One)

Go into any bookshop in Dubrovnik selling English language titles and it is almost impossible not to run across a copy of Rebecca West’s magisterial travel opus, “Black Lamb and Grey Falcon: A Journey Through Yugoslavia.” One of the most recognizable aspects of the books is its girth. Size wise, the book is a doorstop, a free weight, a tome. My dog eared copy which always sits close at hand has 1,171 pages. The print on those pages is not very big either. An inveterate reader would need several weeks at the seaside in Dalmatia to get through the book. It would be well worth their effort. West traveled with her husband for six weeks Yugoslavia in 1937 at a time when the prospect of war loomed ever larger. It was a very important moment in Balkan history, one that West catalogs with erudition, wit, and scintillating descriptions. She records for posterity a world that was to vanish into darkness a few years later. West ominously alludes to this in her dedication: “To my friends in Yugoslavia, who are all now dead or enslaved.”

An encyclopedia work – Black Lamb and Grey Falcon by Rebecca West

Imagination & Interpretation – Black Lamb & Grey Falcon
Black Lamb and Grey Falcon was published in 1941, the same year that the German Army invaded Yugoslavia. The Yugoslavs that accompany West in the book would become collateral damage in a multisided war that spared no one. The fascist German, Italian and Hungarian regimes all had their bestial ways with the land and its people. And various ethnic groups had their way with each other. Ethnic nationalism caused internecine conflict which resulted in vile atrocities being committed by Croats, Serbs, Bosnians, Macedonians, and Montenegrins. Yet West’s book is so good that it can transport the reader to a place in time through her writing she makes seem eternal. Her powers of descriptive observation are magical. Reading the book is as close to a metaphysical travel experience a reader can have.,

The synthesis of imagination and interpretation, the depth of intellect, the incisive commentary, are hallmarks of Black Lamb and Grey Falcon. The breadth of coverage West offers of the country is unprecedented. There is no way to compare the work to other English language books on both well-known and obscure European countries at that time. Such was the density of West’s coverage that it is easier to point out the areas she does not cover – Slovenia and the Vojvodina region of northern Serbia – than the ones she does. It is interesting to note the amount of coverage given to each region. Croatia, including Dalmatia gets 210 pages, Bosnia and Herzegovina 175, Serbia (including what she terms Old Serbia which includes Kosovo) 348, Macedonia 201, Montenegro 73. Perhaps that is why some commentators have stated that she has a pro-Serbian bias. Those accusations did not come from contemporaries, they arose during the Yugoslav Wars in the 1990’s.

Imagination & Interpretation – Rebecca West

An Encyclopedic Work – Comprehending & Comprehensive
West foresaw violence in the Balkans, but this was nothing new especially considering the context of those times. During the late 1930’s, the gathering storm of world war was getting ready to break across Europe. Yugoslavia was far from the only place where the population was seething with ethnic tensions. The fact that West did such an extensive job of describing the people and places, disparate customs and diverse cultures of Yugoslavia during the two months she spent traveling with her husband around the country, had a lot to do with her book becoming a resource of encyclopedic proportions in the English speaking world.

Diplomats, policymakers and area specialists were purportedly influenced by her observations and opinions to such an extent that some commentators blame West for the way Yugoslavia would be perceived during its dissolution in the early 1990’s. As if many of these wonks took the time to read a book which rivals War and Peace in length. They were doing nothing more than taking a contemporary conflict in the Balkans and trying to understand it through the retroactive prism of West’s book. While Rebecca West was certainly capable of foresight, she was hardly clairvoyant and could not see a half century into the future. Many of her insights have the ring of truth because she was one of the few outsiders to come with an open mind and try to understand the region.

Reviewers have commented that Black Lamb and Grey Falcon is so powerful because of the sincerity with which West writes. I would add that it is her ability to empathize which comes though so strongly in the text. She seeks to understand, then describe and finally interpret. It is a potent combination that yields powerful results. Her prejudices are pro-Balkan, the opposite of stereotypical attitudes towards the region both then and now. Ironically, the book was not translated and published in Serbian until 2004, almost eighty years after it was published. Most of those who now live in the former Yugoslavia have no idea who was West was or what she wrote. That includes Serbians. West does have a great love for Serbia which shines through in her writing. It can also be ascertained by the number of pages she devotes to it. Of course, Serbia made up the largest territory in Yugoslavia, so there was a lot more ground to cover.

Another world – Pristina, Kosovo in the 1930s (Credit: Markéta Čcheidzeová)

A Memory Of Misgivings – Tourist Haunts 
Several places that are famous tourist haunts along the Croatian coastline in modern times, get some coverage, but not nearly the amount one might expect. A couple of sections in the book are given over to shorter entries entitled, Journey and Expedition. Several sections of the book are broken down into cities or towns that West spent time exploring. Some of these have multiple sections (such as Zagreb 1, Zagreb 2 and so forth) which provide extensive coverage and by extension, insights. Dubrovnik gets two sections all to itself, even though West was less than keen on the Dalmatian crown jewel. I was especially interested after my most recent visit in rereading the sections on Dubrovnik. It had been at least five years since I perused those pages. I vaguely recalled West’s misgivings about the town. In this case, my memory served me right.

Click here for: A Book By Its Cover – Dubrovnik: Rebecca West’s Journey Through Yugoslavia (Part Two)

A Place Called Home – Dubrovnik: Comfort Food (Traveling The Croatian Coastline #65)

Familiarity and habit, these are the actions of self-enforced domesticity. Each of these actions have also become a vital aspect of my travels around Central and Eastern Europe. While travel is a form of escape from them, it is only a temporary one. I find myself out of habit coming back to some of the same places again and again. Seeking out the familiar to provide comfort and quell the anxiety which threatens to devolve into aimless wanderings on trips abroad. A habit is hard to break. Thus, I found myself in Dubrovnik eating at the exact same place as eight years earlier on that first visit to the Old Town.

In the span of time between past and present not much had changed at what amounted to a fast food restaurant. It served the same food for nearly the same price almost a decade later. While there I ordered the same dish that I always do on these journeys, Cevapi, a grilled dish of minced meat that makes me crave visits to the Balkans. I first ate Cevapi in Sarajevo during my visit to that city in 2011. Since then, I have found myself seeking it out again and again. This includes in cities that are not part of the Balkans. I recall at least three occasions when I sought out restaurants serving it in Budapest. On my last trip to Europe before this one, I spent an entire weeklong visit to Montenegro feasting on this delicacy each evening. Having Cevapi one last time in Dubrovnik made me feel like I was enjoying a well cooked meal at a home away from home.

Home cooked meal – Cevapi

Habit Forming – The Trigger Event
Home, if I have one in Eastern Europe, can be traced to the experiences I keep coming back to again and again. It is not just restaurants. it is also monuments and museums or places so powerful for me that I cannot resist the urge to revisit them. I find comfort in the familiar. Several years ago, I had a few hours in Vienna before departing for the Austrian countryside. Did I take this time to seek out something new? Not a chance. Instead, I made a return visit to the Museum of Military History (Heeresgeschichtliches Museum). Ostensibly, this was to see the artifacts from Archduke Franz Ferdinand’s assassination in Sarajevo, the trigger event for the starting gun that signaled the outbreak of World War I.

The artifacts included the Archduke’s bloodstained tunic. Upon reflection, I wonder if the artifacts really were the underlying reason for my return? This return visit took place near the end of a two week trip. I was feeling anxious and edgy, more worried about the logistics of heading home than seeing something new. As soon as I walked into the museum I felt at ease, as though my worries had vanished. It is rather disturbing that this museum – which felt like home for a few hours – captured my interest due to artifacts from a murder. Nonetheless, I still find comfort in thoughts of that visit to the museum.

Finding the way – Looking out from a church in Dubrovnik

Domestic Travels – A Circular Logic

In Dubrovnik I found myself caught within the travel equivalent of circular logic. I was not just returning to the Old Town many years after a first visit. I was also returning to several of the same places I had been before. Just as the medieval walls confine the Old Town, so my previous visits confined me. I retraced my footsteps by entering through the Pile Gate, stopped for a moment to ponder Onofrio’s Fountain and found another stroll down the jam packed promenade of the Stradun irresistible. I had seen it all before and was prepared to see it all again. I was caught up in my own personal history more than that of the Old Town’s history. Dubrovnik might be over a thousand years old, but that was no match for my memory of that first visit. Seeing the same places was like visiting with old friends, albeit friends that were frozen in time and inanimate in everything but my mind. At the Pile Gate I was comforted by the site of the city’s patron, Saint Blaise. I watched as those around me failed to notice his presence. They did not need Saint Blaise, but I did. The site of his statuesque form was intensely comforting.

The idea of seeing something different in Dubrovnik was an opportunity that I was not taking. Walking those endless, narrow alleyways that wait to be stirred out of their silence. was not nearly as interesting to me as it had been on my first visit. I recoiled at the thought of leaving my comfort zone. I knew from experience that the backstreets of the Old Town offered a multitude of unique experiences. Ones that are very different from the glories fed to the masses, but I found them painful to consider. They reminded me of my own loneliness, even when surrounded by fantasy, there was always a melancholic aspect to my life. It often seduced me with laziness. On this day in Dubrovnik, I was confronted by the fact that my travels were becoming more like my domestic life. An enervating repetition of habits that dulled the senses. For me, there is safety in regimentation. I had come so far to not go any farther. Or so I thought.

A different path – Backstreet in Dubrovnik

Collision Course – A Tantalizing Glimpse
While downing yet another meal of Cevapi, the idea of how to finally break free of the sensory numbing strictures with which I had mentally shackled myself came to mind. There was a church that I had spied from a distance while walking along the Stradun.  I could see hints of its Baroque elements peeking out through the shafts of streets. Such scenes offered brief, tantalizing glimpses of architectural greatness exposed for the eye. I had no idea whether I had been there before. The mystery of it had been slowly building inside of me. Now a day before departure came the last chance to make its acquaintance. This would be a respite from regimentation and allow me to kick the habit that had been holding me back. Going there would offer the opportunity to explore another side of the city. One where locals still lived not for the sake of tourism, but for themselves and their families. I was ready for one last journey into that other world, the one where history and reality collide.