Day 11

Day 11 So, we woke up today to a wonderful breakfast and took off for Opatija. Today, we saw the real Croatia. Not the tourist towns on the coast selling Chinese trinkets, but the country struggling to adapt after a horrific war. A bit of history first…when we came to Yugoslavia in 1973, it was a mix of countries pasted together after WWII. Tito had been a partisan fighting the Nazis. He was socialist, but outside of the Russian controlling parties. He had a vision of uniting the southern (Jugo) Slavic countries into one country – Yugoslavia. He was brutal in putting down the opposition and consolidating power after the war, but after the initial years of power, Yugoslavia worked. The US didn’t like him because he wasn’t in the NATO camp, but the Russians didn’t like him either. He and a number of other leaders from around the world kept their countries non-aligned…they played the big countries against each other quite well. Now, Tito had married together the cultural, ethnic and religious groups that lived on that coastline we drove. In 73, the coast was rich, the interior poor, but eating. The cultural backgrounds were extensive There were the Roman Catholics first brought to the area by Charlemagne, from France, which were later supported by the Austrian Habsburgs. The byzantine empire brought Eastern Orthodox Christianity, and the Ottomans brought in the Islamic community. When the Roman Empire split in the 4th century, you got a catholic west and orthodox east. The Ottomans invaded in the 14th century and further divided the Christian North from the Muslim south. The Croats, Slovenes, Serbs and Bosniaks are all Slavian, but of many different religions. It gets even more confusing as you add in the various languages, cultures, and non-slavic peoples. Add into that, though, history and the battles that have raged for centuries and it gets worse. Then Tito died…oops. No wonder it exploded in 91. First Slovenia seceded, in a relatively peaceful election process in 1990. They wanted the communists out and to be a peaceful independent nation. The Yugoslovian Army, young and inexperienced, lost a ten day battle and Slovenia was free. Then came Croatia…not so simple. A former Nazi took control of Croatia; the Croat nazi group (Ustase) had badly mistreated the Serbs in WWII. The Serbs in Croatia would not stand for this new threat and fought for their own freedom – they joined the Yugoslavian Army in droves. In fighting back, they utilized the same techniques of massive slaughter the Nazi based Ustase Croats had used in WWII. And so the battle for blood, vengeance and ”getting even” was off and running. There is lots of information out there about the Dubrovnik siege and the battles the various groups fought for years. 20 years out from the last peace treaties (some of which are still tenuous), driving the small (one lane) back country roads tells another story.

Isolated houses and small hamlets are destroyed and still empty of people. Bullet pock marks dot the buildings that still stand. Everywhere on road sides are large black marble plaques listing the numerous dead from the area in small print. Fields lay overgrown and unused. Through it all, you know people died here, some of them forgotten and un-mourned. This was chilling. Perhaps the most memorable hours so far for this trip. This is truly why we like to travel, to try to get the more real story of what different people are experiencing, not the local news bite. As stated in Day 3, when looking at the past, there are no good or bad guys here, just a toxic mix of political, religious, cultural, economic, ethnic and multi-generational stew…stirred with fear. One good point, the younger generation seems to have moved past this, at least in Croatia. We have noticed Croatia seems to have little left of Croatia in it, American styles, music, food and so on. We hope the peace is not at the expense of losing their culture…altogether an interesting day. Kathie