14 hours until my first flight.
I'm packed, re-packed, checked, re-checked, and re-checked again.
To quote an old song from an illustrious unknown band, I feel right now like I'm being eaten by butterflies... and I know my nerves are walking...
Might stare at a Kusturica movie until bedtime, see if I can pay attention to anything.
This is the cusp of all I've been working towards for the past year. New journeys, new writings, new people to meet, new stage to perform upon, new chapter to begin. This is my analepsis from the illness of the previous few years. I am ready. Last May I said to the Universe at large, alright I've had enough, what else can you show me? and this is what has been presented:
A (now only) 44-day excursion through a land that has produced far more history than it could consume and I've been hungry for quite some time. I'm more than willing to clean up a few table scraps.
In the next five days I'll be in or pass through four countries, including the first stop in a sequence of namesakes: Bela Crkva. A soon-to-be-met-in-person acquaintance in Serbia has already nicknamed me to his friends: Crkva [that is, Sirk-wha, in simplest form].
These butterflies will settle down once I'm on the plane to Heathrow. And I'll have all but forgotten them when I grab my backpack in the Budapest airport and begin the ground campaign.
I suspect I'll post here again on Wednesday or Thursday.
· • ·
Showing posts with label Balkans. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Balkans. Show all posts
Sunday, May 23, 2010
About the Region
• · •
Some things can’t be true even if they happened.
——Ken Kesey
The general sat and the lines on the map moved from side to side.
——Roger Waters
…many things can be viewed more clearly, explained in greater detail,
and understood more easily.
This does not mean that the world has become any smarter or better for it.
——Dragoljub Žarković
Can you imagine a country where you can still find ancient towns
ringed by a crystal clear sea?
Jugoslavia is a country with a long, turbulent history.
After World War Two, it became a socialist federation
made up of six republics and two autonomous regions.
It speaks five official languages and prays to an Eastern Orthodox,
Catholic, and Muslim God.
This is no imaginary land, this is Jugoslavia.
——Tourism Commercial, 1990
What is the good of your speeches? I come to Sarajevo on a visit,
and I get bombs thrown at me!
It is outrageous.
——Archduke Franz Ferdinand, 1914
If the Balkans hadn't existed, they would have been invented.
——Count Hermann Keyserling, 1928
The Balkans, which in Turkish means mountains, run roughly from
the Danube to the Dardanelles, from Istria to Istanbul, and is a term for
the little lands of Hungary, Rumania, Jugoslavia, Albania, Bulgaria,
Greece, and part of Turkey, although neither Hungarian nor Greek
welcomes inclusion in the label. It is, or was a gay peninsula filled with
sprightly people who ate peppered foods, drank strong liquors, wore
flamboyant clothes, loved and murdered easily and had a splendid talent
for starting wars. Less imaginative westerners looked down on them with
secret envy, sniffing at their royalty, scoffing at their pretensions, and
fearing their savage terrorists. Karl Marx called them ethnic trash.
I, as a footloose youngster in my twenties, adored them.
——C. L. Sulzberger, A Long Row of Candles, 1969.
Don’t, don’t, don’t live under this dream that the West is going to come in
and sort this problem out.
Don’t dream dreams.
——Lord David Owen at Sarajevo International Airport,
December 18, 1992
In winter days frost grips the city, but still the dedicated elderly and youth
meet for discussion, but when it comes time for spring and blossoms,
Heaven becomes the Sarajevo gardens of roses.
——Muhamed Nerkesija Es-Saraji, 17th Century
All the devil requires is acquiesence;
not conflict, not struggle.
Acquiesence.
——Suzanne Massie
Pessimum facinus auderent pauci,
plures vellent, omnes paterentur.
[The worst crime was dared by a few,
willed by more, and tolerated by all.]
——Tacitus
La vida total es un porqueria porqueria.
——Black Francis
A little political murder in the Balkans?
That will never lead to anything.
——Anonymous internet comment, 2003
As soon as flags start to wave and national anthems start to play,
as soon as history and religion are mentioned,
you can be sure that new bloodshed is coming for new generations.
——Hidajet Seric, 1993
Solo i morti hanno visto la fine della guerre.
——Platone
That crossed the line from ironic coincidence to evil omen.
——Calvin
· • ·
Some things can’t be true even if they happened.
——Ken Kesey
The general sat and the lines on the map moved from side to side.
——Roger Waters
…many things can be viewed more clearly, explained in greater detail,
and understood more easily.
This does not mean that the world has become any smarter or better for it.
——Dragoljub Žarković
Can you imagine a country where you can still find ancient towns
ringed by a crystal clear sea?
Jugoslavia is a country with a long, turbulent history.
After World War Two, it became a socialist federation
made up of six republics and two autonomous regions.
It speaks five official languages and prays to an Eastern Orthodox,
Catholic, and Muslim God.
This is no imaginary land, this is Jugoslavia.
——Tourism Commercial, 1990
What is the good of your speeches? I come to Sarajevo on a visit,
and I get bombs thrown at me!
It is outrageous.
——Archduke Franz Ferdinand, 1914
If the Balkans hadn't existed, they would have been invented.
——Count Hermann Keyserling, 1928
The Balkans, which in Turkish means mountains, run roughly from
the Danube to the Dardanelles, from Istria to Istanbul, and is a term for
the little lands of Hungary, Rumania, Jugoslavia, Albania, Bulgaria,
Greece, and part of Turkey, although neither Hungarian nor Greek
welcomes inclusion in the label. It is, or was a gay peninsula filled with
sprightly people who ate peppered foods, drank strong liquors, wore
flamboyant clothes, loved and murdered easily and had a splendid talent
for starting wars. Less imaginative westerners looked down on them with
secret envy, sniffing at their royalty, scoffing at their pretensions, and
fearing their savage terrorists. Karl Marx called them ethnic trash.
I, as a footloose youngster in my twenties, adored them.
——C. L. Sulzberger, A Long Row of Candles, 1969.
Don’t, don’t, don’t live under this dream that the West is going to come in
and sort this problem out.
Don’t dream dreams.
——Lord David Owen at Sarajevo International Airport,
December 18, 1992
In winter days frost grips the city, but still the dedicated elderly and youth
meet for discussion, but when it comes time for spring and blossoms,
Heaven becomes the Sarajevo gardens of roses.
——Muhamed Nerkesija Es-Saraji, 17th Century
All the devil requires is acquiesence;
not conflict, not struggle.
Acquiesence.
——Suzanne Massie
Pessimum facinus auderent pauci,
plures vellent, omnes paterentur.
[The worst crime was dared by a few,
willed by more, and tolerated by all.]
——Tacitus
La vida total es un porqueria porqueria.
——Black Francis
A little political murder in the Balkans?
That will never lead to anything.
——Anonymous internet comment, 2003
As soon as flags start to wave and national anthems start to play,
as soon as history and religion are mentioned,
you can be sure that new bloodshed is coming for new generations.
——Hidajet Seric, 1993
Solo i morti hanno visto la fine della guerre.
——Platone
That crossed the line from ironic coincidence to evil omen.
——Calvin
· • ·
Monday, May 17, 2010
Maps inadequate for the territory...
Not only is travel information about the FYR difficult to come by, but a number of "authoratative" sources outdated or just downright incorrect.
Lonely Planet's website still lists Kosovo as Serbia, and has a grand total of two paragraphs about the entire country (or, in their opinion, region of another country).
Wikitravel has rapidly become the most current source of info on the area, with some singular reports from individuals via CouchSurfing. It seems that travel by bus is quicker than train in a number of locales.
Thanks to the British Airways strike, my flight plans are pushed back from 20 May to 24 May. This effectively eliminates Budapest from a multi-day exploration, but it looks like I'll get into that chain-bridged city at noon on one day and I can take the nighttrain to Beograd the next day, so I'll have about 34 hours to soak in a Turkish bath, eat copious amounts of goulash whilst downing an inordinate amount of Tokaji, and watch the sunset (and the lights of the bridge blink on) from Gellért Hill, and, I suppose, sleeping for a bit.
In Beograd, I'll stay for a few days and, depending on the schedule of others, stay through the weekend or visit Bela Crkva and a friendly CouchSurfing host there. The return to Beograd will conclude meetings with folks there or head on immediately, again, depnding on schedule of others. Ideally, I'd have my meeting with Kusturica following this—which means train/bus down to Mokra Gora and his entho-village near there.
I'll reach Sarajevo once before Vidovdan, but I'll certainly walk the former Appel Quay that morning, something I've had a morbid fascination of doing for more than twenty years.
Destinations without specific timeline:
Sarajevo (first visit)
Mostar
Srebrenica
Višegrad
Jajce
Dubrovnik
Krk
Bar
Prishtina
Like to, but unlikely at this point:
Zagreb
Vukovar
· • ·
Lonely Planet's website still lists Kosovo as Serbia, and has a grand total of two paragraphs about the entire country (or, in their opinion, region of another country).
Wikitravel has rapidly become the most current source of info on the area, with some singular reports from individuals via CouchSurfing. It seems that travel by bus is quicker than train in a number of locales.
Thanks to the British Airways strike, my flight plans are pushed back from 20 May to 24 May. This effectively eliminates Budapest from a multi-day exploration, but it looks like I'll get into that chain-bridged city at noon on one day and I can take the nighttrain to Beograd the next day, so I'll have about 34 hours to soak in a Turkish bath, eat copious amounts of goulash whilst downing an inordinate amount of Tokaji, and watch the sunset (and the lights of the bridge blink on) from Gellért Hill, and, I suppose, sleeping for a bit.
In Beograd, I'll stay for a few days and, depending on the schedule of others, stay through the weekend or visit Bela Crkva and a friendly CouchSurfing host there. The return to Beograd will conclude meetings with folks there or head on immediately, again, depnding on schedule of others. Ideally, I'd have my meeting with Kusturica following this—which means train/bus down to Mokra Gora and his entho-village near there.
I'll reach Sarajevo once before Vidovdan, but I'll certainly walk the former Appel Quay that morning, something I've had a morbid fascination of doing for more than twenty years.
Destinations without specific timeline:
Sarajevo (first visit)
Mostar
Srebrenica
Višegrad
Jajce
Dubrovnik
Krk
Bar
Prishtina
Like to, but unlikely at this point:
Zagreb
Vukovar
· • ·
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
About a misquote...
Karl Marx has often been cited as the source of the derogatory comment concerning Southern Slavs to be "ethnic trash." I myself have used the refernce in a published work. Last night, I came across a minor refernce that indicated this attributation was not entirely correct and spend far longer than I perhaps should have searching for the source of the quote in its original language.
Marx may well do to share the credit/blame, but it was Fredrich Engels who actually wrote it.
In January, 1849, the tract Der magyarische Kampf ("The Magyar Struggle") was published in Neue Rheinische Zeitung (n.194, v.13), authored by Fredrich Engels (not Karl Marx, bless his long gray beard). A paragraph midway through begins:
So in Östreich die panslawistischen Südslawen, die weiter nichts sind als der Völkerabfall einer höchst verworrenen tausendjährigen Entwicklung.
Previous to this the term Völkerabfälle had already been uused. In this instance, the term is slightly changed due to context, Völkerabfall.
The beginning of the sentence would be: "…the pan-Slavist Southern Slavs, who are nothing but people's waste/racial refuse/ethnic trash…"
Literally, this mean's "people's waste."
In the local language about who it concerns this term can be translated to naroda otpada. If we take it to mean (and the translation would not be inaccurate) ethnic trash, the local tongue would have it be etničkih smeće.
So, the always eloquent (notice the switch to sarcastic font there) Fredrich Engels, is actually calling the Serbs, Bosnians, Croats, Albanians, and their neighbors, human shit.
Don't think that it is above ideological philosophers to use vulgar terms. Engels and Marx were, after all, discussing genocide at a time when that word had yet been coined.
· • ·
Marx may well do to share the credit/blame, but it was Fredrich Engels who actually wrote it.
In January, 1849, the tract Der magyarische Kampf ("The Magyar Struggle") was published in Neue Rheinische Zeitung (n.194, v.13), authored by Fredrich Engels (not Karl Marx, bless his long gray beard). A paragraph midway through begins:
So in Östreich die panslawistischen Südslawen, die weiter nichts sind als der Völkerabfall einer höchst verworrenen tausendjährigen Entwicklung.
Previous to this the term Völkerabfälle had already been uused. In this instance, the term is slightly changed due to context, Völkerabfall.
The beginning of the sentence would be: "…the pan-Slavist Southern Slavs, who are nothing but people's waste/racial refuse/ethnic trash…"
Literally, this mean's "people's waste."
In the local language about who it concerns this term can be translated to naroda otpada. If we take it to mean (and the translation would not be inaccurate) ethnic trash, the local tongue would have it be etničkih smeće.
So, the always eloquent (notice the switch to sarcastic font there) Fredrich Engels, is actually calling the Serbs, Bosnians, Croats, Albanians, and their neighbors, human shit.
Don't think that it is above ideological philosophers to use vulgar terms. Engels and Marx were, after all, discussing genocide at a time when that word had yet been coined.
· • ·
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Opening Thoughts
87 days until the Balkan travelogue begins. Starting to get excited about things. Tickets are purchased, for the most part, and I'm making a list of things I'd like to take and such ilk as that. Travel light this time. Last time over, I had just a bit too much and carrying two bags was cumbersome and inconvenient. This time I'm taking a backpack with an empty daypack inside. And no laptop. I'll take the camera and some flash drives, and then use internet cafés to upload photos and transfer copies and post updates. Be a lot easier on the awareness energy and concern with delicacy in carrying the backpack if there's no computer involved.
The trek will begin in Budapest where I hope to score another sweet deal on Tokaji like I had and didn't take advantage of last time, and will ship a case home. Then down to Beograd where I will cross paths with C. Slough and Natasha D. Slough offered to show me around Beograd and Natasha is asking Zoran Živković if I can sit in on a class with them and maybe talk about the wars, if he's willing.
Beyond that there only the most general of plans. Republika Srpska and the museums of atrocity. Sarajevo, where I hope to cross paths with Danis Tanović and Zlatko Dizdarević. Through Mostar to the Hravatska coast. Dubrovnik for as long as I can stand... ;) A place I've often dreamed about.
After ferrys up the coast, meandering to Rijeka, then train to Ljubljana and a flight to Paris. I'll have about 18 hours in the City of Lights, enough time to drink some coffee and pay a vist to Uncle Charles in Montparnasse. The next morning, a Eurostar to London and then the flights back home.
That's when the organization of the collected notes and experience produces a Fellowship essay, a poster project, which is likely to include, on my part, a multimedia production. This trip is also going to furnish me with an English Honors project. I already have an idea as to what I want to that be and accomplish.
87 days. A lot to do before then.
Staying up until 5 am this morning isn't helping to get any of that done... but it is providing the foundations for this chronicle.
Ah. Laku noć.
· • ·
The trek will begin in Budapest where I hope to score another sweet deal on Tokaji like I had and didn't take advantage of last time, and will ship a case home. Then down to Beograd where I will cross paths with C. Slough and Natasha D. Slough offered to show me around Beograd and Natasha is asking Zoran Živković if I can sit in on a class with them and maybe talk about the wars, if he's willing.
Beyond that there only the most general of plans. Republika Srpska and the museums of atrocity. Sarajevo, where I hope to cross paths with Danis Tanović and Zlatko Dizdarević. Through Mostar to the Hravatska coast. Dubrovnik for as long as I can stand... ;) A place I've often dreamed about.
After ferrys up the coast, meandering to Rijeka, then train to Ljubljana and a flight to Paris. I'll have about 18 hours in the City of Lights, enough time to drink some coffee and pay a vist to Uncle Charles in Montparnasse. The next morning, a Eurostar to London and then the flights back home.
That's when the organization of the collected notes and experience produces a Fellowship essay, a poster project, which is likely to include, on my part, a multimedia production. This trip is also going to furnish me with an English Honors project. I already have an idea as to what I want to that be and accomplish.
87 days. A lot to do before then.
Staying up until 5 am this morning isn't helping to get any of that done... but it is providing the foundations for this chronicle.
Ah. Laku noć.
· • ·
Saturday, February 20, 2010
Epigrams
Curious thought yesterday upon things: When I went to Europe before—six-some years ago to Prague, Bratislava, Budapest, and eastern Poland—I began the notebook I carried with a noteable Kafka quote... and, in hindsight, not surprisingly, I encountered a bureaucratic nightmare that twisted into morbid surreality and later found myself unable to escape from Prague when I missed the night train to Frankfurt (and thus my ensuing flight from Amsterdam) by a mere thirty seconds.
I tend to make quite a few mistakes. I try to learn from most of them.
I won't make the same error of intention again.
This summer's journey notebook will likely open with William Earnest Henley's Invictus.
· • ·
I tend to make quite a few mistakes. I try to learn from most of them.
I won't make the same error of intention again.
This summer's journey notebook will likely open with William Earnest Henley's Invictus.
· • ·
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