Saturday, July 2: Off to Slavonija!
[I am SOOOOO behind in my posts. But today--our "chill day"--as I'll explain later will give me a chance to catch up.]
I had never been to Slavonija in the entire time I was in Croatia back in the 90s. So today we embarked on a really long drive to the far east of the country. Our destinations: Đakovo and Osijek.
Đakovo holds an especially nerdy place in the heart of my history education. It was the seat of Catholic Bishop Juraj Josip Strossmayer who was an advocate for unity among the South Slavs.
His reasoning had little to do with linguistic conformity--unlike some nationalist actors of the nineteenth century. Rather, he imagined "Yugoslavism" in a way that anticipated political, religious, and cultural viability for the South Slavic peoples throughout the Balkans. Many herald him as a visionary, others as naive in thinking that Serbs, Croats, and Muslim Bosnians (as well as the Macedonians and Slovenes) could ever overcome their differences to "unite"--whatever "unity" meant in the context of the late nineteenth-century Habsburg Austrian-Hungarian condominium. A century and a couple decades later, that vision has completely collapsed, and he is now regarded largely as quaint and idealistic, especially after two world wars, a failed socialist state, and the devastating Balkan war in the early 1990s.
So we made our way through the flatish Panonnian countryside, that looks a lot like southern Hungary, by the way, to the good Bishop's residence. I intended to visit the museum about his life, but first we entered the cathedral in Đakovo (the "Đ" letter is pronounced "J"; the "J" letter is pronounced "Y").
The cathedral was under repair for several reasons, some earthquake-related, others 90s-war related, but it was still rather impressive.
On our way out, I asked an elderly man (wait, I'M elderly)--a man OLDER than I am--if he knew where we could find the Strossmayer museum. It turns out that he was the docent at the church (the church tour guide), and he was very curious about us and our interest in the cathedral and Strossmayer. We learned that the building was the seventh built on this spot since the Middle Ages. He then proceeded to give us a history of Slavonija even after I explained I had studied Southeastern Europe in graduate school. Ugh. He was lonely, I think.
At one point, he asked me where I studied: Zagreb? Some place in Croatia? I told him I studied at Yale, and he immediately mentioned my former mentor-tormentor's name, the famous Balkan historian now deceased, Ivo Banac. Steven noticed how crestfallen I was when he mentioned Banac's name. My relationship with Banac was fraught with anxiety, despair, and humiliation. He essentially drove me to abandon this field because of the way he berated me when I was a graduate student. This trip--my first visit back to the country in over 35 years--was meant to exorcise his ghost from my love of Croatia. And here this elderly docent managed to conjure him up all over again simply by saying he "has Banac's book."
Mindful of the time, I finally begged off from our conversation letting him know that we had other cities to visit. But sure enough, just as we got to the museum, we discovered it had closed sometime during the docent's "lecture." Ugh, again.
Back in the car we went on to destination number 2, Osijek. Osijek is the largest city in Slavonija, though it really has never been a place I have longed to visit. The only reason I wanted to go is because one of my teachers from the Školica program I attended online last year hailed from Osijek, and I was kind of curious about what it looked like.
From Đakovo, it was only a 45-minute drive away. Steven and I sought out a brew pub and parked nearby. The place was called Pivnica Runda (Runda means "round"--as in a round of drinks). Fun place. It had a lot of hokey signs you'd find in many bars.
We had a great chat with the young woman who bartended there who filled us in on Osijek. She called herself a "legica"--a person born-and-raised in Osijek. We were about to go when the owner bought us a round of shots of šljivovica (plum brandy). Nice people. If you ever go, pay in cash. They don't take cards. I learned the hard way and had to run a couple blocks to an ATM in the crushing heat of the day.
As we were a bit peckish, we sought out a restaurant recommended by our legica, called Fabrique Grill located in a housing complex/mall area.
Our waiter was adorable! A young guy in his early 20s who--we learned later--spoke excellent English from playing online videogames with English speakers. He told us he had friends who were working on Block Island (Connecticut) this summer, and he wanted to know "how is it there in America." Tough question to answer. I think we said "nice."
We decided to nix our plans to go on to Kopački rit, a nature preserve about a half hour away, as that would have pushed our return to Zagreb late into the night.
After our late lunch, we headed on back to Zagreb, a good three hours away. At one point, I tried to clean the windshield while I was driving and discovered once the wipers were activated that we had gotten a parking ticket which instantly flew off on to the highway.
We got back to Zagreb rather late but still during the light of a summer's evening. A weird little trip with few cultural stops, but with a greater appreciation for a part of the country I had always been curious about. While I had been to that part of Hungary just across the border, I can now say I've seen the Slavic side of the Pannonian plain.
Upon our return to the apartment, Steven complained about his feet. To our shock and amazement upon removing his shoes, the calloused skin on the bottom of BOTH his feet had simply fallen off. Steven's feet had been reduced to a bloody mess! Those of you whom we contacted in a panic (my father, my sister and niece, and my brother-in-law who is a podiatrist), thank you for your help. We were a bit panicky, and your advice consoled us greatly. Here let me gross you all out with disgusting feet pictures for your general edification:
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