Jugoslavia in the �60s

 

Jugoslavia in the ‘60s

 

 

 

It was a long drive under blue skies - Holland, Germany, Austria, Northern Italy, pink Dolomites, green hills. In Venice, the skies were blue still, but approaching Trieste, greying until, leaving the West - just into Jugoslavia, we lunched in gloom beside a harbour after passing border guards certainly not designed to welcome tourists. Of course, then the country was unified under the iron, communist fist of Marshall Tito. Politics? Poverty? Mood? Or just the weather, we asked ourselves. Certainly there was a feeling of oppressiveness.

 

In Dubrovnik, two days later, all was colour and brightness. Marching children in red, white and blue were reflected in the marble street leading down to the harbour with its three distinctive arches.

 

Our campsite cut into a hillside reached down to clear blue waters as we erected the tent on a terraced plot. It was late in the day and the air seemed to have recaptured the oppressiveness of earlier in the week. Were we really less cheery with spirits inexplicably deflated? If so, 'Why?' we asked each other. Tired perhaps. The evening meal was cooked and eaten. The waves, darkening as the sun set behind us, were no longer blue, the white mountains no longer white.

 

Yes they were! - No they weren't! Crash - earth shook. The mountains were white – brilliant with that whiteness that lightning brings - crystalline even - glittering for instants then dark as the night.

 

Sound crashed upon thunder-sound then; drumming - kettledrum, thrum, dum, drum - canvas vibrated then released that fine spray so well known to campers until fibres have expanded.

 

Beneath us, the un-sewn groundsheet became cold. Quickly, the corners were held high as a stream flowed through the tent. Crackle, Crash, Christmas pudding tied at the top sitting on custard - Custard? – Mud, - thoughts of Hippopotami "Mud, Mud, Glorious Mud, nothing quite like it for cooling the - - backside?"

 

Crash! Is the country tearing apart? The tent is lit up. Brilliance through a million small lenses, droplets on waxed canvas. Courage! A head pokes from the tent. Dancing light - peak to peak - beauty that is awesome. Miles of coastline alight; rocks, mountains and sea aflame.

 

Morning - the wreckage is surveyed and the tent still up.  Remarkably we are still dry - ish, the sky is blue the sea grey for half a mile as countless tons of Jugoslavia flow into international waters. Erosion of a nation?

We dig a trench for tonight and tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. Brooding days; dramatic nights. Time under threat, it seemed.

 

Sequel:

 

We left Dubrovnik, travelling at night over mountain roads. It was daylight when we started but what, in mileage terms was a two-hour drive, on these roads over the spine of the country, took us until two in the morning. Too late to find orthodox accommodation, we were picked up in Banja Luca by a youth on a bike who steamed in the Mercury lights as he pedalled furiously ahead, guiding us to his house. It was in a small village, just a circle of wooden houses. We slept on a bed-settee in the main room and all night an old man coughed somewhere nearby. The youth had borrowed our phrase book and sat outside studying it for the whole of the night. Toilet facilities were two planks across a hole at the bottom of the garden and washing, a bowl of water from a standpipe.

 

No money was taken by this kind family but they accepted a tin of Nescafe and some ball-point pens, all unobtainable at that time in a country which though open to travellers, was then still a member of the Eastern Bloc and desperately poor. The phrase book could not be left as it came from a public library but one was sent immediately upon our return to UK. We played football for half an hour then departed, bought grapes in the market of Banja Luca and drove on to Zagreb and Lubljana, beautiful cities, but places in which we were inexplicably ill at ease.

 

Crossing the border into Austria, the mood lifted and we were in the lovely atmosphere of Klagenfurt and the Würthersee then on to Salzburg for some Mozart Concerts then home where, sitting some ten days later, we watched TV news, recognising Tito striding through the earthquake wreckage of Banja Luca. We were never able to find out the fate of our kind hosts. Now ‘Jugoslavia’ is no more, Dubrovnik, Banja Luca and Sarajevo where we had been were a war zone as Serb and Moslem became locked in a bitter and cruel strife. We think often of the mud’s symbolism, as part of Jugoslavia was washed into the sea.

Reviews

[Lilith des Cavernes]

As I wrote for your poem of this work, I really liked this. It's powerful. I'm from Southern California and have lived through many earthquakes. You're writing of this experience brought back memories for me. The addition of the political situation at that time in Jugoslavia adds an understanding to situation that goes beyond the earthquake and a dynamic which is stark and real. Bravo!

[emmajoy]

What a great post. I know that part of the world, I've camped... can picture so much of what you've written so marvellously. You use extraordinarily fine, explicit phrases...

Beneath us, the un-sewn groundsheet became cold. Quickly, the corners were held high as a stream flowed through the tent. Crackle, Crash, Christmas pudding tied at the top sitting on custard - Custard? � Mud, - thoughts of Hippopotami "Mud, Mud, Glorious Mud, nothing quite like it for cooling the - - backside?"

We dig a trench for tonight and tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. Brooding days; dramatic nights. Time under threat, it seemed.

The 'time under threat ' continued under that regime and way after, as you wrote.

Thank you for sharing and also, for passing on the description in such an interesting and well created manner.

(Love Saltzburg.. one of my favorutie places.)