Turning the page
Croatia struggles with memories of European conflict

By Andrew Princz
Reporting from Hvar for ontheglobe.com

The skies were grey on the afternoon that I arrived at the main train station in the Croatian capital of Zagreb. I wheeled my luggage through King Tomislav square and headed towards my hotel. In what felt like a sudden déja-vu, I noticed a small group of youth manning a protest booth voicing their anger at light sentences that had been produced by the UN tribunal in The Hague just days earlier for the perpetrators of the massacre of some 194 Croats in Vukovar, eastern Croatia in the fall of 1991.

Croatians remained enmeshed in the war that had brought them independence almost a decade and a half earlier, I realized.

The protesters were infuriated that the two main architects of the massacre were sentenced to only twenty years and five years in jail respectively for the murders that took place a few months before the birth of modern-day Croatia. What kind of justice, they asked. What kind of Europe is this?

But my déja-vu related to a visit to Zagreb much earlier in 1990, shortly before the war of independence broke out which heralded the break-up of what was then Yugoslavia. At that time students had gathered in large numbers throughout the streets of Ban Jelacic Square a few hundred meters away. They waved placards and chanted frenetically.

There I met with two best friends - one of Serb the other of Croat origin. In their early twenties, they said that in the coming weeks each would be on the opposite sides of the barricades. They were ready to fight each other in the battles ahead. What perplexed me most was how comfortable they were with this fact. And sure enough the war came about that they both foresaw.

I sometimes wondered whether they had met in the months that followed at some gruesome moment. Could one have fired bullets into the night at the other? Could they have noticed the other's glare from a distance?

Zagreb was for me the first stop in a guided visit that would take me from this country's decidedly central European capital through to the sunny, lighter Adriatic coast of the Mediterranean. But the first site visit, my guide insisted, would be the Mirogoj Cemetary on the outskirts of the capital.

It was a grand park surrounded by a neo-Renaissance arcade, but the reason I suspect that I was brought here was to pay tribute to the grandiose black-granite burial place of the country's controversial first president, Franjo Tudjman. Perhaps it was a sort of pay-back message that has foreign guests visiting the remains of a leader who during his lifetime enjoyed a fair amount of disdain from the west for his strong-arm leadership. At his state funeral in 1999, for instance, most western foreign leaders stayed away.

But it was he 'Father of the Nation', after all, who had brought Croatia towards independence. Regardless of the legacy of war and the sometimes uncouth acts that it produced. In some way I could also understand it. After all neither Europe nor the west played a heroic role in stopping the mass Balkan killings until most of the damage was done.

We then returned to the center of town where I walked through the capital's meandering roads. Understated, Zagreb is a city of vibrant, youthful energies. Small clubs are scattered about, and Mediterranean style cafés dot the main streets where people spend hours sitting and chatting away in comfortable armchairs.

I picked up a book, and read, glancing around occasionally. For some reason I kept on wondering if I would meet an acquaintance or friend here since this seemed like that kind of a city. It was a big living-room where your neighbours watched just as you peered at others.

My visit to Croatia was also inspired by a trip that I had made to Zagreb four years ago as the editor of a magazine to interview the country's president, Stipe Mesic. We visited the vast presidential estate at Vila Zagorje, on the outskirts of the capital, a palace built for the former Yugoslav president Josip Broz Tito - the communist leader credited with keeping Yugoslavia miraculously together for decades until his death in 1980.

Mesic is a man who continues to struggle with his wartime past while trying to keep his gaze firmly fixed at the country's future within the European Union. His facial expressions were severe and his hardened exterior revealed the wear and tear of his time at war. He had witnessed change and political turmoil over the course of his long career and it was amazing to think that this man was both the last president of Yugoslavia, as well as having being one of the founders of the Republic of Croatia. My first question to him related to his reaction to the young students that I had met in Zagreb years earlier.

"These two young men had only one particular thing to do and that was to defend their homeland: Croatia," he said, his words clearly enunciated like that of a judge or general and revealing a heavy pang of bitterness that I had not anticipated. It was as if I had haphazardly hit the Achilles-heal of a giant, "But I think that the real issue here is why some Serbs chose the opposite side. I think that they were cheated and were betrayed."

"Slobodan Milosevic cheated the world by claiming that he was fighting for Yugoslavia… But the world, the east and the west, were sentimental toward that country because it was a positive factor for the west during the cold war."

As the break-up of Yugoslavia becomes a tale of history and textbooks those events and the interests of each party just seem to fade away to those who were not directly involved. But not Mesic. He will remember. But the truth is that in retrospect we are all in some ways responsible for the scars that have been created here. Primarily Europe, and the west in general for its inability in grasping the situation in the Balkans of that era.

Ultimately Croatia emerged from the Balkan conflicts of 1992 to 1995 as a newly formed country. Today while still torn by issues relating to its wartime past, Croatia is a partner of Europe that will no doubt emerge as an EU and NATO member in the coming years.

Leaving the past behind, I began my voyage towards the lush Adriatic coast which boasts over 1,000 islands. This seaside playground is this country's panacea of sorts. Perhaps those that want to forget the past will come to this sunshine coast that has redefined this country in the eyes of the world as something of a paradise for the rich and famous.

The New York Times has hailed it as the 'new Riviera' while Condé Nast Traveller writes that the island of Hvar rivals the European party capitals of Ibiza and Mikenos. Moving on from the past, Croatia is now crowned the newest glamour destination.

It was a short flight from Zagreb to the seaside town of Split, the largest Dalmatian city. Split recently celebrated 1,700 years since its founding and a few years later the completion of Roman Emperor Diocletian's retirement palace, built here in A.D. 305. Contained within the city walls were the emperor's apartments, temples, housings for servants and soldiers alike. The walls of the original palace continue to define the city's limits. Over the following centuries the rulers of the palace changed from Croatian kings, to Venetian administrators, French rulers to the Austro-Hungarian monarchy.

I walked down Split's coastal palm-tree lined promenade, the Riva, where beautiful women strolled back and forth on the recently constructed boardwalk. Over a beer I happened upon a Canadian of Croat origin that had moved here eighteen months ago to seek fortune. He seemed to live in a bubble of optimism. For him the preoccupations of the Croats with their past was of little consequence. This was simply a land of opportunity.

"It is amazing to be in a country that is starting from the ground up," said Kreso Gotovac, 31, a project manager for the telecom H1 - Portus d.o. He projected the self-confidence of a business mogul. "It would be a perfect opportunity for any person with money to come to Croatia."

As the night progressed swarms of young people filled the darkened streets as an open-air concert attracted hoards of teenagers. This was another world, where the past lived in its splendid architecture alone.

The next morning we began a short drive north of Split to the town of Trogir, a settlement founded in the 3rd century B.C. by the Greeks. Trogir prospered under Venetian rule, leaving behind beautiful architecture, winding narrow streets and walkways. We then boarded a ferry that took us to the island of Hvar, the new Riviera, where the sun shines longer than any other place in this country, and fine smelling lavender grows in abundance.

Island after island passed us by, their lushness greenery and Mediterranean smells seemed to betray all notions of what constituted this part of the world. It was like arriving at the almost tropically green pastures of Ireland, or the glamour of Monaco where even the streets shine. Here too it felt like in an unearthly place totally apart from its surroundings.

We arrive at Stari Grad, a typical Dalmatian town, rich in history and unspoiled nature. Here on the north-western end of the island of Hvar, we were greeted by Tonci Surjak, 40, our guide in this scenic sleepy hollow. Tonci had had long hair and was wearing black leather pants which left me wondering where he had parked his motorcycle. Sure enough we soon discovered that his fancy two-wheeled motor vehicle was not far off.

Tonci had fought in the war, and when it ended he decided to start his life anew here on this small corner of his paradise.

"Life was better when I was a kid in Yugoslavia, the standard of living was good: but it was not a real state but it was artificial in a way that cannot be explained in the modern economy," he recalls, "The workers were protected, but everybody got the same salary if you worked one or ten hours. The normal man asked just how long this would last, and Tito was the only person who held it together. When he died everything slowly tore apart."

In his mid-twenties during the war, Tonci left the island and volunteered to fight for Croatia, and did so in combat actions near Zadar, Maslenica and Novi Grad.

"You can never get it back because the truth is that the war took the best years of my life in one way or another," Tonci says over lunch, "Life was definitely not normal because half of Croatia was occupied. When you are in such an abnormal situation life leaves you with different types of scars. But like other problems you just have to turn another leaf. The problems are there to solve, to put them behind you, and then to move on."

Leaving Tonci, we crossed the island to arrive at Hvar Town in the late afternoon. The five-o'clock sun enveloped the port and its beautiful buildings, rows of sailboats and small stands where lavender was sold conspicuously to tourists. After the sun went down I curled into my bed at the Hotel Riva, overlooking the bay, and read 'The Ministry of Pain', by the contemporary Croatian author Dubravka Ugresic.

The text describes the lives of a group of former Yugoslav émigrés who are students in Amsterdam in the early 1990s as they try to make sense of the dissolution of the country of their birth, and a phenomenon that she describes as a 'Yugonostaligia'. It was a kind of nostalgia that these people shared in the memories of their youth and its symbols that had suddenly lost meaning.

"…I could sense their inner fragmentation, their rage, their stifled protest," the narrator writes of her students, "We had all of us been violated in one way or another."

"The list of things we had been deprived of was long and gruesome: we had been deprived of the country we had been born in and the right to a normal life; we had been deprived of our language; we had experienced humiliation, fear and helplessness; we had learned what it means to be reduced to a number, a blood group, a pack."

The book begins as the characters attempt to deal with their experiences and yet in the end there is no satisfactory resolution. Somehow they were lost along the way.

The next morning I awoke to a scene of slow-moving boats outside of my balcony window. In the distance I could see a small island with single edifice on what seemed like a cliff. I walked along shores of the port to find that it was very a lazy day in Hvar Town. It was the national day of Croatia. Zrinka Zokic, a primary school teacher from Hvar Town, walked us to the 15th century Franciscan Monastery, the Venetian Loggia and clock tower and St. Stephen's Cathedral.

"I was at the university when the war started, we were one of the six republics of Yugoslavia," said Zrinka, whose eyes revealed faint tears, "I always thought it happens only to savages in the middle of nowhere, and not to someone in civilized society. It was not easy, especially for young people, we were completely cut off from the rest of the world."

Today, Hvar Town is frequented by Europe's rich, glamorous class. Fancy yachts adorn the sunny landscape, tourists jump from one island to the other.

"It's not easy knowing that some people from my hometown went to fight, and they were killed and they are not among us anymore," she said, describing her feelings on Croatia's national day, "You always remember. Life goes on, but it is not easy to forget."

We continued our journey sailing from Hvar through to the neighbouring island of Korcula, the fabled alleged place of birth of the seafarer Marco Polo.

Our last port of call was Dubrovnik, where the rain poured as we arrived in this magical city that was under siege during the early 1990s. Today hardly a trace can be seen. The old town was bustling, tourists intermingling among the historic churches, galleries, public buildings and designer shops.

Here in a café I meet Sanja Spremo, 21, who was a child when her father went off to war. "It was very hard even though I was only a child," she says, "And it is still a part of everyday life. There are some experiences that he shared with us, but I don't know how to explain it but it is kind of a hard feeling that you have inside when the war is mentioned."

"But it is getting better with time," she concludes.

Andrew Princz is the editor of the travel and culture portal, ontheglobe.com. He was the founding editor of the Budapest-based monthly DT-Diplomacy and Trade.