History Lesson!
6/21/08, Saturday
Dubrovnik
Today was a sleepy day. Dubrovnik is a really popular tourist spot because it has a historic city surrounded by heavily fortified walls. The morning tour was exhausting because of the heat and the crowds, so I spent the afternoon napping.
Dubrovnik. The historic city is to the left, on the water.
We had a guest lecturer who explained some of the Croatia's political history, which was good because I knew nothing before the cruise. Croatia's had it pretty rough. At various points in time, Croatia has been occupied by Greeks, Romans, Venetians, and Austrian-Hungarians. During WWII, Croatia was an "independent state" under Mussolini. After WWII, Croatia was put under Russian protection and united into Yugoslavia (made up of Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia, Kosovo, and other states that have historically hated each other).
An example of the architecture of different Croatian rulers. On the right is a barracks-style Communist Yugoslavian building, in the center is a beautiful Austrian-Hungarian building, and on the left is a Axis WWII building (on the other side of the building, not visible from here, is a balcony from which politicians made speeches and a collection of flags). On the far left is a Roman arch.
Tito, the Communist dictator who ruled Yugoslavia, said he was a native Croatian, but he could barely speak the language. Our lecturer's mother was from the same region of Croatia that Tito was supposed to be from. During WWII she saw a missing person poster for somebody named Tito, but the face was different from the Tito that later rose to power. So, Tito was probably a minor Russian prince who decided he would get more power in Croatia and took the identity of someone who died in WWII.
A church in Dubrovnik.
After Tito's death in 1980, Yugoslavia didn't have much holding it together, considering the cultural and religious tensions (such as those between the Catholic Croats and the Orthodox Serbs). In 1992, these tensions erupted into civil war, and Yugoslavia broke apart. Dubrovnik's historic city in particular was hit hard during the war because of its cultural importance.
The historic city's harbor.
Dubrovnik
Today was a sleepy day. Dubrovnik is a really popular tourist spot because it has a historic city surrounded by heavily fortified walls. The morning tour was exhausting because of the heat and the crowds, so I spent the afternoon napping.
Dubrovnik. The historic city is to the left, on the water.
We had a guest lecturer who explained some of the Croatia's political history, which was good because I knew nothing before the cruise. Croatia's had it pretty rough. At various points in time, Croatia has been occupied by Greeks, Romans, Venetians, and Austrian-Hungarians. During WWII, Croatia was an "independent state" under Mussolini. After WWII, Croatia was put under Russian protection and united into Yugoslavia (made up of Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia, Kosovo, and other states that have historically hated each other).
An example of the architecture of different Croatian rulers. On the right is a barracks-style Communist Yugoslavian building, in the center is a beautiful Austrian-Hungarian building, and on the left is a Axis WWII building (on the other side of the building, not visible from here, is a balcony from which politicians made speeches and a collection of flags). On the far left is a Roman arch.
Tito, the Communist dictator who ruled Yugoslavia, said he was a native Croatian, but he could barely speak the language. Our lecturer's mother was from the same region of Croatia that Tito was supposed to be from. During WWII she saw a missing person poster for somebody named Tito, but the face was different from the Tito that later rose to power. So, Tito was probably a minor Russian prince who decided he would get more power in Croatia and took the identity of someone who died in WWII.
A church in Dubrovnik.
After Tito's death in 1980, Yugoslavia didn't have much holding it together, considering the cultural and religious tensions (such as those between the Catholic Croats and the Orthodox Serbs). In 1992, these tensions erupted into civil war, and Yugoslavia broke apart. Dubrovnik's historic city in particular was hit hard during the war because of its cultural importance.
The historic city's harbor.