On Canovals' Blog you will encounter Croatian and other music that I like, along with the Psalms, some Croatian Bajka, and fairytales from other lands. I also write about other topics that intrigue me and I hope will interest you too. Dobrodosli! Welcome! Enjoy! Uživati!
part III of a series (part I of this adventure is at dorucak na granici , part II is at Boom and there will be yet more to follow)
By now in this narrative you have probably concluded that I am a member of two minorities in the United States. I am a hyphenated - American, Croatian-American to be exact and I am somewhat physically disabled. My doctors tend to think the later is due to late arriving aftereffects of polio long ago. That puts me in an elite group because there aren't many of us polio survivors. The former may be a mystery to some readers who know my more famous shirt sleeve relative Eric Byler who is Asian-American. Eric is the creator of "Charlotte Sometimes," which if you haven't seen, you simply must because its a masterpiece.
I got to meet Nenad Bach in person for the first time!
In Washington, the Croatian - American group passed through the second check point at the White House in spite of the fact that all we had was State issued driver's licenses and that the White House had urgently emailed us that out identification had to be "US Government issued."
On the Texas border with Mexico when the authorities want to see US Government issued documents, they want to see a passport or a border crossing card. Your Texas driver's license or other State issued ID will not do at all in those cases. You look around and see tall fences surmounted with concertina wire and armed men everywhere and you produce your passport. We know what "US Government issued" means. Apparently the White House officials do not. English. Perhaps some ill feeling and confusion could be averted if Federal officials learned to write on english.
I was exhausted by the time we reached that second check point. My back was announcing to me in no uncertain terms that it wanted no part of the excursion we were about to embark upon. When I relayed that information to the security people they were quick to furnish me with a wheel chair. Chach was kind enough to volunteer to push me around and so off we went.
Around the corner, to our consternation, there were concrete steps. We couldn't see any way around them but suddenly out of the bushes, in a flash like something from a James Bond movie, there appeared a Secret Service type fellow who guided us through a hole in those bushes we had not seen. As we passed through a gate which reminded me of gates in various prisons where I have visited parishioners (yes, even Lutherans sometimes run afoul of the law), the thought occurred to me that we might be on our way to Guantanamo never to be seen again. Blessedly, our adventure was not quite that eventful.
In a few moments we were actually in the White House, a wonderfully appointed place - which has within it more steps, beautiful steps, but steps. Another splendidly uniformed Secret Service fellow appeared and led us on the tour of a lifetime. Chach and I were whisked through store rooms and work rooms and cloak rooms and finally we passed the highlight of our whole tour - the kitchen. I could see the spotless stainless steel appointments of the room and that there were leeks on the table, all sized exactly alike. We saw some finely appointed rooms and such but nothing compared to the kitchen.
At that moment I was elated. First of all, I do like cooking and seeing such a kitchen was a fantastic delight. All these years since 1959 I thought the "Kitchen Debates" took place in that kitchen of the White House and I thought I was seeing the very place where East met West. Sigh, this morning I learned that those debates took place in an entirely different venue. Still, it was a tour which, according to our Secret Service guide, only one in about 600 ever gets to have. That is special.
We rested a while afterward and took some photos outside. Nenad has most of these photos and when he makes them available I will attach more of them here or over on Crown Croatia somewhere so you can find them and see them later if you like. As we left the grounds, the officers retrieved the wheel chair and I faced the walk to the Eisenhower Executive Office Building unaided.
L-R: Dragan Chach Cacinovic, David Byler, Steve Rukavina, Anne Pavlich and Nenad Bach
It was a long and painful walk during which my back complained vociferously, but as it turned out, we Croatian - Americans had brought along with us our own nurse, Anne Pavlich, who made sure I stopped and rested sufficiently along the way so I didn't hurt myself. According to the intern assigned to our meeting, the Secret Service had a wheel chair available but it was not released to us until I had made the trek to our designated entrance around the corner about three impressively large Washington DC blocks away and was seated inside the auditorium where the White House had planned a briefing for us. At sixty, none of this would have been a difficulty.
Perhaps the White House needs a reminder that some of us actually do live past sixty and that disabilities occur to some of us. All the politicians in Washington from the President down yammer on and on about how disabled folk should have open access to everything everywhere but there in Washington DC itself, the Capitol of the United States, at the White House, this was my experience.
I was determined to attend the briefing and Anne was determined to help me so at last we rejoined the others at our entrance. I was out of breath and in pain as I looked for a seat. A Serbian gentleman graciously yielded his seat at the end of a row to me. I know, I know, for a Croatian to use Serbian and
gentleman in the same breath is anathema to some of my Croatian brothers but I'm just reporting the facts as they lay on the ground in that room on that day in that place. I did not catch his name, but he was a gentleman and I am appreciative of him. That moment would not be the last time during that meeting that Slav - Americans of various sorts demonstrated a measure of solidarity. That would not be the last moment that immigrant Americans and hyphenated Americans of various kinds demonstrated solidarity.
More on this next time ...
do sljedeći put, blagoslov - until next time, blessings, David Byler a.k.a. Canovals 14. veljače 2014
(part I of this adventure is at dorucak na granici , there will more to follow)
"BOOOOOM!!!" My eyes were instantly open. Instinct propelled me to drop and roll. Of course dropping and rolling from a prone sleeping position placed me on the safety of the floor between the bed and the wall. My brain wasn't on yet. I couldn't get it on. My brain doesn't reboot from my sleep any faster than my computer reboots from its sleep.
After that one single "BOOOOM!" everything was silent. No dogs were barking. No cats were miauing. No possums (we call them tlacuatches here) were rustling. No night birds were clucking. No bat wings were flapping. I listened intently for the soft sound of my tarantulas scuttling through the grass. Nothing. Not a sound.
No sound even of a truck on the freeway not far away. Odd, even at that hour. I kept my head low as I eased over to the computers near the foot of my bed. One was black. The other had just rebooted. The computer's clock told me that it was 0300.
I concluded that the "BOOOOOM" was not mortar fire. By this time I was awake just enough to decide that it wasn't a shell from a cannon. I couldn't hear any AK47s firing and heaven knows there are plenty of those around here which people fire off on Christmas, New Years, Fourth of July and whenever else they get drunk. Anyway, we weren't being invaded and it wasn't the sound of a border drug war like we hear the sounds from all too often from just three or four miles away. It was still silent as a graveyard. It couldn't have been a katyuska - who on earth in their right mind fires off just one of those things and expects to do any damage?
I was still groggy when I remembered that the Iranians were sending warships toward the coast somewhere. Maybe they had lobbed an atomic bomb at us. People have always said that it would take an atomic bomb to wake me up in the night after I have gone to sleep. That seemed logical then. The Iranians must have bombed the Port of Brownsville. I was way too sleepy to handle that, so I went back to bed and slipped back into a sound sleep from which I didn't awaken until late this morning.
A few weeks ago, Nenad Bach called me. He was so apologetic and concerned that he had awakened me. Nenad is a kind and considerate man. I assured him that if I had been asleep, I wouldn't have heard the phone. That was the truth of course -since it takes an atomic bomb to wake me up (see above). Actually, that was not an atomic bomb last night. I can't blame the Iranians. Even so, the noise was so loud it was heard all over the city. This morning on Facebook Brownsvillians were trying to triangulate the source of the sound until the weather service explained that we had some unusual lightening along with an inversion layer which amplified the sound.
Gotta learn more about how this works. Imagine getting control of this phenomenon somehow and placing a rock band in the middle of it someway so the sound would go out over a whole city. Awesome thought. Someone should work on this sometime.
Anyway, that night a few weeks ago, Nenad told me about "Ethnic Day" at the White House in Washington DC. He wondered if I might be interested in being part of the Croatian - American delegation. Of course I wanted to go. There were a few details to work out and all that went well. While I was in Houston for Ambassador Paro's presentation at the Holocaust Museum we planned for the delegates to meet with him at the Embassy while we were there, so everything was set. Washington DC here we come!
We have all heard stories about how the TSA sometimes gives people a hard time during their screenings. I'm an old guy so too much hassle could be a problem. I picked up the phone and called the TSA to find out what to expect and what to do. The man explained everything to me and told me to be sure and let the agents at the airport know that I am partly disabled.
At the airport, I was received with great dignity. Security found a way to check me and my luggage out without any hassle at all. I like the idea of flying safely and I like the idea of being treated with some decorum. The TSA accomplished both. I was so impressed that I called the TSA help line again today just to say "thank you" because somehow I doubt they hear a "thank you" very often. Soon I was on the airplane traveling to Houston and on to the capitol city.
There was one detail I learned after I was in the hotel in Washington. The White House was insisting on two things: 1. That we present identification which matched the identification which we had sent in earlier and 2. That this identification be US Government issued.
I was depressed. I've been around the block a few times, in the US military and so forth. I know that there is exactly such a thing as US Government issued identification. There are military driver's licenses, passports, and border crossing cards. I had given my Texas Driver's license number. Texas is Texas and not the US Government. There is a difference. Here on the Texas border we are acutely aware that this is an important difference.
It wouldn't have mattered a lot really if the White House had refused my identification. Somehow seeing where the President lives was not nearly so important as meeting one of the greatest musicians of our time. Nenad Bach was live and in person there at the rendezvous point. My purpose in being there was accomplished. It was good to meet my friend for the first time in the flesh. The rest of the adventure would be icing on the cake.
The rest of the delegation are all especially fine people too - the sort that make a person extra proud to be a Croat. We will talk more about them as we go along.
The Croatian - American delegation approached the first White House check point and it seems that our state driver's licenses were quite acceptable after all. Apparently what the White House had meant to say was that we had to have identification issued by an official entity of the United States, such as one of our respective states.
One observation on this experience so far: All of us hyphenated - Americans speak on english pretty darn good (except perhaps when I write miau instead of meow for sound cat makes) but it really might be helpful if the Americans would learn to speak on english also.
There is more to this adventure, so do please stay tuned .......
do sljedeći put, blagoslov - until next time, blessings, David Byler a.k.a. Canovals 12. veljače 2014
"America." Everybody in the world knows where is "America." The fact, however, is that "America" is a continent. Actually there are two of them, North and South. Still, everybody in the world knows that "America" is the "United States." Even that is a wee problem because in North America there are two "United States." There is Sjedinjene Meksičke Države and there is Sjedinjene Američke Države. Despite those little technical difficulties no one in the world is confused about which one is "The United States," or just "America."
It wasn't always so. When the first Croats showed up in the waters around America, America was still America in the broader sense. Those early Croats shared the continents with Britain, France, Spain, Portugal, Denmark, the Netherlands, the Muskogee, the Cherokee, the Comanche and others. What's more, Croatians, along with others, helped build a few countries in North America like Texas, California, and even the Kingdom of Hawaii out in the Pacific.
With no independent Homeland back in Europe, these Croats were, for the most part, uninvolved in empire building or "colonialism" in the usual sense of that term, but they were having great adventures. One of those adventures has to do with what I am eating this very morning.
The histories all show that Napoleon III withdrew French troops from Mexico but hardly a word is written about the Croatian Hussars who were in Mexico with Carlotta's husband even though everyone loves Carlotta. When the Emperor was captured and shot, the Mexican officers with Benito Juárez asked him what to do with all these soldiers. Juárez is reputed to have said something like "We have cut off the head, the body of the snake is harmless."
So now, you are a Croatian soldier in a strange land far away from home. You have no money in your pocket and no way home. Besides, why would you want to go home? What is there for you? You have little future except perhaps to be a fisherman or a farm worker on some large estate owned by one of the Austrians who run the place.
You are hungry. Your belly is crying out to you. You've managed to steal two eggs out from under a chicken, one stale tortilla, an onion and a tomato. Beside yourself, you have three companions to feed. What do you do?
You crack open the eggs and you put them in the mess kit you were issued by the military. As always, te dvije oči jaja su namigujući on you. Those two eyes of the eggs are winking at you. What next? You crumble up the tortilla into the eggs, you cut up the tomato and the onion and you mix everything all together in the pan over the fire.
The war was vicious as all wars are. There is a shortage of young Mexican men. The smell from your cooking attracts the attention of a young Mexican woman carrying water home from the well. You try to explain your recipe to her. There is laughing and giggling. She tastes your meal. The closest she can come to saying all that about the eyes of the eggs winking is just "migas." Close enough. A new dish, a new word, and a new love has been born in the same hour. You are married and you have children. Your neighbors love your music. Eventually the community around you forgets that once you were a stranger.
Two generations later, Mexico cracks down on the Catholic Church. Your grandchildren don't remember exactly why, but they are Catholic among the Catholics and they find themselves across the border in Texas. They bring with them their Mariachi tradition also born in Eastern Europe. Your great grandson composes a song for his daughter for her wedding but he has been taught that it is not permitted for him to play and sing in church. But somehow a Croatian - American pastor who knows and understands what he is seeing insists that the father serenade his daughter at the end of the wedding service INSIDE the church. Perhaps he will not forget that day the rest of his life.
I know his daughter has not forgotten because, you see, I was that pastor. This happened about a decade ago. My musician friend is Croatian - American in the wider sense of that term. Mexican culture has mostly but not entirely forgotten there ever was such a thing among them. Homero Prado's family knows, and a few other musician families know. All the average Anglo - American sees when he looks at my friend is one more "Mexican." As a matter of fact, all the average Mexican - American sees is one more "Mexican."
My musician friend is one of those Croatian - Americans like those which Ambassador Joško Paro spoke of a few nights ago at the Croatian Embassy in Washington D.C. My musician brother knows some about the Croatian part of his roots and he is interested in knowing more. He is proud of his ancestry and he treasures that part of the culture he retains. Is he, or any of his extended family interested much in modern Croatia and other Croatian people? No, not especially. He is content here in South Texas where he can live his life as he wishes playing his music on special occasions. His children and grandchildren however just might be tourists in Croatia someday.
My friend is an example of one of those ethnicities about which neither Mexico nor the United States have any awareness. That's not surprising considering hardly anyone except us old ragged grey-haired historian types know about the Jews and the Arabs who also live in North Mexico and in Southern Texas - people who were exported from Spain and who lived under the thumb of "religious police" for several generations. Throw in the descendants of several Indian nations whose states disappeared long before they migrated into this area, a few modern Croats, some Poles, a handful of Polish Jews, and some "Anglos" and you begin to see that down here at the Rio Grande we are a rich and complex tapestry of "ethnicities" even though the statistics want to lump nearly everyone together as "Hispanic" just because almost all of us speak at least a little on Spanish.
Being Brownsvillian is complicated. We are not all the same, yet we share a lot in common. Being Croatian - American is complicated. We are not all the same, yet we share a rich heritage. Being Croatian is complicated. We are not all the same. Being South-East European is complicated. Being East European is complicated especially when you hyphenate any of that with "American" and then you discover that the US National Security Administration doesn't even know where East Europe is, much less anything about South East Europe. What hope do we have that they know anything much about Croatia or Bosnia. God forbid that they should need to know about the Sandjak or the Vojvodina or anywhere else in our neck of the woods. God help anyone from anywhere else. This is the start of another story ... its important, so I will write about that a little later. Do stay tuned for more over the next few days.
do sljedeći put, blagoslov - until next time, blessings,
Today when the typical older Amerikanski hears the word "rocket" the image that comes to his mind is about Niel Armstrong on the moon. His parents thought about "Buck Rogers" in the fictionalized stories about things that were yet to come in that time. In the 1960's in America there was a lot of talk about Werner Von Braun from Hitler's V2 rocket program who was now assisting the Americans in their "race for space."
Again, what comes to the mind of Amerikanski is words to his national hymn. O say, can you see, by the dawn's early light,
What so proudly we hail'd at the twilight's last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars, thro' the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watch'd, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof thro' the night that our flag was still there.
O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
At the words "The rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air" there is moisture in the eyes of many patriotic Americans. In school the American is taught about how the Chinese supposedly invented rockets. There used to be a mention that Marco Polo brought this technology to the West, but of course there is no mention that Marco Polo was Croatian. Sigh.
There might be some mention about how the British attempted to use rockets in the 18th century. Of course their rockets were ineffective weren't they? The Americans won against them - right? So the school books skip ahead to the rockets of the invincible American military of the present time. There's little mention of William Congreve whose work was behind "the rockets' red glare" in the hymn.
The American never hears about Kazimierz Siemienowicz. I suppose its because his name is too long and too difficult to spell. I will be the first to admit that Казімір Семяновіч is much easier to spell in Belarusian than in Polish. The man literally wrote the book on rocketry in 1650. His "Artis Magnae Artilleriae pars prima" stood as the basic artillery manual for the next two hundred years.
Siemienowicz provided the standard designs for creating rockets, fireballs, and other pyrotechnic devices. It discussed for the first time the idea of applying a reactive technique to artillery. It contains a large chapter on caliber, construction, production and properties of rockets including multistage rockets, batteries of rockets, and rockets with delta wing stabilizers.
What on earth does Siemienowicz have to do with American Veteran's Day, Canadian Day of Remembrance, oh and by the way, Polish Independence Day on 11 November. Why would a Croat, especially a Texas Croat care about any of this?
The year was 1673. The game was on! The grad was Khotyn. Poland versus Ottomans. The odds are on an Ottoman victory. The Turks had won the year before. The Ottomans were invincible. They brought 120 of the most technologically advanced cannons to the battle at Khotyn. Jan Sobieski brought Siemienowicz and his rockets. The Ottoman's lost. Sobieski and Siemienowicz beat them again the next year at Vienna and the Ottoman's were forever excluded from Slovakia and Hungary. Croatia began to arise again. Poland began to recover from the Khmelnytsky disaster and the harsh period of the Swedish disaster during which Poland lost about one third of her population. The red glare of Siemienowicz rockets vaulted the Lion of Lechistan (as the Turks called Jan Sobieski) to the throne of Poland.
For a time Poland's fortunes were much much better. There were major advances toward democracy and Polish officers assisted the Americans in their struggle against monarchy. In that time Poland promulgated one of the world's first written constitutions, a document Potemkin derisively dismissed as "a contagion of democracy." The autocrats of Europe couldn't stand such a contagion. Armies marched and Poland began another long night of foreign domination.
According to many historians Poland ceased to exist then until 1918. Are they correct? I submit to you that these historians are incorrect. Poland existed, but where?
"Oh sure," you say, "Poland existed in the hearts and minds of the Polish people scattered around everywhere and in the hearts and minds of the Polish people under foreign rule." Yup. True enough. But there is more to the story than just that.
Let's start with Felix Wardzinski. One man. A soldier. A Polish soldier. A soldier in an army defeated by the Prussians and defeated by the Russians. A soldier in an army totally crushed. A soldier on the run for his life, Felix Wardzinski crossed the border into Galicia which at that time was controlled by the Hapsburg empire.
If the Hapsburg government had been faced with just one Felix Wardzinski that would have been the end of the story. Felix would have found a job and he would have settled down in his new homeland. That was not the case however, there were a lot of Felix Wardzinskis who crossed into Galicia.
Examine this scenario with me. Let's step inside the brain of the Austrian Crown for a moment. All these Felix Wardzinskis form up their units again inside Austrian territory and continue to strike at the foreign armies occupying their homeland. The Prussians use this as an excuse to strike at Galicia, or the Russians come to stop the raids into the territory they occupy. Either way, the Austro-Hungarian empire loses. The Hapsburg family has just lost Mexico in the Mexican revolution of 1825. Further loses to the family are ~ shudder ~ unthinkable.
The Austrians could just shoot these men and be done with it. That would set the Polish population in Galicia on edge. Galicia, Slovakia, Bohemia, Moravia, Czechy and - God forbid - Croatia might rise up. In short, the Austrian Crown might be left with only Austria. All that disaster over Felix Wardzinski, a defeated soldier, who may have had no idea he could be that important to the rise and fall of nations.
There is a way out for the Triple Crown. (What? You thought the "Triple Crown" was a horse race in Kentucky? Ha! Austria - Hungaria - Croatia, that's the Triple Crown.) There's a simple way out. "Felix, brate moj, where you want to go buddy?" The Triple Crown offered to furnish transportation to any place in the world these men might want to go as long as it was away from any where they could cause trouble to the Empire. "By the way, brate, there is a little thing going on in Teksas. A professional soldier might be appreciated there just now."
Problem solved!! The potential source of grief to the Austrian Crown is on his way to give grief to the Mexicans. Serves them right for breaking away from Hapsburg hegemony! Ha! A brilliant stroke!
Felix was on a boat from Austria to New York in a heartbeat. Ok ok, in as many heartbeats as it took to get Felix from Galicia to the nearest Austrian seaport. So now you are looking at a map and you are asking me where Austria had a seaport. Sigh. That's the same question my son-in-law asked me once. Slovenija, Istria, and Dalmacija were under the Triple Crown dear friend so Austria had a lot of access to the sea.
From New York, Felix found his way to New Orleans where he and a lot of other Felixes were met by a recruiter for the Teksas army which was being formed.
There were already Polski in Teksas. Napoleon had attempted to establish a French colony about where Liberty, Texas is now. The textbooks tell you that the French failed and that they withdrew. Yeah. That's true. The French officials withdrew. The colonists remained.
Simon Wiess was among those colonists. Simon was Polish. Simon was Jewish. Simon hooked up with my father's family and their little business about the Trinity River about which they were a long time discarding. I've already told part of that story elsewhere. Simon was a merchant, a trader. This Polish Jew knew all the roads, all the oxcart trails all the paths and all the waterways of any kind in eastern Texas. Like a true viking he knew how to use them too.
The sort of person who think Jews are all supposed sitting in their counting houses counting out their money are going to have trouble with this story. That kind of person will have difficulty with the picture of a Polish Jew in a coonskin hat, a hunting knife in his belt and a rifle on his shoulder sweaty from walking through the breeze-less forests in the weltering 100+ degree East Texas spring/summer/fall. This, however, is the true picture of Simon Wiess, a frontiersman and pioneer in Texas. We will come back to his role in the matter at hand in a few moments.
19th century Bosnia
19th century Texas
After the battle of the Alamo, the Teksikanski fought the Mexican centrist army at Goliad. Does the flag used by one regiment of the Refugio volunteers remind you of a familiar "Bosnian" ensign? It should. The Texas Hrvati were quietly out in force. They were not alone. Michael Dembinski, Michael Debicki, Francis Petrussewicz, Adolph Petrussewicz, John Kornicky, Joseph Schrusnecki and a lot of others fresh from Poland were right beside them.
Again they lost. Santa Ana gave Colonel Jose Nicolas de la Portilla orders to execute the prisoners. Today there is a monument to Colonel Fannin on that location. The Mexicans attempted to cover up the matter by burning the bodies and burning the records, so its not an easy task to find who all these heros were.
General Sam Houston continued to recruit and train an army to fight Santa Ana. They withdrew toward eastern Texas with Santa Ana in pursuit. Santa Ana's supply lines grew longer and longer and his troops suffered more and more. The soldiers under Sam Houston fared much better. At every river crossing they were met with fresh food, clothing, equipment, and other supplies brought by Simon Wiess.
There came a day when Santa Ana's troops were essentially cut off. They were resting, resting as much as a hungry army being devoured by hordes of mosquitoes can rest. Frederick Lemsky brought his flute to the front with him. Felix Wardzinski was there too in the Teksas army. The Teksikans struck up the tune "Come to the Bower" and began to "drill" right in front of their opposition. The Meksikans were entertained by the Teksikans in their rough clothing as they slouched into formation. No one payed any attention to the cannon which were being brought forward behind the ragged appearing group.
When they were at nearly point blank range, the Teksas army suddenly revealed how well trained and how professional they were. Instantly they stepped aside from the cannon. They formed a straight line with their rifles to their shoulders.
The cannon fired.
The rifles fired.
The shout went up "Zapamiętaj Goliad!" as the Polish army with bayonets fixed streamed across the Mexican position and drove them into the swamp where the alligators had a feast that day. That day the proud Polish army was vindicated as it vanquished tyranny. All the seething anger at Santa Ana for the murder of their brothers at Goliad flashed and flamed with a furious ferocity. All the pent-up anger they had for the Prussian Kaiser and for the Russian Czar burned fiercely for eighteen intense minutes during which the entire Mexican army was utterly destroyed. Felix Wardzinski has the satisfaction of being present when Santa Ana was captured.
Oh dear! Oh dear!! Now I've done it! I was supposed to say all on english "The shout went up 'Remember Goliad" as the Texas army with bayonets fixed .... Oh dear! What have I done? Well now, I told you Poland didn't cease to exist and I asked you "but where?" Here it was, a piece of Poland existed right here in plain view in Texas. Jeszcze Polska nie umarła!
What happened to the Polish soldiers who survived the war? Some of them melted quietly into the Slavic corners of Texas and went about the business of living. Some of them had other adventures. Last Sunday I had breakfast with the great-grandson of one of them. My friend's surname sounds Hispanic. What of it? He is proud of his ancestor who came from so far away bring liberty to this land.
What happened to Simon Wiess? One of his descendants married into a branch of my mother's family. Am I Jewish? Nope. Am I Polish? Nope. Am I proud of my shirt-sleeve relative who was both? Yup. Perhaps more of this story will be another adventure for another time.
In the video I made for this year, I used "Texas Our Texas," the traditional and now legal National Hymn of Texas along with the Polish National Hymn. The school books for the young people in Texas make no mention of these heroes from Poland who came at just the right time. I thought they should be honored. From their blood the flowers of freedom sprang.
The words to "Texas, Our Texas," written by William J. Marsh and Gladys Yoakum Wrightare:
Texas, Our Texas! all hail the mighty State!
Texas, Our Texas! so wonderful so great!
Boldest and grandest, withstanding ev'ry test
O Empire wide and glorious, you stand supremely blest.
(ref)
Texas, O Texas! your freeborn single star,
Sends out its radiance to nations near and far,
Emblem of Freedom! it set our hearts aglow,
With thoughts of San Jacinto and glorious Alamo.
(ref)
Texas, dear Texas! from tyrant grip now free,
Shines forth in splendor, your star of destiny!
Mother of heroes, we come your children true,
Proclaiming our allegiance, our faith, our love for you.
ref: God bless you Texas! And keep you brave and strong,
That you may grow in power and worth, throughout the ages long.
God bless you Texas! And keep you brave and strong, That you may grow in power and worth, throughout the ages long.
The Polish National Hymn: Mazurek Dąbrowskiego - Dąbrowski's Mazurka, also called Pieśń Legionów Polskich we Włoszech Song of the Polish Legions in Italy or Jeszcze Polska nie zginęła Poland has not yet perished :
Jeszcze Polska nie umarła,
Kiedy my żyjemy
Co nam obca moc wydarła,
Szablą odbijemy.
Marsz, marsz, Dąbrowski Do Polski z ziemi włoskiej Za twoim przewodem Złączym się z narodem
Jak Czarniecki do Poznania
Wracał się przez morze
Dla ojczyzny ratowaniaPo szwedzkim rozbiorze.
Marsz, marsz...
Przejdziem Wisłę, przejdziem Wartę
Będziem Polakami
Dał nam przykład Bonaparte
Jak zwyciężac mamy
Marsz, marsz...
Niemiec, Moskal nie osiędzie,
Gdy jąwszy pałasza,
Hasłem wszystkich zgoda będzie
I ojczyzna nasza
Marsz, marsz...
Już tam ojciec do swej BasiMówi zapłakany
Słuchaj jeno, pono nasi
Biją w tarabany
Marsz, marsz...
Na to wszystkich jedne głosy
Dosyć tej niewoli
Mamy racławickie kosy
Kościuszkę Bóg pozwoli.
on english this is: Poland has not yet died,
So long as we still live.
What the alien power has seized from us,
We shall recapture with a sabre. March, march, Dąbrowski,
To Poland from the Italian land.
Under your command
We shall rejoin the nation.
Like Czarniecki to Poznań
Returned across the sea
To save his homeland
After the Swedish occupation. March, march...
We'll cross the Vistula and the Warta,
We shall be Polish.
Bonaparte has given us the example
Of how we should prevail. March, march...
The German nor the Muscovite will settle
When, with a backsword in hand,
"Concord" will be everybody's watchword
And so will be our fatherland. March, march...
A father, in tears,
Says to his Basia
Listen, our boys are said
To be beating the tarabans.
March, march...
All exclaim in unison,
"Enough of this slavery!"
We've got the scythes of Racławice,
God will give us Kościuszko.
Texas is not the only North American nation who should give thanks to God for Poland. The Americans also should give thanks to God for Kościuszko who so greatly assisted in their revolution.
hrabrivojnici izkrvi slobodecvijet
do sljedeći put, blagoslov - until next time, blessings,
As for me, I doubt that I should much look forward to such an epitaph, yet there it is: On je mrtav. Hvala Bogu.
There is a small fact most Croatians who live in Croatia do not know. Perhaps most Croatians in the world don't know this either. Most Croatians do not live within the borders of Croatia. We probably never have. There are rather a lot of us and the greater number live in North America, especially in the United States. Dear reader, if you are not Croatian, the chances are that you have met one of us. If you go to church at all you know some of our music. Bach was one one of us. He was a Croat - a Croat in the diaspora. Earlier, in another blog, I related my response to the Croatian Embassy noting that " identifying one-self as Croatian, could be dangerous, not only in Yugoslavia, but even in the United States." Until perhaps a decade or so after Croatia became independent, for the most part, we remained silent and invisible. There was often a price to pay if you did not keep your mouth tightly sealed. None-the-less Croatia is dear to us. It is Home.
And, as much as Hrvatska is Home, so is Texas, so is San Francisco, so is New Orleans, so is Madison, so is Seattle, and so is the United States - home. We see little, if any, conflict in that matter. For the Croatian-Texan, the notion is easy to see. Alone, unique among the States of the United States, the proper manner in which to fly the red, white, and blue of the Texas flag is side by side as an equal nation with the red, white, and blue of the United States flag. Teksikans serve in the United States military and see no problem with that.
Now that you have a glimmer of understanding about that, bear in mind that several administrations in Washington past, the Federal Bureau of Investigations uncovered a plot for an "insurrection in Texas" and promptly dispatched a horde of armed agents to to deal with the matter probably as efficiently as they had dealt with such a matter earlier near Waco resulting in the deaths of women and children. As much as Texans did not like what was going on in the compound in Waco, when the children died we felt mighty grim. Just don't go killing our babies. Just don't. We don't like it none. When the matter of this "insurrection" came up, the Governor of Texas requested that the FBI withdraw and let him handle the matter. I believe what the Governor said was something like "Go 'way, go way fast," and they went away fast. They had crossed that invisible boundary line into the sovereign business of the State of Texas. The Governor sent a single unarmed ranger up to the hills to talk to the old man who was at the helm of the "insurrection." The fellows drunk some whiskey and they drunk some coffee. Don't go tellin' me that I should have written "the fellows drank ,,," Unh uh, they drunk it. Trust me, they drunk it and they threw the tin cans they drunk out of into the camp fire and the matter was settled. It used to be that pert near every one's pickup truck had a "Republic of Texas" bumper sticker. Now you can't find those bumper stickers no more, dang it! Even so, the red, the white, and blue flies side by side with the red, the white, and the blue. That's how it is.
We Croatian - Americans have in our hearts the red, the white, and the blue flying side by side with the red and the white and the blue. We stand at attention when the "Star Spangled Banner" is played and a tear might leak from our eyes while we sing it. We stand at attention when the Lijepa naša domovino is played and a tear might leak from our eyes while we sing it. God help us if there is ever an important soccer match between the Croatian team and the American team. The whole stadium would probably cheer for both sides all during the game. Can you imagine the noise?
In the first session of the 102 Congress, on September 19, 1991, Mr. D'Amato, Mr. Dole, Mr. Glenn, Mr. Pell, Mr. Gore, Mr. Nickles, Mr. Pressler, Mr. Riegle, and Mr. Seymour introduced a bill into the Senate of the United states entitled "To restrict United States assistance for Serbia or any part of Yugoslavia controlled by Serbia until certain conditions are met, and for other purposes."
The bill cites:
"The Congress makes the following findings:
(1) In 1990, the republics of Croatia, Slovenia, Macedonia, and Bosnia-Hercegovina held free and fair elections.
(2) In 1990, the republics of Serbia and Montenegro held elections which were not free and fair.
...
(4) Since the Declaration of Independence by the Republic of Slovenia on June 25, 1991, more than 100 people have been killed, including civilians, by the Serbian-controlled Yugoslav federal army.
(5) Since the Declaration of Independence by the Republic of Croatia on June 25, 1991, more than 500 people have been killed, including many innocent civilians, by the Serbian-controlled Yugoslav federal army and Serbian guerrillas.
(6) The Serbian-controlled Yugoslav federal army is actively using both ground and air forces in Croatia to attack the citizens that they are constitutionally bound to protect.
(11) The Serbian-controlled Yugoslav army's invasion into Croatia constitutes an illegal effort to alter the borders of Yugoslavia by force.
(12) The leaders of the Serbian republic and the Serbian-controlled Yugoslav army are pressing an unacceptable agenda in an effort to hold onto power and privilege."
The bill was was read twice and referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations where it mouldered for a long long time. We wondered why the American government didn't seem to mind that thousands of Croatian men, women, and children were being slaughtered and that did create a conflict in our hearts because our lady who wears a blue skirt and red blouse with a white sash and her children are dear to us. Don't go killing our babies. We don't like it. We don't like it none.
The answer is simply that "Lawerence of Serbia" was at work. According to Wikipedia "Lawrence Sidney Eagleburger (August 1, 1930 – June 4, 2011)[2] was an American statesman and former career diplomat, who served briefly as the United States Secretary of State under President George H. W. Bush. Previously, he had served in lesser capacities under Presidents Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, and George H. W. Bush. Eagleburger is the only career Foreign Service Officer to have served as the United States Secretary of State." Under Nixon he was assistant to Henry Kissenger. Under Carter he was ambassador to Yugoslavia. He was advisor to Bush for south east European matters. When Eagleburger denied that Serbian paramilitaries and the Yugoslav National Army had committed atrocities in the breakaway republic of Croatia, the European Press nicknamed him Lawrence of Serbia.
Lawerence of Serbia also served on the International Commission on Holocaust Insurances Claims. According to Jweekly.com which covers Jewish matters in the San Francisco area, on June 8, 2001, Waxman, congressman from Los Angeles said the commission was poorly managed. Lots of money was flowing, but not to the survivors of the Holocaust.
Does it surprise you to know that Eagleburger, Brent Scowcroft and former Ambassadors to Belgrade John Scanlon, along with Ambassador Warren Zimmerman spoke Serbian among each other in US Security Council meetings? Does it surprise you that Eagleburger knew Slobodan Milošević when Milosevic was still a banker? House Banking Committe Chairman Henry Gonzales from Texas, pointed out the connections between Eagleburger and the Serbs. First there is Ljubljanska Banka, and Global Motors/Yugo of America, a subsidiary of the Yugoslav arms maker Zavodi Crvena Zastava on whose boards Eagleburger served and, acting as a consultant for them was compensated millions of dollars. Milošević tells us that he became friends with his buddy Eagleburger while he served on the board of Beobanka in Belgrade. Now does it surprise you to learn that Eagleburger testified against the bi-partisan bill introduced into the Senate?
Does it surprise you that this same fellow wrote in the Washington Times on 8 December 2008 "We believe U.S. policy on Kosovo must be re-examined without delay, and we urge the Bush administration to make it clear that pending the results of such re-examination it would withhold recognition of a Kosovo independence declaration and discourage Kosovo’s Albanians from taking that step." I was ambivalent toward the Kosovo Albanians until I read who was opposing it. Now I know and now I pray that God help my brothers in Kosovo to achieve their dreams of freedom. The Amerikanski press often portrays the Kosovo matter as a conflict between Muslim Albanians and Christian Serbs. This year I met a Christian Albanian who lives in Great Britain so guess what? This is not about some wild haired jihad after all, is it? Croatian troops are in Kosovo as part of the NATO force there. I have a video on YouTube honoring Croatian forces who served in Afghanistan. Several comments on my video wonder why Croatian soldiers are somewhere not Croatian. When I first read those comments I understood them as being simply xenophobic like many Americans were during the Viet Nam matter. I went back in the wee hours this very morning and looked at those comments again, at who wrote them, and now I understand. Do I have to spell it out or do you understand too?
Eagleburger claimed to be a "moderate" Republican. Some Teksikan Republican commented one time that "moderate" usually means they do not believe anything. Lawrence of Serbia seems not to have believed in anything but his bank account.
Because of Eagleburger, the Americans did not step in decisively to assist Croatia until after the massacres at Vukovar, until after the massacres at Srebenica, until after the siege of Dubrovnik and other atrocities came to light. If he were yet alive, I would say that Eagleburger should stand trial for the deaths of all these people - hundreds of thousands of them, but alas, he is dead. Lawrence of Serbia is dead. On je mrtav. Hvala Bogu.
do sljedeći put, blagoslov - until next time, blessings,
CJ, Clary, Cider, and Guinness, and Theodore and Teddy all remembered my birthday in a special way this year. I liked that. The youngest daughter did too. I liked that too. So did a lot of my old classmates from high school years ago. Marijan and Marina and Tatanja and Andrej and Gregor and a bunch of others from Home came by to say for sretan rodjendan too. Altogether there may have been a hundred or so well wishers for my sixty-fifth birthday. Nice. Mucho dobro.
My parent's daughter sent a card in which she commented on the photo I was using for whatever reason as my Facebook profile at the time. She said "I see you have been fishing." Yup. Mmmm hmmm, I was impressed. She wanted me to believe she was keeping abreast of my life. She had been there three years ago Gospodin M. and I had stopped in for a few days with Tata before we wandered off to the Sabine pass where a boat was waiting for us. A few weeks later a hurricane had struck the area we passed through. No more little coastal fishing towns, no more boat.
After the hurricane, all that remained of that little expedition were the memories, some memories of what came next (about which you already may have read in my last blog) and that blooming photograph of me and that fish. I did not even have my beard back yet in that photo. I was clean shaven at that time which in my clan means I was "available." I am fully bearded now.
Now look what I have done. I wandered off the trail out into the forest somewhere so let's get us back on the trail. The youngest daughter married with a really fine fellow. He only had one flaw that I could find. Sometimes he would poke my ribs a little about me being Croatian. His family were Austrian, you see, the master race, at least the masters of Croatia in the Hapsburg days. There was only thing, he said, that he could not understand. He knew his family had come from a town in Austria with a seaport, but as far as he could tell, Austria is landlocked. How could his family have come from an Austrian seaport town when there are not any. I asked him what is name of their city. He responded, "Split." Mystery solved. I showed him where on the map is Split. Of course, its right there in plain view on the map - on the Jadrana in Croatia.
When his family had arrived in Texas, their passport showed that they were from the Österreichisch-ungarisches Reich - or simply Austria on Texicaneese. That's a language I haven't mentioned before - its the english that Teksikanski speak when they are not speaking on teksikanski jezik. Until after World War I, most Croats arriving in Texas came on papers from the Austro-Hungarian Empire and so they were often just called Austrians.
After World War I, things changed. Their paper work said these new immigrants were from "Yugoslavia." It didn't do anyone any good to try to say "I am Croatian." The average Teksikan looked at the map and there was no Croatia anywhere to be found. He might however however find "Yugoslavia." Please understand that most Texans can find the nearest Walmart and that is about the extent of their geographical knowledge.
I graded papers for a professor at Concordia University, Austin. There was one question always on his final examinations - "The capitol of the Roman Empire was a. Berlin b. Moscow c. Philadelphia d. Rome e. none of the above, please circle the correct answer." The vast majority of his students chose anything but "Rome" for the capitol of the Roman Empire. So where was a Croatian from? Even if someone said "I am Croatian," behind his back people said "he's from somewhere in Yugoslavia. Most Croatians who arrived in North America just shrugged their shoulders and said "we are from "Yugoslavia."
How did Croatians come to be submerged in "Yugoslavia?" Before the fall of Austria, Hungary, or Germany, the Croatian Sabor or Parliament met in Zagreb on October 29, 1918, to declare "the Kingdom of Croatia, Slavonia and Dalmatia" to be a free and independent state. The Hapsburg Crown recognized Croatia and transferred the fleet to the Croatian government on October 31st 1918. At 18:44 the following day the Royal Italian Navy sank the Croatian dreadnaught Viribus Unitis. Almost at once the Italian, French and French African forces invaded from the west and Serbian troops invaded from the east. On the first of December 1918, Serbian Prince Alexander announced the formation of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes ruled from Belgrade. For the first time in at least thirteen centuries, the traditional Croatian institutions of Ban and Sabor were swept away by foreign armies bent on making Croatia and Croatians disappear from the face of the earth.
The American delegation to the Paris Peace talks in 1919 commented on the revision of Wilson's famous Fourteen Points noting that "An internal problem arises out of the refusal of the Croats to accept the domination of the Serbs of the Serbian Kingdom...The United States is clearly committed to the programme of national unity and independence. It must stipulate, however, for the protection of national minorities...it supports a programme aiming at a Confederation of Southeastern Europe." In other words, to protect the Croatian nation it was necessary to destroy it. There was no vote of the Croatian people about their future.
Milan Sufflay was murdered by King Alexander's secret police. Albert Einstein and Heinrich Mann joined in the international chorus of condemnation of the regime. The New York Times of May 6, 1931 quotes them: "The facts show that cruelty and brutality practiced upon the Croatians only increase... Murder as a political weapon must not be tolerated and political Serbian murderers must not be made national heroes." Just two years before Stjepan Radic had been publicly murdered by a deputy of the Serbian parliament and Alexander had outlawed political parties and begun the persecution of the Jews and Roma in the lands he controlled. By August 1942, the Serbian government would proudly announce that Belgrade was the first city in the New Order to be Judenfrei or "free of Jews." Only 1,115 of Belgrade's twelve thousand Jews would survive.
After the communists left in the 1990s, mass graves were uncovered in Slovenia and in Croatia. Hundreds of thousands had been butchered and their bodies hidden. Neither the Russians nor the British nor the Americans wanted these graves found but the voice of the truth welled up from the caverns in the midst of the earth. So then, who are the "Yugoslavs?" I suppose they are the mythical denizens of a mythical land somewhere in Thackeray's "Rose and the Ring."
Jugoslavia isn't. Croatia is. Its that simple.
do sljedeći put, blagoslov - until next time, blessings,
