Dottore Gianni's Roots - To Search, or Not To Search

In The Marriage of Figaro, a play Dottore Gianni has no little fondness for (he loves the opera too), the title character discovers who his parents are in one very surprising and funny moment, Figaro has found his roots. Hurrah!


Like Figaro I too have long been in search of my roots, though unlike Figaro I was never convinced that I came from "quality," as I was fairly certain that instead I am the product of peasant stock, specifically peasants centered in the lands of the Czech Republic and Slovakia on my mother's side of the family, and in Croatia on my father's side.


In at least a few earlier posts, I have written of my own past (Air Force brat, constantly traveling during youth, difficulty in making friends), and my desire to discover where my family is from (asking both my grandfathers where they were born, only to hear them reply "You don't want to know!"), but at the same time not all that sure I'm ready for the reality -- the results of discovering my roots.


That's why Bratislava was a very pleasant experience with me. 

Bratislava's main square with Christmas market

I really felt at home there. You might remember my describing the nut rolls and poppy-seed rolls at the Christmas Market, and the wonderful flash-back to my grandmother's chicken noodle soup on my first sip of a very similar soup at a restaurant in Bratislava. But as those of you who read my posts on Bratislava, the picturesque old town in that city was a dream of home, a fantasy. I'm not sure I have words to express what "home" is to me.


In a very early post I wrote back in early August 2011 as I remember, that I described my youth I also noted that partly because of the constant travel, which meant having to set down new roots almost yearly, before being uprooted and moved on to yet another Air Force base, I have been a bit of a loner, always felt a bit like a stranger in a strange land, whether in Bratislava, where I stayed a mere two days, or in Ithaca NY, where I lived for 21 years. I think that if I did not like at least something about this hermit-like mode of living I would have tried to shake it off. Instead I DID shake off, as much as possible, and probably too much for some of my friends, a somewhat forced gregariousness that I did not know I was "performing" until it had completely exhausted me. Was it a good idea to swing away so far as I did from that "hail-fellow-well-met" method of living? Again, not sure, but what a relief it is to have moved away from it. 


Thinking about this somewhat peculiar life-style of mine doesn't preoccupy me, but I dwell on it a good bit when I do a lot of traveling, and of course I'm doing as much of that right now as my energy and bank account will afford. But what set this post in motion was my agreement to accept, just after I returned from Budapest, Bratislava and Prague, an offer of facebook friendship from a precocious twelve-year old Croatian boy named Jakov Hrkać.

Jakov Hrkać! 

How could I resist? My doppelgänger? Perhaps not that, as he is  just in his teens and I will be 65 in less than a week, but he was born on 16 January, only two days from my birthday -- so maybe in a spiritual sense? My other self? Exaggerated, probably wrong-headed, maybe even crazy notions, but the instant I saw the name these were the thoughts whirling in my head. And just after those thoughts the idea that I could now find my roots! I could travel to wherever he is in Croatia and find out about where my father's side of the family comes from, what kind of people they are and were. Roots! 


But almost as soon as I thought that I began looking at his facebook info. First the name Jakov translates to James Hrkach, not Jack, though by god it sounds like Jack, doesnt it? Then I looked at , where he was born: Široki Brijeg, and where he lives, Izbično (a village within Široki Brijeg, if I understand it correctly), not far from Mostar.


For me and for anyone who paid any attention to world news in the 1990s Mostar thrusts me back into that decde when a nightmarish war in the former ill-formed state of Yugoslavia was raging. I looked more closely at Yakov's posts, specifically at a thread between Jakov and one of my cousins, that I'd not have seen, if ever, since he was a baby. In answer to a question from cousin Richard, Jakov explains, "Yes, all Hrkać are from the same village, Izbično near Mostar and all are Croats and Catholics." 

Stary Most, in Mostar

It has been alleged that it was Croats who blew up the famed Stary Most (Old Bridge) in Mostar during the conflict. Built by command of the Ottoman emperor Suleiman in the mid 16th century, the beautiful bridge has been reconstructed, but I have to wonder what the reconstruction smong Muslims, Roman Catholic Croats and Greek Orthodox Serbians is like today.


Another Hrkać, with the intriguing name of Darko Hrkac Dara, also chimed in on the thread between Jakov and cousin Richard: "There are many Hrkać in Bosnia and Hercegovina. most of them are in Široki Brijeg,, but also in Croatia,, in city of Zagreb and all around...When you get in Hercegovina contact us and we will show you where are you from really...hehe."


I have not done more with my new Croatian friend than agree to be his facebook friend. I could write him, and perhaps I should. On one hand my instinct, a very strong instinct, tells me to go to Croatia over spring break. Mostar is inland from and between Split and Dubrovnik, both of which I wish to see, both of which have international airports, and I could probably get to Mostar by bus. But I am torn. After all these years of wanting to know my roots, another instinct tells me to hold back.


Is it because I fear that my new found distant relatives may not be the people I hope they are? That they were part of the ugly conflict in Bosnia in the 1990s -- how could they not have been, those that were old enough. 


Or is it, and I'm guessing it probably IS, because I'm not certain I actually want to be introduced to the reality of my roots, whatever they are?


Darko's words echo in my head: "When you get in Hercegovina contact us and we will show you where are you from really...hehe."


And instead of the reality, hold on to a hazy, dream-like version concocted in my own increasingly (seems to me) hermetically sealed universe, so that I can continue to live in the shadowy land that I have been creating for myself from the days of my youth. 


To search or not to search? Can't say.