Visit to Osijek

I took the train for an eight and a half hour journey last week to Osijek (leaving Rijeka at 5:43 am). In Osijek I taught a few classes for their University English department (in the faculty of philosophy). Osijek is the capital of Slavonia, in the eastern half of the country. It was one of the places most hurt by the recent war. People I met there told me about what they remembered of the times the city was under air raids and shelling attacks. They said they would be working and suddenly when the sirens started everyone who wasn’t already home would race home. They said you cold drive 90 miles an hour right down city streets and through red lights to try to make it home. Unlike nearby Vukovar, many buildings that had been destroyed or scarred by the bombs and shooting were repaired in Osijek. But there were still a number of facades in which one can see pock marks and other signs of where shrapnel or bullets hit. Before the war Osijek was known as being one of the most multicultural and cosmopolitan cities in the country. But now most Serbs and other non-Croatian nationalities have apparently left. Just inside the door into the faculty are bas relief portraits of four students from the faculty who were killed during the war. One teacher remembered how she and other teachers had been carrying out a thesis defense in a room right there, and all during the defense they heard these loud bomb-like noises. But they carried on. Later they found out that the big, public market (just on the other side of that building) was being bombed. They said that even while they were living through it all, it seemed surreal and unbelievable.

The city of Opatija sits on the Drava River, a wide, rolling river that was quite high when I was there (it had flooded recently). Nearby, the Drava meets up with the Danube, which has meant this area has been geographically important for millennia. There is a long, park-lined walk along the Drava in town that extends from the newer, modern city to the older section of town, the Trvda. When I walked along it, there were joggers, bikers, people in shells and other boats (on the river) and a lot of people just enjoyed the scenery (sitting on benches or strolling along). Nearby Osijek there is a national park (Kopacki Rit) that is one of the largest wetlands in Europe. All this water apparently makes the area ideal for mosquitoes. I had been warned by the embassy while I was there in Zagreb last month about how bad the mosquitoes can be in Osijek. Sure enough, within a few minutes of getting off the train, on the tram on the way to my hotel, I killed a mosquito on my arm. At points we were literally swarmed by mosquitoes, though mostly it was just a matter of keeping yourself alert and not being shy about waving your arms about. In fact several people told me a joke that in Osijek if you see someone waving their arms about in the street you know that it’s either normal behavior because of the mosquitoes or they’re crazy (but usually it’s the former).

My hosts in Osijek were very nice, welcoming, and appreciative. They have several people there who do American Studies, including a woman who studies and teaches Native American literature. She spent a year in Arizona on a Fulbright. So I had some compatible colleagues with whom it was enjoyable to share notes and experiences. My lectures seemed to go over well, but probably most interesting of the whole visit there was the amazing coincidence that the very day I was giving my lectures there was a visitor from the U.S. that the embassy brought to town to speak, and he was none other than the director of the National Museum of the American Indian (part of the Smithsonian, which I visited last summer), Richard West. I was able to hear his lecture, which was very well received by the large audience. Then afterward I was invited to attend the lunch with him and several Croatian colleagues. It was a good day.

Mostly I spent my time in Osijek with my colleagues there. One night we met at the national theater to watch Shakespeare (Twelfth Night, in Croatian). One of the professors I’d met that day teaches and writes about theater, so she got us all in for free. I was going just to see the theater. But in the end I stayed for the first two acts. Even though I couldn’t understand, it was interesting to watch. There were interesting silver sets, nice costumes, and musicians playing piano, guitar and drums in between and during some scenes.

Osijek is a town of broad avenues, lovely old mansions, many green and flowery parks, active public squares, and a fair amount of modern architecture (no doubt much of it recently repaired buildings or facades that were damaged in the war). It’s also one of the only places in Croatian where some of the traditional cuisine includes spicy food. I had a delicious pepper salad one day at lunch (though it honestly wasn’t very hot), though the pepper/cheese spread (not dissimilar from Pimento Cheese) that day was quite satisfyingly spicy. There are also a couple of Sezchuan restaurants in town, and I ate a spicy meal there one night.

The train was an interesting, though long, eight hour ride. I saw a lot of Croatia, from rocky coast near here, to the mountains of Gorsky Kotor (just east of here), to gradually declining hills until the flat, fertile land of Slavonia. Before the war it was the “breadbasket” of Croatia, and also enjoyed a prosperous economy based on a number of factories and businesses. But it has yet to really bounce back to that pre-war state of prosperity. Nonetheless the people I met there were some of the friendliest, most welcoming, and interesting that I have met anywhere in the country.