Majesties: We congradulate Princess Jelena and her husband Prince Phillipe on the fact that they have begun their life as a family. This is a holy and sacred occaision and We are full of joy at this lovely news!

And we congradulate you aswell, for becoming a grandmother!

Paradizia, in this case we are a Great Aunt! We remind you that Princess Jelena is Our Niece.
(Our actual children are not in the sucession, they requested not to be in the sucession, bu instead to be commoners in America. )


ooc: my daughter Deirdre Diane, said 'Who wants to go live in a country with a whole other funny language!? She is married and has two children, a girl and a boy, so in that case I am a Grandmother, just not to Jelena's future child.
my son actively dislikes the fact he has any ties to the Balkans, he too considers himself a total American. His name is John Ronald. They both like all the modern conveniences of American life and no amount of prscut, rakija or baklava is going to change their opinions in this matter ! They make ugly faces when I tell them how lovely it is in the Old Country and threaten to have me committed to an insane assylum when I speak of moving to Sarajevo or to Dubronik...:(.

Many Congratulations, Katja!
This is truly a wonderful moment for Balkan Royalty. I hope baby and mother, and great aunt are all fine.

Not to fear about your son, when he is older he will begin to understand, know and love his home of the Balkans. The only way to change their opinon firstly is to take them over there and show them The Old Country. Even if they cringe at the un-Americanness of it, later on, they'll remember it.

Dear Slavpo, They don't want to go, it's kind of impossible to make my daughter go, she has responsibilities here, a husband, kids, dog, fish, chickens, snake, and my son weights a lot, even if he hasn't got responsibilities like a job, he's rather large to be forced to go.
He has a very 'Middle Eastern' physical apperance, he decided while the world is in such a stupid mess he doesn't even wish to fly on an airplane within the U.S. His words to me on the subject were, 'If I can't drive t here, I'm not going there!'
I can't say as I blame him. On a bad day he looks like when they pulled Saddam out of the hole, only younger. On a good day he looks vaguely like Stalin. He's just too vulnerable to 'racial profileing'. Personally I've been there three times, and it's the only place on earth I feel 'normal'. I liked it there even when I could not speak the language. The people on the whole were super. I only encountered two instances of actual rudeness there. I had to remind myself that only four years before people had been doing their level best to kill one another.
The last time I did not need to remind myself, my scheduled return was the day that the Serbs in Banja Luka had a huge riot because the Muslims laid the cornerstone for rebuilding the Ferhadija Mosque, a mosque one of my ancestors paid for. In Ilidza which is usually a very quiet place the Serb people there went and threw stones, rotten eggs and rotten tomatoes at both the mosques. There were no mosques whatsoever in Ildiza before the war, and it was before the war a Serb majority area. Since the war, there aren't that many Serbs there, mostly it's Croats, and Muslims. Sarajevo used to be around 40% Muslim, since the war it's 90% Muslim like I told my fiance 'oh yeah that ethnic cleansing really works! NOT!'
Slavpo have you visited any Balkans nations? If so which ones? What is the Slavic part of your family heritage?

Oh, I can't believe that. I love when my grandmother (mother's side) talks about Italy, Poland, and Ireland. And my grandmother (father's side) talks about her growing up, and how my great grandfather (Yes, I still have one. Thank God.) talks about France. My grandfather on my father's side is French Catholic, they moved to Maine and I still have great aunts that speak French. I really love learning about my history, and I want to move to France or Italy someday. I am one of those Americans that aren't ignorant to other peoples of the world, and I look down on those to are....makes me sick!

It makes me very sad too. I think some of it is that as a family we moved to Yakima in Washington State and there is a rather provincial attitude about everything. My daughter does have some interest in Scotland, she is a big fan of Diane Gabaldon's books, which I am reading staying in their home babysitting the fishs, the snake, the dog and the chickens. To be utterly fair, while I probably knew more about Bosnia, Croatia, and Serbia than most Americans, it was only in t he year 2000 after my second trip over there that I found out that my family had ties there. I visited Sarajevo before I visited Dublin, I have been to London and traveled accross Wales, sadly I've never seen Scotland. These are places where some of my ancestors ruled.
As for France, I've only flown over France, and from a Croatia Air jet saw the Eifle Tower by night. Very lovely to look down on. Of course France shows up in my family tree quite a bit, House of Guise, (Mary Queen of Scots and other Scots royalty) House of Anjou, which is in fact how I come by the Bosnian end of the family, The first Anjou king of Hungary was King Louise, and he was married to Elizabeth of Bosnia (why are most queens named Elizabeth powerhungry ummm female canids?) They had two daughters Jadwiga of Poland (*St. Jadwiga no surviving children :(. ) and Marie of Hungary. Marie wasn't nice really, she barely escaped death by torture for how bad she was to everyone, Elizabeth of Bosnia died by torture in some castle in Dalmacija, mostly because all the Hungarian nobles grew to hate her. She was a daughter of Good King Tvrtko.
I knew my family was part Polish due to t he Stewart connection, and due to being related to Countess Markievicz, who'se husband was a mysterious Polish nobleman. My father's people are Russian, descendants of the Rurikovich dynasty on his father's side, and German Jewish on his mother's side. His mohter kept her Jewish identity a total secret as long as she lived, and my father only told me last summer. He and my mother divorced when I was 9, and we lost contact for 41 years.
What amazes me is that my mother was unaware of the Bosnian connection, it was right in one of her primary research books, a book called 'The Devil's Brood' it's a very old book about the House of Anjou, otherwise known as the Plantagenet family. Elizabeth of Bosnia is clearly mentioned. What became of her is not.
I researched her and learned about the House of Kotramanic and then learned about the House of Kosaca, and how both houses trace to the House of Nemanjic which is the most noble of Serbian Royal Houses, and how the House of Kosaca traces to the family of Comemnus, and to the House of Flavius. I never dreamed I came of people traceable to the Western Roman Empire or to the Eastern Roman Empire! it totally blew me away!
The House of Anjou were noted for their ferocity. Many in the Middle Ages called them the Devil's Brood because of an ancestress named Melissina. She was married to the founder of the House of Anjou, and would NOT go to Mass. Finally her husband fearing loss of his lands, forced her to go, and she disappeared in a sulpherous cloud of smoke! Actually I think she may simply have had a doctrinal problem with the Church. There were a few Dobri Krjstiani who made their way to Western Europe, I wonder if in fact she was one of their secret converts. Anyway the rumor was that she was the Devil's daughter, and that this is why all the House of Anjou are so tempermental.
Mychildren consider all this silly and irrelevant. The whole 'classless society' bit toook more firm root in the United States of America than it ever did in Soviet Russia! The Russians have the sense not to fully buy into it, but Americans BELIEVE in it, and when I say things like 'ah he can't help it, he's English!' both my kids say 'That would be called racism if you said it about a Mexican!' They also believe that the European Americans really are mixed to the point where there is no true ethnic distinction in the United States, especially my son believes this. I think they are wrong but they are in their 20s and I remember how I thought I was right about a lot of things...

i live in washington state. i like it here

cool, I am betting you're in the West Side, which is in many ways a lot nicer. If the prices of things( you know little luxuries like a place to live!) weren't just killer I'd consider living in Seattle.

Katja,

I think it's a shame your children don't want to visit Bosnia, if not for the familial reason, then at least for a "holiday with a difference." But it's terrible news that your son doesn't want to go because of aeroport security!

I feel a bit left out. Almost everyone i know, including yourself, has wildly flung European origins, from Ireland to Russia. However, i do not. I'm wholly Croat, from villages in the mountains surrounding the Dalmatian city of Split. My parents and family are/were humble peasants, however, now i live and was born in Australia, attending university. As far as i know, my ancestory has always been Croat and possibly my last name originates from Montenegro or a Dalmatian city called Solin. I've been to Croatia (and Bosnia) only once, but it was the most incredible experience, i can still outline her beauty and uniqueness even today. The thing that strikes me most about Croatia, and other Slavic countries, is their cultural and social differences. For example, western politeness does not work among Slavs. After i finish university i hope dearly to travel thought all the Balkan countries but first go back to moja domovina.

Dobro Dosli! I have not been to the lovely city of Split, it is a marvelous place. I have however been to Dubrovnik and love it.

Because of my physical charateristics people often assumed I must have noble or royal blood, I'm pale, on the thin side, and sunburn VERY easily. My fiance, is Hercegovinian, from a place between Mostar and the border with Croatia. His family are pure Croat and peasants.

In the U.S. any social class is ethnically mixed, in Europe, peasants traveled less, and were more pure, but royalty had to travel very far,just to get married, so royal families ended up getting very mixed. My family was very mixed BEFORE America, most American families become mixed AFTER America.

I would say that the people there are less what has come to be called in the U.S. 'politically correct' a turn of phrase my late mother told me was of Communist origin. She would have known in her youth she was a Communist. She eventually got over that!

The whole airport security thing really does scare my son. He is in my opinion a very handsome young man, but he does look a bit too much like some of his father's cousins to feel himself safe in an airport!

Solin in Montenegro was part of the holdings of the House of Kosaca, as was Split at one time, it was ruled by Duke Hvroje, Montenegro long ago was called 'Zeta'.

Which parts of Bosnia and Croatia did you visit? I was in Sarajevo, a little village not far from Dubrovnik, Dubrovnik itself. I traveled once by myself from Zagreb to Sarajevo by bus,and several times made the journey from Sarajevo to Croatia, passing through Mostar, and lots of other places like Jablanica, that was interesting. Yes traveling there is a 'holiday with a difference'!, my kids would rather not deal with the difference I think. I have to be honest and admit sometimes it was hard for me. I loved it there, I love the people but there were times I wanted to just get on the next plane back to the U.S. All my stays there were for a mont to six weeks.

That is it exactly. People in Central and Eastern Europe aren't exactly known for their political corectness! I know that very much.

The etemology of "Politically correct" is communist? that's incredible. Although it does go with the "ideology" of comunism but not the peoples who were subjected to it :)

I am quite sure you look the part of Royalty, you sound like a real Nordic Slav. I however, look the part of a typical Dalmatian Dinaric Slav. I am quite tall with dark hair and eyes. I am sure you know the look.

Technically i only visited Herzegovina, i went to Medugorije and Mostar. I remember Herzegovina being moutainous but somehow "flat." I will always remember the incredible green of the plants and grass near Mostar as well as the beautiful river whose name i don't know and the barronness of the highway we were driving on. It was the most amazing shift from Dalmatia in Chorwatska to Herzegovina!

Dubrovnik is a special place to me, too. I know exactly how you feel about it, Katja. i think Croats are very proud of that special "pearl of the Adriatic." It is almost like a movie set or stylized theme park, but it's not, it's real! Have you seen the UNESCO Park of Plitvice Jezera in Khorvatija? That is a centre of otherwordly beauty unsurpassed.

There is a Solin in Hrvatska and Crna Gora?

Katja, i wish you could fly back to Bosnia with your children, i can almost hear your aching for home. I feel the same for my parents, my father hasn't been back to Croatia in almost 20 years and think how much it's changed since 1985!

That beautiful river is the Neretva, it flows almost from Sarajevo through Mostar through Metkovic, the river ends in a delta. and I got to see quite a bit of it.

I don't look very Nordic actually as I have dark reddish brown hair, dark eyes and real eyebrows, but pale skin. Many Bosnian people I saw were a lot more 'Nordic' looking than I am. There are quite a lot of true blondes who almost look like Swedes!

My fiance is a bit older than I am, but as a young man he had that dark hair, and was slender. I think the men from Dalmacija are about the handsomest men on Earth.

I did get to Medjugorije my last visit. I remember seeing a place tricked out with ox-yokes and wagon wheels of a very American sort, it was called Arizona Kafe-Bar! My fiance was not up to going up the hill, we went into the church, the other reason we didn't do everything there is that we had someone from the village to take to Sarajevo with us, the daughter of one of the neighbors. We had to get there before dark, so I have a little statue from Medjugorije.

I met the man who made the statue of the Blessed Virgin that is in St. James Church in Medjuogorije. I met him in Dublin actually, he was trying desperately to go to Australia and did not speak much English. Nice young man about 25 years old. I hope he made it because Ireland at that time was beginning not to welcome more people in.
He'd been in Operacija Oluja, and told me about some of it, not the gory stuff, more like how the war started just as he started in the University.
When my fiance took me to Dubrovnik we walked on the Old Walls, he was amazed I know so much about ancient fortifications. I told him that in the Scots part of my family and the Irish part of my family the women often had to command the defense of castles and that a good many ladies in my family have a real instinct for fortifications, and indeed take great interest in military matters. The fortifications there are beautifully done, the other thing I loved about Dubrovnik was the tunnels, there are all kinds of them. My fiance showed me by pointing where Montenegro is, and explained about the shelling. In fact one picture I took was of an area nearly a block sized under the inside of the Old Walls that had been hit and destroyed. What amazed me the most about the Old Walls was that most of it held despite ferocious MODERN naval bombardment.
No sad to say I have not been to the Plitvice lakes, maybe some day ...

OH you might know, last time I was over there, it was around Easter, and they had on HRT a lot of programes about Easter customs, they showed some little boys playing a game that was almost like the Irish game of Hurley, the boys had crooked sticks very like caman, and a ball made from rags, as very poor boys in Ireland would have even these days. They were shown playing this game in peasant dress, in a big green field, and I asked my fiance what little Croatian boys were doing playing an Irish game and what did they call it in the Croatian language. He didn't know he said 'They are from Zagorije and I'm from Hercegovina. We don't have that game.' I wondered if you knew what it is called. It quite amazed me.