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Robert De Niro

While the short tale about famous actor is itself a small historical record especially for him and one little Serbian village half an hour away from my current location, I have to say that this post is a little bit mistitled even though De Niro's story has several connected points with what I want to write today. Instead, it will be about my grandfather and his war stories I listened yesterday for the first time. Actually, my mother told me all this before, but yesterday, during our annual dinner, he was in a great mood to tell them himself and this is my attempt to write them down while they are still fresh in my memory.


But, for a moment, let's get back to the title story. Not too long ago, I read in a newspaper article* about Robert De Niro and his European travels he did about 40 years ago, more or less in the time where I was about to be born. Back then, these kind of tourist destinations were extremely popular among young Americans - if you were young and adventurous you didn't need much money to visit most of the Europe traveling by foot and hitchhiking, meet local people, live their lives for a summer, get lots of experience and fill your memories. In case of a 25 years old actor in beginning of his carrier this probably has more importance than with other people. Well, unless young De Niro was on some mission of seeking his ancestors, this is exactly what he was doing back then in sixties when he ended up for a week or so in Čokot, neighboring village where my mother was born and where my grandfather still lives in his nineties enjoying life the same like he was much younger. Yesterday he visited our house for a small celebration and I took the chance and asked him whether this story was true and interpreted by the newspaper like it really was. To my surprise, he confirmed everything and also spiced it up with a fact that family where De Niro staid are actually our distant relatives living not so far away from my grandfather's house. He remembers the actor clearly as he helped them to collect some vegetables and accompanied them to free markets where they all have been selling tomatoes, pepper, cabbage and other food and vegetables. He said that De Niro in his short visits even picked up Serbian language a little and bonded with locals very well. Well, I am not going to spread this story any further, just like to add that after last night I admire him even more. The other day I stumbled to midnight projection of his master piece "Midnight Run" and enjoyed the movie again for the umpteenth time.

Ok, let's get to the history part and some half a century before De Niro's visits. Both of my grandfathers were about the same age when second world war happened. They both stumbled this part of time in their early twenties and experienced it very differently. My father's father at the time was in the army when Germans captured his whole unit and transferred them all into military camp in Germany. He was forced to do labor work the whole war there and I wrote a little about it in the post last year when we visited one of those camps here in Niš named Crveni Krst - Nazi Concentration Camp. I hate myself because I didn't write down his stories especially once, long ago when he eagerly told us all his adventures especially those in the days when the war was finally over and how he traveled back thousands of miles on foot along with thousands of people trying to cope and find their way home. Ironically, despite avoiding military fight during the war, my mother's father experienced it in occupied country and was faced with imminent death couple of times and not only by Nazis! Obviously he managed to went through it, otherwise this blog would be just another 404 page. Following are his war stories that shaped his personality more than even he is ready to admit.

First World War**

However, in order to even try to understand his behavior I feel like I need to add couple of history facts first. After first world war Serbia was kind of a pillar of new fresh country where Serbians, Croats and Slovenians joined and created first monarchy of Yugoslavia. The Kingdom of Yugoslavia was formed in 1918 and exterminated by communism after second war. Serbian monarchy inherited it and it was ruled by king Peter I and later by his son Alexander I. Despite being doomed to imminent collapse, due to vast amount of differences, the kingdom actually was pretty respectful in those days Europe for its part in first world war and many battles in southern front, especially in Macedonian Greece. My grand-grand father took big part in this war and was in the same lines with king himself during their winter retreat at the beginning of the war. That was one of the most horrifying moments in Serbian violent history of wars but after many months and years of coping with invasion of German, Austro-Hungarian and Bulgarian armies at the end our exiled army survived and returned to the battle by forming, to be proved later, long lasting alliance with French and British divisions allowing them to finally move toward the end of Austro-Hungarian empire and the very end of first great war in Europe. However, even though Serbian royal period between two wars flourished in rise of democracy, free thought, educational and civil rights my grandfather didn't like it at all. When I asked him why, he told me just one story from his youth describing maybe even better how old fashion tails from 19th century was still there opposing all the progress happening especially in big cities. In the fall of 1935, after finishing elementary education in his village he was so eager to move to big city and start gymnasium - the best high school possible at the time (the same one I spent three years in my teenage days, 50 years later). Yesterday, I swear that I saw sparkle of a tear in his eyes when he was remembering how brutal was a man from the school who literary kick him out of the school to the street saying that he is not welcome simply because he came from village with big country estate and his place is not in the school but rather his part in this country was only in the field doing hard labor in cultivation of food. If you were a woman, it was even worse, there was only one school in entire city encouraging young girls toward further education but quality of given education there was questionable and not comparable to gymnasium. My grandfather's disappointment rose even more later when he realized that living in the village had no benefits at all. All food manufacturers were in mercy of greedy bargainers and dealers without any fair market or developed economics in the system. The villagers were simply second class citizens.

Later, in the dawn of II World war things were getting even worse. The rise of communism thought brought initially from Spain and their civil war and also from the east and first communist country established in Russia, polarized people in Serbia to the bone. The German occupation 1941-1944 not only gave our grand fathers another wave of German and Bulgarian armies but also a full civil war between royalists and communists and their resistant movements. It was next to impossible to cope with all that if you were just 17 years old boy like my grandfather was.

Family photo taken in Čokot, Radovan Lazić - upper, left

I asked him what was his most painful experience from that time and in next half an hour he opened his heart and told us everything his young soul had to do in order to survive and with occasional wiping tear or two from his left eye I finally learned how he eventually grew into strong father figure and local community leader. Like today, back then Niš was one of the biggest cities in former kingdom and as such was targeted by allies and their air force from time to time. Being just couple of miles away from main German command, Čokot was natural point in air defense so they spread heavy artillery in the fields in order to defend from allies' planes. One of them was settled in the yard where today is my grandfather's house. German soldiers slept in a nearby shack on, at the time state of the art, air beds and shared local life with villagers. According to my grandfather comparing to Bulgarians that came later they were all civilized men and paid for all the food they need.

Also, there was one more important target in the village and that was the national railway passing by from its way from the north toward Greece to the south and Germans used it very often for deploying tanks and heavy vehicles and armory to the south fronts and even further to the northern Africa. The local resistance were using that fact to stop the convoys and demolish the rails every now and again when they got informed of some important train passing by. In lack of people, for some tactical revenue and to better protect it, Germans deployed young boys down the line in order to alert the army of possible attacks. During one night in 1942, my grandfather was one of them and only by chance he avoided death as only couple of hundreds of meters to the north resistance took action and in result whole train derailed that night. Germans killed on site all deployed boys along the line in retaliation. 1942 was especially cruel as this was the year where fighting started to be more intense, the captives from the local Nazi camp performed prison break that year and it seemed that German command started to take resistance more seriously. Unfortunately, civil war also became more intense and royalists, people who were basically leftovers from dismantled Serbian army, and communist movement started to fight each other with same or even worse cruelty comparing to all German's and Bulgarian's occupation and their retaliations performed against both civilians and the resistance. Those years was the dark side of the whole second world war in this neighborhood.

Air battle over Niš***

Faced by the fact that he almost lost his life, my grandfather chose to go low profile and continue cultivation labor with his father, going to the field, seeding crops, collecting food and trying to live normal life. It turned out that during the war this was not really possible. Even on the field they had that one experience where they just barely escaped and saved their lives when resistance started bombarding German army from the neighboring hill. When they came back tomorrow, the sight was scary, blood and dead bodies were everywhere. I can only imagine how scenes like that leave permanent mark to any witnesses especially among young people and children. Anyway, in later years, the war started to fading out and the winner and looser could be easily recognized. Communist resistance won their fight with royalists and Germans started evacuating and leaving space for the chaos in last years of the war. Like Germans before, communists saw the potential in all young boys in their early twenties and recruited them for the time that eventually came after the Germans officially withdrew. The young boys living in villages were easy target, they were already bitter and disappointed in royal democracy before the war and many of them saw their chance to get more important role in new society. Once again my grandfather was in mortal danger and this time from upcoming communists. They were cruel. Even more than occupation armies. Especially toward those who was labeled as a threat for what they had in mind. In a moment I thought I saw fear in my grandfather's eyes when he told us what happened in the fall of 1945. In order to justify the full dismantle of royal family and democracy they organized a census. You can only imagine how elections were back then with no help of modern technology and no mass media to explain both sides. There were two wooden boxes, one to support royal democracy and the other to support communism for future state government. There were also rubber balls you have to put in one of those two boxes. You voted in a way that you had to put your hand in both boxes and leave the ball in one. Needless to say, official results showed all the royal boxes pretty much empty. Sadly, the truth was completely different, at least in the voting point where my grandfather was appointed as a monitoring agent. The voting day was coming to the end and my grandfather and his peer associate started to fill some anxiety and fear of the final result. They chose to vote at the end of the day and when they pulled the hand out of both boxes it was more than obvious that royal box was full of balls while communists scored almost nothing inside. They already received threats from the headquarters before the census and what they did is maybe something you do only when you are faced with the most horrifying future. Instinctively, hour before closing, they locked the door, broke the seals and moved all 'royal' balls into communist's box. Then they re-opened the voting again. The last remaining hour brought dozens of now balls into royal's box but the 'official' results, more than 95% went to the new regime. Two things happened tomorrow. My grandfather learned that most of other box keepers in neighboring villages were killed on site for the full royal boxes, accused for fraud and persecuted without any trials. Second thing he realized was that he not only again kept his head on his shoulders but he was also commended and later become a mayor of his village responsible for all big decisions mostly by following orders from the 'above'.

The birth of the communism in post-war time, gave birth to the upcoming cold war between Soviets with their socialist allies and western countries. At the end of this war my grandfather witnessed air-bombing the city not only by the Germans but also by allies as well, even after Nazi retreated. And even one real air fight that lasted pretty much about half an hour or so. In November of 1944. just about four weeks after Germans retreated from the city, over the western parts of the city of Niš and not far from the Čokot suburbia, happened perhaps one of the first US-USSR air 'encounters' and, as it seems, this one was one of the real and severe air fights with significant losses on both sides. In short, US fighters attacked Russian convoy and killed many soviet troops including their general who were progressing toward the north front. Soviet planes soon after attacked US fleet in retaliation and in the aftermath Americans was forced to apologize in an official manner on the highest level. At least that is official story. The main participants were US Lockheed P-38 Lightning and Soviet Yakovlev Yak-3. According to one eye-witness and I am quoting Wikipedia article, you can find referenced, 'Soviet fighters flew over the old city fortress at an altitude of only 20m and attacked the Lightnings from below in a steep climb'. The final number of fallen crafts and deaths varies according to who you are asking, Americans, Russians or Serbian witnesses from the ground, but they all agree that it ended in more than ugly result with multiple aircraft fallen to the ground. The worst statements was that up to ten fighters ended in flames and crushed.

Monument risen in memory to 'US-USSR Niš incident'****

The rest is the modern history of 20th century. Communism lasted much longer than anybody anticipated and the reason is no doubt nuclear based cold war with strong roots originated right there in world war two. My grandfather was more or less satisfied with new government. He recognized all its flaws and good sides but from his point of view especially thanks to those decades of prosperity back in 60s and 70s and the fact that common villagers treated better than in royal times he enjoyed half a century in peace without any conflicts and wars. The only conflict he had in those times was in fact that he was truly religious person and religion of any kind was major nemesis in all communism societies. Even though he never hid his religious personality he managed to deal with this duality in his life during all communist era. Despite all the obstacles in the way he even managed to play all the way and re-build a small church in the village without being punished or suffered any major consequences by 'comrades in headquarters'.

We can only try to understand those violent times and how blood, animosities, war and death can affect children, especially those who spent all their teenage years in dark shadows of our history books. Yesterday, by wiping the final tear, my grandfather finished his tales with this words: "Every night when I lie down in the bed in my dark room there are only two of us, me and the god and I always pray that I made good decisions before."

R.I.P. Radovan Lazić, September 21st, 2015.

Image and article references:
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000134/
*http://www.politika.rs/rubrike/Drustvo/I-Robert-de-Niro
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Yugoslavia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serbian_army's_retreat_through_Albania_(World_War_I)
**https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serbian_Campaign_of_World_War_I
***https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_battle_over_Niš
http://zmilan.blogspot.com/2012/05/military-sidetrack.html
****http://www.juznevesti.com/Drushtvo/sovjetski-vojnici.html

Stone Age of Iron Gates

There were lots of breakthroughs in human history until this date. Some were instant and recognisable events or technological inventions and some were slow evolutionary processes in history of our species. Whatever they were, the outcome was always reshaped course of mankind entirely. In our own time one of those is no doubt learning how to split the atom and very invention of nuclear bomb. We are still living in the post-turbulence time of that latest breakthrough that has potential to rise us from the Earth toward the stars. Some would say that it is still unknown whether this one is more of a civilization killer event or true entrance into another phase of humanity. We will wait and see. Either way, it is breakthrough, nevertheless. In early human history there was one similar invention that had the same uncertainty. It was called "Neolithic Revolution" and it happened in the middle of the Stone Age. And yes, even though we are still here, consequences of this invention are still very much all around us.

"Lepenski Vir" by Giovanni Caselli

Yes, the invention is of course, the agriculture along with domesticating wild animals. In this part of the world it happened around the year of 5300BC and along with Vinča culture, it was invented by the one of the oldest civilization that occupied Iron Gates, the great gorge of mighty Danube at the spot called Lepenski Vir (Lepen Whirlpool) near the Koršo hills at the right bank of the river. The gorge had everything for the rise of one medium sized settlement for our Mesolithic predecessors. Large river with lots of fish, hills and valleys very near the bank with lots of small animals, deer and especially easily hunted herds of aurochs (now extinct specious of wild cows) and lots of water birds.

Many things happened in human minds with agricultural way of life. If you ask me, it was the point when humans abandoned the 'natural' way of life or to better say it was the time when natural equilibrium with humans being just a part of the biodiversity micro-cosmos of the inhabited area changed inevitably. We became the ultimate and the only player. Growing our own food and enslaving wild animals had risen us toward the god like creatures and we left our prehistorical ways for good. Just like with nuclear power, we made one great step in human evolution. And just like with nuclear bomb we invented all the side-effects we are suffering to this day.


With agriculture we didn't just invented unlimited food supplies. We got ourselves envy and jealousy toward our own neighbor and cousin for simple things as him having more food or land. We started to hunt for pleasure and not just for food. We started to steal and hate. We invented divine beings and prayers for them to spare our crops from natural hazards between planting and harvesting seasons. Let me just not repeating myself too much on the topic. Please read more about it in my last year post Supermarket Religion with review of one very interesting book and another civilization who lived in old settlement of 'Göbekli Tepe' in nowadays Turkey.

Anyway, yesterday I took my family to the Lepenski Vir and it's wonderful museum to learn more of this great people and how and why, on Earth, they managed to survive several millenniums in tent based settlements and lasted for maybe the longest period of time in human history. As for why, unfortunately I can't explain with words. You would have to visit Iron Gates and see it for yourself. In short - it is beautiful site. The river is magnificent and the gorge is one of the kind. The forests are still there and the feeling is, well, if I was one of the Mesolithic explorers on foot, finding this place would be the same as finding the heaven. Migrating it out would be, from one hunter and fishermen group point of view, well, stupid.


Perhaps the only thing this place doesn't have is lots of room for large agriculture fields and eventually these people left it as soon as they became too dependable by the Neolithic Revolution and from that point in time in fifth millennium before Christ we have no idea where they went and spread. Probably upstream Danube in search for large plains for their crops is currently most valuable scientific explanation. Maybe something more happened in addition to agricultural reasons to force them to leave but we don't know. Today, one of the large dams in the world, named 'Iron Gates I', created significant landscape change in form of a long river lake and flooded entire gorge and all the ancient settlements preventing further exploration in search for more clues.

Perhaps, for me, these guys in pre-agricultural times were extremely interesting for many reasons. Anthropologically speaking, they were large comparing to other humans in Europe at the time and lived longer and healthier life. Thanks to their diet with most of the fish dishes on their stone tables some of the prominent members of the society lived more than 60 years and some of them were tall enough to play in NBA with ease. Well, of course, most lived about 40-50 years old, but with their average height of 165 for women and 172 for men they might have origins in old Cro-Magnon species from Paleolithic. Fascinating story about all the skeletons in tombs were that no traces of violent deaths were found. Apparently, they were extremely peaceful people and also interesting fact that all excavated skeletons (more than 150 in total) miss only two teeth gives a clue that their amazing diet with almost 70% fish and rest of the meat and berries was a fact that they literally lived in some sort of the Mesolithic paradise.


At the end, all the main exploration and excavations of this site was made by professor Dragoslav Srejović of the University of Belgrade. 136 buildings, settlements and altars were found in the initial excavations in 1965-1970. I read somewhere that Dragoslav Srejović was a giant in a Newton way of definition and I couldn't agree more. This short film above is the same one they played for us in the museum. I am sorry I couldn't find the one with English subtitles but it was great learn and amazing documentary considering it was filmed in the same time lapse as the exploration. And as my wife noticed it has even a romantic tale in the background that gives a special touch and feel of one typical archaeological life in mid sixties.

Refs:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lepenski_Vir
http://www.donsmaps.com/lepenski.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurochs

Constantine & Naissus

A couple of centuries after Christ, Constantine was a very popular name. Especially among soldiers in the Roman and Byzantine empires, along with Greeks during their Macedonian age. Within Latin, Cōnstantīnus, and Greek, Κωνσταντῖνος (Kōnstantînos), the name literally means the one who's constant and steadfast, especially within military properties related to strength and stamina. In those times the land of my current location was called Moesia Superior, with the city of Naissus in the role of its main trade center and biggest military outpost for the Roman army. Today's name of the city is "Niš", the largest city of southern Serbia and also the city where I was born and where I have lived ever since. The Serbian usage of the name is "Konstantin", and even though it is not related to the the military anymore, the name is fairly popular nowadays among young Serbians. It was third on my list when my son was born simply because I really like names with strong inner "adjectivity" and history as well, but in our case my son's name, Viktor, won six years ago in the photo finish. If I had another son, his name would probably be Konstantin (Constantine) or Filip (Philip), but now it is certain that this will stay in my wish list only.

Constantine the Great*

Well, this post is not going to be just about names. Instead it will be equally about my birth town, the history of the Christian religion and the "Edict of Milan", a small glimpse of the Roman Empire, the end of the Classical era during violent events in ancient Alexandria, and a little photography along the way. But, for a moment, let's stay with names and their importance for this story. With mention of the "Edict of Milan", the city I was most probably named for, many of you probably guessed why I partly named this post "Constantine". Constantine I, or Constantine the Great, emperor of the western part of the Roman Empire, and Licinius I, his fellow emperor of the eastern part, in February of 313 BC, declared Christianity, the rising religion of the time, to be treated equal to all other official beliefs in the whole of southern Europe, northern Africa, and a big portion of eastern Asia ruled by Romans after the Crucifixion of Jesus, where the modern history we are living in started. But the early days (or, to better say, centuries) of "modern history", or what we love to call "AD," were, to call it the least, very disturbing. The probably best example of those violent "multi-religious" times happened at the end of the fourth century in the city of Alexandria. I am sure if Alexander the Great knew what would happen 700 years after he founded the city, he would never do it in the first place. In the classic BC times of great cities, free thought and scientific premises flourished in the most famous institution in the world at the time and probably ever since—the great Library of Alexandria. In those times, over a million scrolls from Assyria, Greece, Persia, Egypt, India, and many other nations were stored in the library, and comparing it to nowadays terminology, we can safely say that the entire ancient "internet" was located within one single library. More than a hundred scholars worked full-time within the library's walls, performing research, translating documents, giving lectures, and writing books. It was one of the shiniest periods of the whole world's history.

Then "Anno Domini" happened. Soon after the birth of Christianity, Alexandria became home for people of different beliefs but mainly Christians, Jews, and Pagans. One ancient writer claimed that there were no people who loved a fight more than those of Alexandria. Religious animosities rose to the edge in the time of Theophilus, Patriarch of Alexandria, and in his raid, around 391 AD, the Temple of Serapis, where one branch of the Alexandrian library was located, was demolished, documents were destroyed, and the temple was converted to a church. The rest of the library's treasure was probably lost a couple of years later when one of the most famous women who ever lived, Hypatia, a Neoplatonist philosopher, mathematician, and astronomer, was killed by Christians during some retaliation against both the Jews and the Pagans. That night was officially the end of Classical antiquity, or the era of prosperity I was talking about in the post Aegean Sea. If some document survived that night, when Hypatia was stripped, beaten, and hacked to pieces and her body burned to hide all traces of the crime, then it was destroyed centuries later, when Muslims took the city of Alexandria around the year of 640 AD, where all the remaining scrolls were proclaimed either heresy or superfluous.

Rachel Weisz as Hypatia of Alexandria in Agora (2009)

There is no doubt that Constantine the Great was one of those great visionaries who foresaw all possible futures of the Roman Empire and had enough courage to act and officially acknowledge the definite rise of Christians in order to avoid all the dangers that came with the first multicultural societies. Rome and Constantinople under his rule and the rules of many emperors that came later more or less managed to survive Alexandria's fate. At least until a couple of centuries later when the third big player in the world of monotheistic religions appeared in the face of Islam. We all know what happened next. The Crusades. What happened to Alexandria in the fourth century started to happen to Jerusalem. Multiple times. During each crusade. Some would say it is not over yet.

If the story so far was not enough to demonstrate the cruelty of the first couple of centuries of the first millennium AD, I have some more historical facts, and they all originate way back to the point of the first founders of my hometown. The misfortune of Naissus was in the fact that its location was on the crossing road point between north and south and west and east. Whoever the warrior you were and whatever army or tribe you belonged to in those times, your path would lead through Naissus, and you were destined to raid it, no matter if you were a member of the Triballi tribes who invaded this area in the 4th century BC, a member of the Gallic groups who invaded the Balkan Peninsula during the 3rd century BC, or a Roman who gave the original name to the town and held it the longest period of them all, but with the price of thousands of men lost in numerous battles, with the most famous one called simply "Battle of Naissus", where Romans with the help of Dalmatians and Greeks finally defeated the enormous invasion by Goths and their allies. Later in the 5th and 6th centuries, the town was constantly in flames and devastated by Attila's Huns and barbarians, restored by Romans and Byzantine emperor Justinian I, and then demolished again by Avars and finally occupied by Serbian ancestors, the Slavs, in the year 540 AD or so. Serbians managed to hold it even longer than Romans, all the way into the next millennium, but also with frequent interruptions by various invasions in the face of Bulgarians and Ugri (Hungarian ancestors). The second millennium was no different, and the same area where I am sitting right now was under different rulers: firstly by Byzantine forces, the Hungarian kingdom, Greeks, Serbians again, the Ottoman Empire, Austrians... Phew... I probably forgot someone. Let's just finish with all the world wars, Germans, and the Nazis and hope that all the testosterone in the third millennium has devolved a little and we will witness no more wars like before.

Third-century Roman soldiers battling Gothic troops**

Naissus was a birth town for three Roman emperors in the 3rd century and after. The most famous one was of course, Constantine the Great (272), but also Constantius III (360) and later Justin I (450). Within the suburb of Naissus, not far from the thermal water spa, during the reign of Constantine the Great, Romans built a luxurious residence with a highly organized economy by the name of Mediana***. Until it was fully destroyed by Attila's hordes in the year 442, the residence was used by several emperors after Constantine, including Julian the Apostate, who was best known for his attempts to restore paganism to the Roman Empire, and this time within Hellenistic polytheism (Julian was also one of the Neoplatonist philosophers, like Hypatia), and for several edicts in various laws, including the Tolerance Edict of 362. Obviously, his efforts were not successful for a longer period of time, and religions with gods seen in plural finally ended in Greek and Roman mythology and picturesque legends. But, perhaps the best-known role of the residence of Mediana, which is, by the way, only a couple of hundred meters from my home, was in the year 364 AD, when emperors Valentinian and Valens met there and divided the Roman Empire and ruled as co-emperors.

Well, in the history of humans, every separation between west and east was never without serious consequences. The separation of the Roman Empire, over time, moved the center of power from Rome to Constantinople, starting with Rome's fall on September 4, 476. The Christian Church suffered the same. Distance and differences did the math, and the Church finally separated in the so-called "Great Schism", culminating in the early 11th century and giving birth to the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church we all know today. The saddest thing is that one full millennium has passed since then, and both "grand" fractions of the same religion are still looking at each other over their shoulders. After all that time, I am positive that if we randomly select one Catholic cardinal and one Orthodox patriarch and ask them why the Church split up in the first place and why they didn't manage to even sit and talk for 1000 years and find the way to "un-schism" the lost millennium, I am sure that they would hardly be able to provide any meaningful answer. Giving up the throne is never easy, and I guess the only way to unite Christianity is for God to show himself once again and to cut the misery once and for all. But, this story is not the place for me to express all of my skepticism about this, and if you are eager to read more about my religious glimpse of the world, please go to Science of God.

In front of Church of the Holy Emperor Constantine and Empress Helena

Well ok, let's stop with history now and continue with some more cheerful stories. For starters, please allow me to quote my favorite character from the movie "Kung Fu Panda". In the animated story, Master Oogway, among all his turtle wisdom, said exactly this: "Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift. That is why it is called the present." It is a beautiful one-liner, and after a little search online, I have to say that I failed to find the origin of this quote, but I am perfectly fine to credit it to Oogway himself. In that spirit, let's switch from history to the present and talk a little about my home city and the religious event happening this weekend.

This year is the 1,700th anniversary of the Edict of Milan, and this weekend is chosen in Serbia to be memorialized with special liturgy (λειτουργία), where all major patriarchs gathered in Niš, or Naissus if you will, to honor Constantine's efforts to stop persecuting Christians and give the rising new religion a chance to be equal with others. The liturgy took place in front of the Church of the Holy Emperor Constantine and Empress Helena in one of the biggest parks in the city, and for this occasion a piece of wood from Jesus's cross (fragmentary remains that are by tradition alleged to be those of the True Cross) and John the Baptist's right hand, with which he baptized Jesus, were transferred to Constantine's new church. Last night, two relics were moved to the new display, and we wanted to feel the atmosphere. The crowd was fantastic, and on the nearby cross section people formed the cross with candle lights in total darkness (below photo), while this morning was the official event for "VIPs", which was much less interesting. Perhaps the only shadow to the occasion was the presence of a zillion policemen fully armored and spread everywhere. I guess they will never learn that the same job can be done without uniforms and with hidden guns, but that's a topic for another story.

1,700th anniversary of the Edict of Milan in Niš, Serbia

After 1700 years, I guess lots of things changed. There is no Roman Empire anymore or big crusades, but religiosity is still there, without much disturbance by the passed centuries. We can say about the Christian church in general whatever we want, but one thing is for sure. A society of people can't live without protocols and rituals. This is what we are, and I will just repeat what I said two years ago in relation to Orthodox Christian rituals: "From the point when we are born until we die, there are many occasions requiring many events to be performed. I mean, I can't imagine a wedding here in Serbia without the church involved. They have very nice protocols. Funerals too. Anything that requires more than two people to participate with, religious organizations are doing this just right."

They proved it once again.

Image ref:
https://philipstanfield.com/tag/mysticism-2/

* Constantine the Great
https://relevancy22.blogspot.rs/2015_03_02_archive.html

** Battle of Naissus
http://www.crystalinks.com/CrisisoftheThirdCentury.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Naissus
http://artnumisma.com/2013/05/20/battle-of-naissus-268ad/
http://www.geocities.ws/reginheim/battles.html

*** Mediana
http://www.panacomp.net/serbia?mesto=srbija_medijana
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediana

More references
http://www.math.wichita.edu/history/women/hypatia.html
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bb/Roman_Empire_125.png
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constantine_the_Great
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niš
http://www.ni.rs/index.php?language=en
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edict_of_Milan

Aegean Sea

Before I start writing about this amazing sea, first of all, I have to say that this story is equally about Greece, the oldest European country and the first known civilization in Europe. Surrounded by three seas, Greece is probably the most interesting place in the Mediterranean basin ever since it was formed and filled with water many millenniums ago. The Aegean Sea keeps the most important part in the history of mankind, being a natural barrier between civilizations independently developed over the west, east, and south. Once in those past times, today known as B.C., this was the center of the world. It was also the place where many amazing things were born that we know today as science, democracy, philosophy, mathematics, culture, and sport, along with all those "other inventions" like modern armies and wars, dictatorships, religion, divine beings...

Aegean Sea

Today, after two millenniums, looking at this part of the world from my point of view and my own relations to the Aegean Sea, it is all about geography, really. I actually live in southern Serbia, where four different seas are more or less equally distant from my current location, and in the past four decades, in one way or another, I visited all of them. Before, with my parents, and now with my own family, every summer vacation is reserved for spending up to two weeks at the zero-level elevation of the nearby seaside. After I spent several vacations on the Black, Ionian, and Adriatic Seas, I decided that those simply are not comparable to the Aegean. Don't get me wrong here, all those three seas have their good sides and charm, but the Aegean is something special for me. Who knows why? Maybe my inner being is somehow attuned to it, or I am simply connected with it on some lower level of understanding, but whatever it is, I calculated that when I sum up all the time I was there, I got about 400 days of vacation time spent in Greece. If I spent all those days in a row, you would probably read this post in Greek instead, but the truth is, due to my perforated time spent there, I only have a basic understanding of probably the most beautiful written language in all of Europe. I can't be sure, but I think my first vacation in Macedonian Greece was at about the age of 2, more than 40 years ago, and until today I have probably visited about the same amount of different towns, fishermen villages, and tourist settlements all around the northern Aegean. I literally watched Macedonian Greece grow from a modest, unexplored country to the prestige destination for anyone expecting a great time for a short vacation during summer break. I might have spent lots of days in Greece, but my son already reached one "Greek" record—his first encounter with Greece was a couple of miles under the Olympus mountain when he was only a couple of cells old, if you know what I mean. He was also learning to walk and swim there, and I am sure you would agree that those are pretty big milestones in anybody's life.

The history of Greece is one of the most colorful tales of them all. Not many nations in the world survived and built their history for that long period of time, starting millenniums before Christ. The ancient Greeks came to Europe almost three millenniums B.C., but maybe the common origin point when it all started is back in the 8th century B.C., when they started to build a civilization known today as a cradle of Western civilization or the world we live in today. This post is too small to carry all the history of the region, so I will let you browse them all in the below links, and instead I will focus on just one period of time known as Classical Greece that flourished for a couple of hundred years, starting somewhere in the 5th century B.C.

Alexander the Great

It was the time when artistic and scientific thought rapidly evolved and shaped humanity as we know it today. If you ask me, this was the period of time relatively free of violence and conservative influences like religion or politics. It started after the fall of the last Athenian tyrant, or, if you will, after a series of dictatorships ruled the ancient Greek cities back in the 6th and 7th centuries before Christ. Aristotle defined the tyrant as "one who rules without law, looks to his own advantage rather than that of his subjects, and uses extreme and cruel tactics—against his own people as well as others". Looks familiar? Hmm, it seems to me that ancient Greeks gave dictatorships in heritage as well. It also looks like Classical Greece is just a period of time where Greeks tried to recover from hundreds of wasted years, and it was the time that they really wanted to change their society for the better. In a way they did just that, and in a whole period of the next 200 years, they created a foundation of modern society and planted scientific thought deep into future generations. Sadly, this period ended with the rise of military societies shaped in the form of the Macedonian empire and Alexander the Great (and his father, Phillip II, before him), who suddenly decided that their land was too small in size and the best way to defend it was to conquer the neighbors, and by neighbors, sometimes this meant thousands of miles away from Greece, as far as India. Sounds familiar again? It definitely resembles some of today's governments that defend their countries far away from their borders. Military societies are a direct product of development in science and engineering, and it was not much of a surprise that the rise of the Macedonian and later Roman empires were byproducts of inventions of new state-of-the-art armory and transportation in both land and sea. The better an army is armored and organized, the more dangerous it becomes for the region. Same as today, only with different actors and more lethal weapons.

Carl Sagan, in his famous COSMOS series, in episode VII, "The Backbone of Night", described the birth of science in these Classical Greece times in the northern Aegean by telling a story of Democritus and his understanding of atoms and matter. Democritus posted his atomic theory somewhere in the 5th century B.C., and like many other famous scientists of the time, he is a direct descendant of the Ionian School founded by Thales, establishing critical thinking as a foundation in modern scientific thought.


History is always fun, and not because it teaches us about ourselves and how to fix errors from the past, but sadly, it also shows us the future. Nothing changes overnight, especially human behavior, and although we are living in a modern, technologically superior time, the inner core of our social being remains the same. We still have wars, dictatorships, bullies, cold wars, and borders of many kinds. Well, it is time to stop with all that, at least in this post, so let's continue the main story and see how the Aegean Sea survived the centuries.

Geographically and also touristically speaking, the northern and southern parts of the sea look very different, and it is caused by one large cataclysmic event. It was the late Bronze Age, a couple of millennia before Christ, when one of the most powerful volcanoes literally exploded under the island of Thera, nowadays Santorini, in the middle of the Aegean. It is now well known as a Minoan eruption, and by recent study, seismologists tend to classify this explosion as four times more powerful than the well-known explosion of Krakatoa Island. This eruption probably caused the volcanic winter in the 17th century B.C. recorded in China by the "Bamboo Chronicles" with "yellow fog, a dim sun, then three suns, frost in July, famine, and the withering of all five cereals". It also caused the devastation of Minoan civilization, the complete reshaping of Aegean geography, and the birth of many myths, including the one of sinking the entire island of Atlantis "in a single day and night of misfortune", recorded by Plato.

Reconstruction of the Santorini Supervolcano (© 7reasons, Michael Klein)*

Whatever happened, the Aegean is filled with many islands south of Athens compared to its northern counterpart. Our vacations are always targeting the northern part simply because it is located less than 1000 km from southern Serbia, and it is cheaper and easier to get there by car in less than 10 hours of driving. If it is a family vacation, this is also the best route. However, spending vacation on some Greek island is a completely different experience. There are only two major (in size) islands on the north, Thassos and Corcyra. I visited both of them several times, and their crystal-clear beaches, small fisherman villages, and unique people are simply totally different from the coastline where the tourism over the years almost destroyed small towns and turned them into hotels, clubs, discos, and loud streets. Don't get me wrong here, they also have their unique charm, but the vacation for me is more book-reading silence, wave sounds, and seagulls and less loud music and football match atmosphere. However, there are lots of islands in the southern Aegean left for me to explore. Plenty of time. I also need one thing to confirm there: once we indeed visited the southern Aegean, but from the eastern, Turkish side of the sea, and we felt a couple of small tremors that originated from the middle of the sea, according to our Turkish guide. I am wondering if this is really the truth, and if it is, how bothersome this is on the Greek islands lying exactly there in the "Santorini" area. After all, there are no dead volcanoes, just dormant ones, and we are still living on a very live planet, especially here where African and Eurasian tectonic plates are kissing each other at regular intervals.

Today, Greece is facing a big economic crisis, affecting millions of people, especially in large cities. Greece is probably on top of several European countries affected by the world's recession(s) initiated after the 9/11 event a decade ago. Greek misfortune mainly happened because of the organization of the Olympic Games back in 2004. The extremely large cost of this giant event forced Greece to take many credits and loans in order to fix infrastructure and build new arenas. The Olympics went well, but now, almost a decade after, Greece is facing bankruptcy and an empty state treasury. To be completely honest, I am not very good when it comes to understanding world economics. I am also not good at reading between the lines, so I am not sure what really is at stake here, but speculatively speaking, the major loans happened after the world's recession could be easily predicted, and I can only state a big amount of skepticism that bankers and international fund keepers who actually financed Greece at the time couldn't predict the world economy in the next decade. I mean, if there was even a shadow of doubt that something would happen, why provide credits in the first place? I am really not one of those who believe in conspiracy theories, but something is not really right here. Whether or not the world crisis is manufactured or this is just one natural financial wave of recessions, I am sure Greece will survive, just like in the previous three or so millenniums. Elegant bankers who loaned the money in the first place will survive too, and I am sure there will be no need to exclude caviar and champagne from their menus. After all, this is just another man-made crisis, not a natural disaster. It will pass.

Aegean Sea - Marble beach, Thassos

You know what else will survive? Aegean Sea. It doesn't care for all human stupidities. It ironically smiled two and a change millenniums ago when Alexander the Great fought Persians in wooden galleys, and I am sure it is smiling today when EU officials debate on excluding Greece from the monetary eurozone.

It will stay crystal clear, perfectly reflecting the mother star from sunrise till sunset.

Image ref:
* https://www.7reasons.net/?dt_portfolio=der-supervulkan-von-akrotiri&lang=en

Refs:
http://www.egeonet.gr/index_en.html
http://www.math.tamu.edu/~dallen/history/greekorg/greekorg.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_Greece
http://www.thebigview.com/greeks/democritus.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greece
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bamboo_Annals
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Plates_tect2_en.svg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minoan_eruption
http://www.volcanodiscovery.com/santorini/eruption.html
http://www.sott.net/articles/show/118706-Ye-gods-Ancient
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/alexander_the_great.shtml