The afternoon when Vlaho Medo thought about all the geopolitical factors that came into play and that he would have to deal with every August until his children fully understood where they were born, he could barely hiccup, even before he started. So he sought solace by crossing himself in front of the books on the highest shelf, thinking about the encyclopedias he had collected there while the kids grew up scribbling on the walls. He wasn’t going to leave them alone in that room crammed with centuries of knowledge. They had just started reading and at that time would have been capable of turning Amos Oz’s latest novel into a SketchBook of barbarism. Then Vlaho raised his big finger in the air, and after turning it around hundreds of times following the course of a whirlwind, he pointed to a photo in an old volume of National Geographic magazine (back in the 70s) saying, almost in a whisper:
“It was in Dubrovnik.”
Although I was unable to find the original photo, as it was lost during one of my many moves, this was the view that Vlaho chose at the time, after hundreds of shots. We looked at each other. Vlaho hadn’t said Yugoslavia, or Croatia. He had only emphasized Dubrovnik.
I stuck that photo with duct tape on the adobe wall, as we used to do back then with images of our former idols. Every day, after surviving the day, like a parishioner entrusting himself to the grace of Majka Bozja Bistricka, I prayed that this view, even though it seemed to be in a place far away from the world, would remain alive.
The aura of Dubrovnik, unlike everything I faced in my surroundings, gave me a certain impression of peace when I saw how its past, rooted among those rugged rocks, seemed to agree with the cold Bora wind on when all of this would become the future.
I never thought I would make it to Dubrovnik. It was in the Balkans, and my childish expectations, apart from buying a few treats, were satisfied by reaching the sidewalk across the street. Now, if, as I said, it was not in my plans to reach Dubrovnik, even though in my half-sleep I sensed that, if I did, in the heart of the Illyrian civilization of 2,500 years ago, I would have the joy of finding the voice of my own history encased in a chest.
Half a century after Dubrovnik was closer to me than I could have imagined, although still a long way from the broomstick, I still wonder what could prompt someone to venture into the vastness of the Adriatic and reach the shores of Dubrovnik.
Although the Dubrovnik writer Luko Paljetak also thought about it, from this side of the world, and without detracting from what Paljetak wrote, I can think of other variables, such as: 1. because he was a self-confessed fan of GOT and because, at some point, he imagined himself walking through the labyrinthine streets of King’s Landing, 2. because thanks to that trip, at the next club meeting he will be able to boast that he was basking on the shores of the Adriatic in “the other Europe,” or 3. because, since he had already “been there,” having “passed through” Rome and Paris—and even managed to get to Istanbul—he thought of a more eccentric destination, one that, although uncommon, adds a check to his list of places visited, diminishing the fervent anxiety of his showcase cosmopolitanism.
I think these lines are enough for the reader to understand my view, which I also maintain, regarding what is immersed in the abominable touristification.
In my case, although I have, of course, suffered from it at times, it is marginal compared to what the residents of the host countries experience: the loss of cultural identity, the deterioration of the environment, the congestion of basic services, the congestion and privatization of public spaces, real estate speculation, and the increase in housing costs or conflicts between the actors involved in this “smokeless industry.”
My aversion concerns the “real interest” that motivates a tourist to act as such. Recently, a Chinese influencer was fined for streaming herself cooking and eating a white shark; a couple was jailed for stealing wine worth $1.7 million in 2021 from the Atrio restaurant in Cáceres in western Spain; a group of German tourists knocked over a priceless statue while rehearsing the perfect pose for a photo in Viggiù, near Lake Como. Some of these cases were widely reported at the time to explain the recent waves of protests against “mass tourism” and were also used by British journalist Greg Dickinson to aptly define the concept of “overtourism.”
With that in mind, I pause, Polako, žurim: at the end of our trip through Croatia, we decided to “get away” from the untamed hustle and bustle that we knew would be involved (“the life of a tourist is very demanding,” my friend Johana used to repeat to us) and, after all the turmoil of that commotion, we decided to give ourselves a break and rest for a few days in the heart of Tuscany.
During a visit to the Casa di Boccaccio, due to the accumulated fatigue from the frenzy of our various expeditions through “Balkan” lands, I stopped for a moment to chat with a young Sienese woman. She was a student at the Università degli Studi di Siena and worked in customer service at the Casa di Boccaccio. As we chatted, she told me about what she had witnessed in an osteria in Panzano in Chianti when an American, visibly annoyed, complained that the food they were serving was not authentic. It was not like the pizza he had once eaten in his city. Another complained indignantly. No one spoke English. He demanded to be served in his language. But this happened “after.” Once we arrived in Dubrovnik, Marija, the guide, shared with us some of what it had meant for her to live through the Yugoslav Wars.
“When they tell you,” she said, almost pouring her heart out, “that at that time many of us had to sleep on the floor looking only at the stars, the image itself could be lyrical. But wait a minute, we were ‘sleeping on the floor,’ without a roof to shelter us from the imminent threat of a new bombing and without knowing what we would eat the next day, with only a few cents to our name.” Her eyes seemed to fill with tears. I was moved. Marija had abandoned the original script. The group—at that moment we were part of one—remained silent. They seemed to share her feelings. Silence is also eloquent. However, that magic was suddenly broken. A woman, who seemed to have replaced her last remnants of skin with the plastic freshness of Botox, put an end to those fleeting moments of climax. Jostling her way forward, she stepped out of the crowd with the attitude of a filly that seemed to have spotted her stallion. Thus, very determined, she machine-gunned the survivor.
“Your pants are nice. Where did you buy them?”
The Dubrovnik woman, taken aback, seemed to feel the blow.
“In a store. It was the first thing I found,” and she couldn’t think of anything else to say.
At that moment, the “tourist,” as in the previous cases, did not respond to a particular nationality; she was simply that: a “tourist.”
I didn’t go to Croatia for tourism. I went because, ever since I saw that picture on the adobe wall, I always carried it with me. My family is originally from Dubrovnik. Pétar, my grandfather, arrived in Peru in the late 1930s, but perhaps because of his particular character, he never found the time to talk about “his homeland.” As I mentioned, neither did my father, not even during the bloody Yugoslav Wars, which is why the family was unable to return to Dubrovnik. He never found the moment, and perhaps the right words to tell us what was happening meant to him.
Although I wrote “unique,” I believe that there are aspects of character that are sometimes reflected in etymology. I am thinking specifically of the word “Slavs.”
The term “Slav” comes from the Medieval Latin Slavus, which in turn derives from the Proto-Slavic word slověninъ, meaning “person who speaks [the same language].” Based on this, there is a theory that links this root to the word slovo(word, speech), suggesting that ‘Slav’ means “one who speaks [our language][2].”
I mention this because, although on this side of the world Croatians and the inhabitants of Slavic countries are thought of as “cold” people, Croatia was considered by Condé Nast Traveler magazine as one of the friendliest countries in Europe.
The Croatian way of life is marked by the idiosyncrasies of the Slavs, that is, by a strong sense of belonging, which is fully manifested in the intimacy of a brotherhood “among those who speak their language,” far removed, as is the case, from the stridency and histrionic grandiloquence of the Italians.
In general, Croatians identify with Western European culture, and there are even those who, after frowning at the term “Balkan” because of its negative connotations, draw a distinction between ‘them’ and their neighbors “to the east” in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro, and Serbia. At first glance, they seem to be reserved. But once you get past that initial impression, you discover that Croatians are not only hospitable but also very friendly. What’s more, their connection to the world is expressed through a particular sense of humor, one that might remind you of British deadpan, because when a Croatian makes a joke, they don’t smile; they remain serious. If they laugh at someone, it’s at themselves.
It is only through humor that one can explain how, after the Yugoslav Wars, Central European, Mediterranean, and Balkan cultures can coexist harmoniously today, along with small communities made up of Bosnians, Hungarians, Italians, Slovenians, Roma, Albanians, Czechs, and Germans. This aspect can be glimpsed in Dubrovnik, where Catholic churches coexist with a mosque, a synagogue, and an Orthodox Serbian chapel.
NON BENE PRO TOTO LIBERTAS VENDITUR AURO
Although it appears in Chapter LVIII of El ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, the phrase Non bene pro toto libertas venditur auro is the motto that motivated the signing of the Treaty of Zadar in 1358, which ended the war between the Republic of Venice and Hungary and gave rise to the Republic of Ragusa di Dalmazia in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia.
Since 1918, we have known this place as Dubrovnik, a Slavic name derived from the word dubrava, oak forest, alluding to the trees that once covered Mount Srd.
Non bene pro toto libertas venditur auro, reads the inscription on the Lovrijenac Fortress. This enclosure was built by the citizens of Ragusa themselves at the beginning of the 11th century in just three months to protect the city from the siege of the Venetians, who even intended to build their own fortress on the same site.
When the Venetian troops arrived with all their supplies, they found this imposing fortress, which continued to be reinforced in a process that lasted more than 300 years until the work was completed at the dawn of the 14th century.
The first impression for those arriving in Dubrovnik is intertwined with the impression that, over time, this city has been an illustrious infiltrator in our imagination, not only because of the shots we saw of it as part of King’s Landing in Game of Thrones, where Lovrijenac Fortress was the Red Fortress in the capital of the Seven Kingdoms. This impression has been around since the filming of Fiddler on the Roof, a musical movie made in the old Broadway style by Norman Jewison in 1971, prior to the golden years of tourism in Dubrovnik in the 1980s, and later with the city’s appearance in more recent productions such as Doctor Who, Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again, and Episode VIII of Star Wars: The Last Jedi.
This feeling, from the moment you cross the threshold of the Pile Gate and walk on the polished marble of Stradun Street, which runs through the heart of the entire Stari Grad, is replicated and continues to be replicated, as if it were the onset of a relentless déjà vu.
The vivid impression of having seen this, that or the other thing before seems to overlap with each of the medieval carvings in the Rector’s Palace, before the baroque delirium with which the city’s patron church was built in honor of Vlaho,the patron saint of Dubrovnik, or even among the deep scent of lavender that wafts among the red wild strawberries from Konavle when you visit the open-air market in Gundulić Square.
But before embarking on a journey into the heart of Stari Grad, it is worth exploring the city walls. The history of Dubrovnik was also written at sea.
Every view is dazzling, as if each one were a splendid photograph that, under a sky of fire and honey, seems to tell us that there will never be enough time to see them all.
At the foot of the walls, after crossing the Pile Gate, on the right side of Stradun, is the old pharmacy of the Franciscan Monastery. Popular tradition has it that St. Francis of Assisi once visited Dubrovnik. It is quite likely.
The “Mala Braca” pharmacy opened its doors in 1317 along with the Franciscan monastery, and at that time, the port of Dubrovnik was a mandatory stop for ships carrying pilgrims to the Holy Land.
“Mala Braca” originally served the monks’ own needs, but over time it opened its doors to the public. Although it is not the oldest pharmacy in Croatia, it is one of the most visited attractions in Dubrovnik. This is perhaps due to its strategic location. Its bell tower is a great landmark if you get lost in the narrow streets of Stari Grad.
The old pharmacy, or rather, the apothecary, can be visited as a museum. In the 14th century, it was a place where medicine was combined with herbalism, and pharmaceutical science, strictly speaking, ranged from the preparation of medicines to their dispensing and advice to the public on what had been administered.
I didn’t get to visit Luža Square, Onofrio’s Fountain, or the Bell Tower, but none of that seemed to matter when I spotted the Portoc pier and set off for Lokrum, an island barely 2 square kilometers in size. In addition to its status as a natural paradise, among the peacocks that live there, “sinuous as snakes, elusive as cats, and cautious as old buffaloes watching their enemies’ movements” (Edward Charles Stuart Baker[4]), it has its own version of the “Dead Sea,” a small, shallow (10 meters) lake with a high salt concentration that is connected to the sea. And without mentioning its lush forest, it was the prolific number of myths and legends that have sprung up in just a few hectares that caught my attention. I learned about the legend of the curse of Lokrum, which arose when French army general Auguste Marmont ordered the closure of the Benedictine monastery and the immediate expulsion of the monks.
The monks of Lokrum were outraged and protested, as Count Savin’s will, and even the arguments of his heirs, stated that the monastery belonged to the monks. Thus, in the dead of night, dressed in appropriate attire and dragging chains, they circled the island three times, ceremoniously chanting the ominous words of the terrible curse: “Whoever claims Lokrum for their own personal pleasure will be condemned!”
This was not enough. The monks abandoned the island, which passed into the hands of an aristocratic family that soon lost its fortune. The island was sold to a couple in love who had visited the place in 1859. They remodeled the old monastery to live in, building beautiful paths that opened up in the foliage, bringing beautiful peacocks and exotic parrots from the Canary Islands, and planting gardens of roses, lavender, and lemons. But happiness is fleeting. Due to various circumstances, they had to abandon the island. According to another legend, Richard the Lionheart, King of England, was shipwrecked on his return from the Third Crusade in 1192. The king, grateful for having been rescued on the island, promised to build a church there, which was impossible at the time, but this was the origin of Dubrovnik Cathedral. And there is even more to Lokrum: during the filming of Game of Thrones, scenes from Qarth were shot in the island’s botanical gardens, where Daenerys and her entourage attend a party organized by Xaro Xhoan Daxos.
I began by saying that even though Dubrovnik seems to be in a place outside the world, I prayed that it would remain alive. I hope it will. Stari Grad is falling apart, which is why UNESCO threatened to strip the city of its World Heritage status. This is due to the ravages of touristification. Dubrovnik was not built to accommodate so many people.
Today, when it rains, the contents of the medieval sewer system under Stradun spill out through the drains. The electricity supply is insufficient to meet the needs of all the restaurants or the air conditioning equipment. Recently, a substation melted due to overload.
For this reason, there is no longer mass tourism in Dubrovnik. The Dubrovnik City Council has installed people counters at each entry and exit point. This makes it possible to know in real time how many people are in the city at any given moment. This is another reason why the number of cruise ships has gradually been reduced and rentals in the old town have been restricted, with a 30 percent cut in the number of tables and chairs in outdoor cafes and a 70 percent cut in the number of souvenir stalls. National legislation will require apartment owners in buildings to obtain the consent of 80 percent of the other residents before they can rent out their apartments. Meanwhile, recent news reports that the “Foreign Ministry has recommended ‘postponing all non-essential travel to Serbia due to the inappropriate and arbitrary treatment of Croatian citizens’ and that, if on Serbian soil and in need of assistance, to contact the Croatian embassy in Belgrade[5].”
Dubrovnik is not Disneyland, thankfully. But if paradise exists, this is the closest thing to it. Returning after many years to the image of Majka Bozja Bistricka, I ask again for Dubrovnik: “May it exist forever.” The ghosts of Lovrijenac seem to tell us that this is not impossible.
[1] https://www.crearensalamanca.com/luko-paljetak-retrata-a-la-hermosa-dubrovnik/
[2] https://www.bibliatodo.com/Diccionario-biblico/eslavo-eslava#google_vignette
[3] The oldest pharmacy in Croatia is located at 9 Kamenita Street, called “K crnom orlu” (The Black Eagle). It was founded in 1355 by Niccolo Alighieri, Dante’s grandnephew, and has been in operation ever since, offering, like “Mala Braca,” herbal medicines and mixtures prepared by the pharmacists themselves.
[4] Edward Charles Stuart Baker (1864 – April 16, 1944) was a British ornithologist and police officer.
