Rewriting History in Visoko 2: the Illyrians, the Romans, the Bosnians, and the Franciscans

After having coffee with Bob, back in the bus station coffeeshop (Bob was a regular; said something to the waitress about “Hollywood” and “Los Angeles”; awkward), we got in the taxi without my having a clue as to where we were going, but, hey, it was Bosnia, so why not? We drove into an apartment complex just outside Visoko. Bob pulled over, and a big young guy, Bob’s cousin, Damir, jumped in the car. Damir, who spoke perfect English, negotiated the bill for his cousin (Bob grabbed a 5-Euro tip for himself out of my hand; whatever) and then suggested we walk around town and we could see what else there might be to see. Damir and I strolled through downtown Visoko, which reminded me of a slightly cleaner Pawtucket RI except for the random building under construction and post-war renovation, and chatted about the war, the Roma (gypsies), the future, and the Lakers.

We went to the grounds of a Franciscan monastery and high school, and waited. Damir assured me that sooner or later someone would show, just to find out what we were doing there. Sure enough, after a little while, fr. Ivan, a Franciscan brother and a teacher in the high school (“gymnasium” and boarding school) associated with the small church (with a congregation of about 300), appeared. Learning I was in Visoko to see the pyramids, he rolled his eyes, and then impatiently noted “but it’s good”. He was pleased to provide us with a tour; and showed us the Church with fabulous Croat art and Italian ceiling frescoes, and bronze stations of the cross. We saw the large library with thousands of texts in many languages (fr. Ivan mentioned that when he came to Visoko, the “livres” were tossed “a droit et au gauche”; he was very proud of the subject/author card catalogue – and did I mention he gave much of the tour in French?). The books covered a broad range of human knowledge including epistomology, natural science, philosphy, et. al. in many languages, and some dated back to the 1600s & 1700s. Finally we saw the piece de resistance — the museum.

The museum was a small room of about 400 square feet with 14 foot ceilings, and marked from the hallway by a piece of paper taped to the outside of the door, in Latin. It contained everything from shards of Etruscan pottery and materials from the Bronze Age to headstones dating back to the Roman colonization over the Illyrians, to swords used in the Crusades; with an occasional bust of a trunk, fertility goddess bronze, gold-plated toga clasp, and column in Jupiter’s honor. Incredible, really — all with a running narration by fr. Ivan about Illyrian and Roman culture, the foundations of the Bosnian church, and Franciscan involvement in Bosnian medieval politics, that left me feeling very foolish for having slept through my college medieval history classes. (note to Steph: good thing you scheduled your classes for Freshman year to start no earlier than 10 am). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Bosnia_and_Herzegovina. After a great deal of illuminating conversation, in several languages (fr. Ivan, despite protestations to the contrary, spoke English well, but was more comfortable in French, Bosnian, Italian, Latin…the list continues), Damir and I moved on. After exchanging the requisite Facebook information, Damir left me at the Hotel of the Pyramid of the Sun (formerly the Hollywood Hotel) where I had an ice cream and coffee, and waited for the Hungarians and the Indiana Jones of Bosnia-Herzegovinia.

~ by mimi on June 22, 2008.