Introducing

Annike Karbiener Pfeiffer

Born on Thanksgiving Day (November 25, 2010)

our little butterball weighed in at seven lbs. five oz.

and she’s simply delicious.

We’re in a state of bliss—

please spread the love!

With warmest thanks for friends and loved ones old and new,

Karen and Douglas

This year’s annual marathon reading (our SEVENTH!) of Walt Whitman’s great American epic “Song of Myself” was moved from the drizzly deck of the barque Peking to the warm interior of New York’s nineteenth-century ‘world trade center.’  Taking the ferry from his hometown Brooklyn to work (or play) across the East River, Walt passed right by this building on his walk up Fulton Street and into the heart of the city… but he stopped and communed with us this afternoon, under the eaves of historic Schermerhorn Row.  Heartfelt thanks to all participants, for making the poem feel both personally relevant and universally significant– and for helping keep poetry alive and well in Whitman’s beloved Mannahatta!  Won’t you join in the chorus next year?

— a special thanks to Matt Gold, the great Whitmanic facilitator, who helped set up this slideshow and brought his whole family down to the event (even Felix!).

Walt does indeed look at home in his old front yard, squinting up from under his broad-brimmed hat in the warm autumn sun. It is the only full-body statue of Walt at the Birthplace, and a thoughtful and generous gift on the part of Ikeda and SGI. I hope you’ll come visit Walt at his home, where you can now bask in the presence of the good gray poet in so many ways! Meanwhile, please enjoy the photos of the grand occasion, as well as the congratulatory remarks I delivered that day.

For more information on visiting the Walt Whitman Birthplace, please visit our virtual site first:

http://www.waltwhitman.org/

    The unveiling of John Giannotti’s monumental bronze at the Whitman Birthplace, West Hills, NY.

“Starting from fish-shape Paumanok, where I was born”: Walt comes home at last!

SGI members and friends gather to celebrate this historic event.                                                

"...the future only holds thee, and can hold thee..."

There was a child went forth every day,

And the first object he looked upon and received with wonder or pity or love

or dread, that object he became,

And that object became part of him for the day or a certain part of the day . . . . or

for many years or stretching cycles of years.

(From “There Was a Child Went Forth”, Leaves of Grass 1855)

On May 31, 1819, Walt Whitman was born in this farmhouse built by his father only a few years earlier.  Walt was the second of eight children, the son of a farmer who would soon leave his family legacy to pursue his interest in carpentry in burgeoning Brooklyn.

Walt Whitman spent his first four years at this house, which he held dear in his memory.  His last visit was in 1881— only 11 years before his death, and exactly 100 years before Daisaku Ikeda made his own pilgrimage to this spot.  Whitman describes his impressions of his West Hills birthplace in an opening passage to his autobiographical prose work, Specimen Days:

July 29, 1881.—AFTER more than forty years’ absence, (except a brief visit, to take my father there once more, two years before he died,) went down Long Island on a week’s jaunt to the place where I was born, thirty miles from New York city. Rode around the old familiar spots, viewing and pondering and dwelling long upon them, everything coming back to me. Went to the old Whitman homestead on the upland and took a view eastward, inclining south, over the broad and beautiful farm lands of my grandfather (1780,) and my father. There was the new house (1810,) the big oak a hundred and fifty or two hundred years old; there the well, the sloping kitchen-garden, and a little way off even the well-kept remains of the dwelling of my great-grandfather (1750–’60) still standing, with its mighty timbers and low ceilings. Near by, a stately grove of tall, vigorous black-walnuts, beautiful, Apollo-like, the sons or grandsons, no doubt, of black-walnuts during or before 1776. On the other side of the road spread the famous apple orchard, over twenty acres, the trees planted by hands long mouldering in the grave (my uncle Jesse’s,) but quite many of them evidently capable of throwing out their annual blossoms and fruit yet.

Looking around these grounds, Whitman concluded that his “whole family history, with its succession of links, from the first settlement down to date, told here—three centuries” concentrated in this particular spot.

Now, over a century after his death in 1892, Whitman has come home to West Hills once again.

The person who we may thank for this much-anticipated homecoming is, like Whitman, someone who seems very close and very far away at the same time.  Daisaku Ikeda lives in Tokyo, though he has traveled the world extensively for the last 50 years.  He, like the poet he admires, was one of eight children born to a common farmer.  Like Walt, he fought for peace even while battling poverty and ill health.  Fifty years ago, in 1960, Ikeda succeeded his mentor Josei Toda as president of the Soka Gakkai lay Buddhist society.  And in 1975, Ikeda became the first president of the Soka Gakkai International (SGI), now a global network linking over 12 million members in about 190 countries and territories.

The central tenet of Ikeda’s philosophy is the fundamental sanctity of life.  For Ikeda and his fellow Buddhist thinkers and practitioners, the recognition of this basic principle is the key to global peace and true happiness.  Lasting peace will not be brought about by law or society, but relies instead on the self-motivated transformation of the individual.  A passage from Ikeda’s best-known work, The Human Revolution, summarizes this idea: “A great inner revolution in just a single individual will help achieve a change in the destiny of a nation and, further, will enable a change in the destiny of all humankind.”

We gather today, then, to honor two individuals who exemplify such inner revolutions.  And the butterfly sitting so gently on Walt’s finger reminds us of the possibility of such magnificent transformations in all of us.  Though the process by which change happens may seem difficult or inscrutable, any one can become a beautiful force for good.  As such metamorphoses occur naturally, so can they happen within you.

Whitman first used the symbol of the butterfly in the imagery for his third edition of Leaves of Grass.  On the spine of the book and throughout its pages, he printed an image of a butterfly alight on a hand with index finger pointing in a variety of directions, though always to the right.  What was the meaning of this symbol, which Walt used again in a famous photo of himself, and again in the frontispiece to the seventh edition of the Leaves?

In Greek, ‘psyche’ is the word for both butterfly and soul, and the belief was that butterflies were human souls searching for a new reincarnation.  Celts believed that women became pregnant by swallowing butterfly-souls.  According to Native American legend, if you whisper your desire to a captive butterfly and then release it, it will carry your wish to the Great Spirit.  Some cultures believe that a butterfly landing on you is good luck, or that releasing butterflies is a way to celebrate a great event.

In 1972, the meteorologist and mathematician Dr. Edward Norton Lorenz delivered a paper entitled “Does the Flap of a Butterfly’s Wings in Brazil Set off a Tornado in Texas?”  The idea that small changes can cause big changes, that everything is part of everything else— is the basis for Lorenz’s “Butterfly Effect.”  Though the development of this theory postdates Whitman’s time, Walt may have been acquainted with (or perhaps simply had an instinctive understanding of) a related Buddhist idea, “Dependent Origination.”  Whitman teaches this principle throughout Leaves of Grass, as Daisaku Ikeda also shares his philosophy through poetry.  Either of them, perhaps, might have written these lines:

All truths wait in all things,

They neither hasten their own delivery nor resist it,

They do not need the obstetric forceps of the surgeon,

The insignificant is as big to me as any,

What is less or more than a touch?

(From “Song of Myself”, Leaves of Grass 1855)

Can a butterfly flapping its wings in West Hills set off dramatic changes around the world?  Walt Whitman and Daisaku Ikeda both believe so, and this magnificent statue will now embody that possibility of personal and universal transformation, for us and for the generations to follow Walt’s footsteps back home.

]]> http://karbiener.lookingforwhitman.org/2010/10/19/walt-whitman-sensei/feed/ 0 http://karbiener.lookingforwhitman.org/2010/09/06/why-poetry-matters-connecting-serbian-and-american-lives-through-literature/ http://karbiener.lookingforwhitman.org/2010/09/06/why-poetry-matters-connecting-serbian-and-american-lives-through-literature/#comments Mon, 06 Sep 2010 20:21:23 +0000 http://karbiener.lookingforwhitman.org/?p=510

As a Fulbright scholar in Serbia in the fall of 2009, I was afforded the opportunity to work simultaneously on the two topics closest to my heart: my family history in the ex-Yugoslavia, and the global significance of a poet from my very own New York.  As disparate as these pursuits may seem, these passions both led to life-changing, bridge-building adventures during my four months in this beautiful and complicated land.

Like many first generation Americans, I grew up with an appreciation for a country that I could see only through the eyes of my father:  a land of endless fields of sunflowers, sturdy whitewashed houses with stenciled designs and backyard grape arbors, small powerful horses and huge pigs.  My father’s unusual, Hungarian-flavored German dialect, the sarma and goulash and palacsinta that were staples of our diet, and my grandmother’s unusual up-do (which she proudly sported through the streets of Brooklyn) were among the only tangible proofs of nearly 200 years of Balkan ancestry.  Even the places my father described—his village of Sekitsch, the larger trading town of Werbass, the cultured city of Neusatz—could not be found on any map.  My curiosity was only piqued by my father’s mixed feelings of nostalgia and regret, and his unwillingness to revisit his “lost homeland.”

My own desk-top explorations eventually revealed what had kept my family from returning to the region now known as Vojvodina, Serbia: memories of death camps, work farms, inhuman living conditions and the unnecessary deaths of loved ones.  The ethnic German population there had maintained a pride in their heritage and traditions, which became a source of tension with their neighbors during World War II.  And since 1941, the German army had created high levels of resentment among the Serbo-Croatian population of the region.  The Nazis executed thousands of Yugoslavian hostages in retribution for the killing and wounding of German soldiers during the occupation.  Some of the ethnic Germans themselves joined the Nazi party and committed atrocities against the Serbs.  In 1944, Josip Broz Tito collectively and indiscriminately punished the German population in Yugoslavia for these violent acts: he issued decrees that stripped ethnic Germans of Yugoslavian citizenship, took away their voting rights, and distributed their properties to Serbs and migrants from Bosnia-Hercegovina, Croatia, and Montenegro.  My father’s village of Sekitsch was renamed Lovcenac—the “highest mountain”—by the Montenegrans who now populated it, and my father and grandfather were placed in a detention camp in their former hometown.  They were eventually moved to work camps with high mortality rates in Gakowa and Krusevlje, and finally to a large death camp outside of Knicanin. My grandmother was one of tens of thousands of ethnic Germans separated from her children and sent to labor camps in Russia and the Ukraine, and my aunt was shuttled between various orphanages and foster homes.

‘Returning’ to Serbia as a Fulbrighter in 2009, I was the first member of my family to attempt to reconnect with our severed roots in Vojvodina.  My first plan of action was to locate and explore the areas of greatest personal significance, including the house where he was born and the beloved ‘salasi’ (farms) that I had explored in my imagination.  I also dug into old church and town records to locate birth certificates I had never seen. More formal research was conducted at the Archives of the Museum of Vojvodina, and through interviews with governmental officials and current activists in the war reparations issue in Serbia.  Discussing the saga of the ethnic Germans with current residents of Lovcenac (the post-WW II name for Sekitsch) and simply walking the streets of Vojvodina’s decaying villages of so-called ‘German houses’ was essential in my reconstruction of my family’s past, as was finding any living contacts who my father or grandmother had mentioned.

I had enough revelations and life-altering experiences in my pursuit of the past to fill a book—which I plan to do in the year ahead.  Key moments include an adventurous week with my cousins Lisa Karbiner and Michelle Karbiner Ball, who visited me in Serbia because they, too, wanted to ‘find their fathers.’  We wept over the birth records and marriage certificates that put together the shattered picture of family with which we had all grown up— and bonded our friendship forever.  The three of us also interviewed Professor Lijliana Pesikan-Ljustanovic of the University of Novi Sad, who had grown up in Lovcenac/Sekitsch as part of the first generation of Montenegrians that populated the village after 1945.  Hearing about her understanding of the plight of the ethnic Germans opened our eyes to perspectives we had never considered.  Weeks of research led me to the granddaughter of Radinka Pivnicki, a woman who had been generous and kind to my father at a time of desperate need.  It so turns out that Tatjana Pivnicki is a talented student of physics and a volunteer worker at the local children’s shelter—a generous-hearted and promising young woman who I am very proud to know.  Perhaps the most important and difficult experience of my Fulbright tenure, was entering my father’s birthplace for the first time and meeting with its present occupants.  Zorka Vucinic was a teenage bride when she moved into the house and watched as Tito’s troops evacuated its former residents (ie, my grandparents, father, and aunt).  Now in her 80s, Zorka welcomed me to lunch there twice, showing me the furnishings that had always been curious to her (such as the etched-glass windows reading “Eingang”, or entry).  After offering me the house for sale (at the exorbitant price of 200,000 euro), she presented me with a bottle of apricot brandy, made from the fruit of the trees that my grandfather planted long ago.  Such complicated emotional and intellectual exchanges remind us that there are no easy assessments, no set explanations in life.  I went to Serbia thinking that I would simply deepen my knowledge of a plot I already knew, and left with more questions than answers—plus, I hope, a new sensitivity for a subtle story line.

For the teaching component of my Fulbright, I taught a graduate seminar entitled “Walt Whitman: The Global Perspective” at the University of Novi Sad. Though the University had not offered a graduate seminar in poetry—much less Walt Whitman— since anyone could remember, despite the generally felt “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy on sexuality and skepticism regarding American propagandistic voices (like Walt’s), I was granted approval to offer a course focusing on the radical, revolutionary poetics of the 1860 edition of Leaves of Grass.  After years of teaching these American poems to American students at New York University, Serbia was an exciting testing-ground for my personal theories regarding ‘the measure of his song.’ And my small but fierce band of Novi Sad Whitmaniacs did not disappoint me: they participated fully and wholeheartedly, reading avidly in the new “Whitman Collection” I donated to their library (with the help of many generous individuals and corporations, including Barnes & Noble, the Library of America, NYU, Recorded Books, and the University of Iowa Press), fearlessly discussing Whitman’s boundary-breaking poems and surprising themselves with how gracefully they too could break down long-standing walls. For their final project, I required them to select a “Calamus” poem for close study and translation into Serbian.  As an illustration of how they responded, consider that three of the six chose “Calamus 9”, a subtle and daring self-analysis by any country’s standards, and one of the poems not yet translated into Serbian.

To assist in our discussion of Whitmanic translations, I enlisted the aid of Dragan Purešić, the foremost translator of Whitman living in Serbia (Belgrade: Plato, 2008).  He generously agreed to read my students’ translation drafts, and then came to Novi Sad to host a class workshop.  Dragan began with a memorable lecture on the art of translation, describing some of the challenges he faced when interpreting Whitman’s words for the Serbian people.  ”The poem is an artistic entity,” he reminded us.  ”The translator is both an artist and an artisan.”  Quoting freely and fluidly from works as wide-ranging as Lessing’s “Laocoon” and “The Godfather Part III”, he charged us with the significance and the perils of our task at hand.  And he inspired us.  ”Blessed be the messengers,” he said.  Dragan then led a translation workshop (which was further enhanced by the contribution of Novi Sad faculty members Vladislava Gordic Petkovic, Ivana Djuric, and Aleksandra Izgarjan).  We pored over Whitman’s language: what’s the connotative difference between being “content” and “happy”, as we see these terms used in Calamus 9 and 11?  What is behind the unusual statement “I am to wait” at the end of Calamus 22, and how can one achieve that feeling in Serbian?  And when Whitman asks, “I wonder if other men ever have the like” (Calamus 9), does the use of  the idea of  ’mankind’ deny the poem’s true meaning or enhance its applicability?  Dragan offered suggestions and asked thoughtful questions of all of us; all of us responded and questioned our own understandings of Whitman’s words and intentions.

Most interesting for me, was realizing how much more suggestive and even provocative my students’ interpretations were than their guide’s.  Was this a generational issue?  Did it have something to do with the way I had presented the Calamus poems, or with our predominantly (and fiercely) female makeup?  My students were receptive to and interested in Dragan’s ideas, though several of them offered well-reasoned arguments for their more direct choices of pronouns and other gendered word choices.  Whitman, I thought proudly to myself, is in for an energetic reintroduction to his Serbian readers, thanks to these progressive and fearless interpreters.

My participation in the NEH-funded “Looking for Whitman” project enabled me to introduce my Serbian students to Whitman as a poet of global reputation and application, and also connected them to other students in Whitman seminars across the US.  Grant funds provided for the introduction of new technologies in our classroom, ensuring that each student would have access to a Flipcam as well as a specially trained assistant (our own beloved Dragan Babic, a senior at the University of Novi Sad).  As a way of encouraging their use of these resources as well as their creativity, I asked each student to design a “cinepoem” that would both verbally and visually represent the translation he or she had composed as part of their final project.  Though all of them worked through frequent internet outages, some were subject to the availability of public computers, and none of them had ever worked with a Flipcam before, they each mastered the technology and produced surprisingly professional—and moving—short films.  All of their efforts are viewable on our “Video Map” at http://unovisad.lookingforwhitman.org.

Another goal that I set forth for “Whitman: The Global Perspective” was that we as a class would contribute– not just read, write, and think about–  Whitman’s worldwide impact on culture, politics, and society.  They were therefore asked to submit their papers for consideration to the International Whitman Week Conference, held in a different world site each year.  This prestigious conference invites applications from graduate students around the world, twenty of whom are selected for participation (as well as free housing, excursions, and other perks).  The last two days of the conference are reserved for lectures from Whitman scholars.  I am so very pleased and immensely proud to share the news that two of my students were chosen to participate in this year’s conference in Macerata, Italy: Elma Porobic was one of the twenty in the Whitman ‘think tank’, and Bojana Acamovic presented her paper (i.e., her final translation project for our class) among top scholars in the final sessions!  This is the first time there were any representatives from the ex-Yugloslavia region at Whitman Week, and Elma and Bojana both contributed richly and benefit greatly from the discussions and camraderie of the conference.  As I was also a participant (and delivered two talks, one of which on the subject of teaching Whitman in Serbia on the Fulbright), we three enjoyed a very happy reunion in Italy this June.

Bojana (below screen) presenting her paper during the conference portion of International Whitman Week 2010

Bojana presented her paper “Can ‘Calamus 9’ Matter?: Reading and Translating Whitman” on Saturday, June 18 on a panel with Ed Folsom (University of Iowa), Caterina Bernardini (University of Macerata), and Stephanie Blalock (University of Iowa).  In her professional and yet personable way, she analyzed the history of the poem’s inception, its critical reception and her own subtle interpretation of the lines.  Bojana’s presentation of the challenges faced by a Serbian translator of Whitman held this international audience in rapt attention.  Though I could go on with descriptions of Bojana’s poise and fluency in presenting Whitman’s work and the exciting discussion that followed, I believe it’s best if you hear about the experience from Bojana herself:

The moment I found out that my paper was accepted for the Whitman Symposium, I felt tremendous excitement at the prospect of participating in another international literature gathering. However, Whitman Week in Macerata (Italy) was a literature seminar of a very special kind, indeed. It gathered scholars of different ages from around the globe with one common interest – Walt Whitman. The focus of the symposium part, held on 18 and 19 June and named “In Paths Untrodden”: The 1860 Leaves of Grass, was the third edition of Whitman’s famous poetry collection. The 1860 edition was presented through a number of most informative papers, dealing with the poems from different perspectives. Mine was the perspective of a translator. As part of the Looking for Whitman project, the participating students of the University of Novi Sad (myself included) were asked to choose a poem that has a special appeal to them, to study it and translate into Serbian. The object of my research was “Calamus 9”, the process of translating it and the problems I met with, as well as the reception of Whitman in Serbia.

As an MA student and someone who plans to continue studying Whitman, I can say that the week in Macerata was a truly inspiring and encouraging experience. In a pleasant and friendly atmosphere, students and professors were sharing opinions and experiences. New possibilities for exploring the world of this amazing poet emerged in conversations with students from different countries and also with professors like Ed Folsom, Kenneth Price and Karen Karbiener, to whom we are all grateful for bringing Whitman to Novi Sad.

As a participant in the entirety of Whitman Week (14-19 June), Elma attended plenaries, participated in resource sessions, viewed and commented upon Whitman-inspired films and performances—and even toured the beautiful Macerata landscape with the symposium leaders and graduate participants. Brilliant, ebullient, a great favorite in the group, Elma offers a wrap-up of the year’s Whitmanic odyssey below:

International Whitman Week 2010!

The whole Whitmanic experience started in October 2009 with the Professor Karen Karbiener’s introductory lecture at the University of Novi Sad in Serbia. It was one of the five subjects I chose for my MA studies in English literature. My decision to take the Whitman poetry was the direct consequence of my deepest admiration and appreciation of poetry in general and since it was the only one of all the offered subjects to deal with poetry, my decision came very naturally and spontaneously. Upon having taken this class, my only expectations were to explore more of the elusive and subtle world of poetry and to expose myself to its mysterious workings. At that very moment I absolutely had no idea that the whole Whitmanic experience would have greater impacts on my personal and professional development.

It seems important to mention here few crucial aspects of “Walt Whitman: The Global Perspective” class, which was the part of a revolutionary pedagogical experiment, called “Looking for Whitman”. The first aspect would be the improvement of my computer literacy. Throughout the course in Novi Sad I was exposed to the latest technical innovations and had an excellent opportunity to learn how to use them all in an enhanced digital learning environment. Together with other great students in the class, Bojana, Indira, Josip, Neda and Sanja, I was asked to create my own blog where I was to publish all my comments, involvements and assignments on Whitman’s poetry. I cannot but mention my fellow student Dragan and his technical expertise which was of great assistance to all of us in our efforts.

The second aspect would be a translation challenge I encountered at the lectures. I translated one of the Whitman’s poems from the Calamus cluster, “Calamus 9”, which had not been translated into any of ex-Yugoslavia languages before. Some of the difficulties and perplexities that I came across while translating opened up some new perspectives to me as a translator. I came to understand even more deeply how intimately related a poem and a translator must be, and that translation is a never-ending process. Karen even had a Serbian contemporary translator, Dragan Puresic, come to one of our classes, and it was a tremendous experience enveloping mutual knowledge, skills and energy of all of us, bringing Whitman to life in Novi Sad through his poetry.

Furthermore, I was provided with guidance and support in the “professionalizing” of my academic career. As a result of Karen’s influence and things we did in the classes, I was admitted to Walt Whitman Seminar and Symposium, which was held in June at the university of Macerata in Italy. That was a remarkable opportunity in so many ways, and I am really honoured that my application was approved among many others. The Walt Whitman week represents a unique event which attracts many esteemed Whitman scholars and standout graduate students from around the world. The event itself, together with a remarkable organization of our Italian hosts, exceeded all my expectations and proved itself to be a lifetime experience.

It serves as a living proof that Whitman’s poetry has been breaking geographical, cultural, political, religious, and all other boundaries, and that art should be an indispensible part of our lives. Additionally, I have no words to express my thanks to Professor Marina Camboni, Renata Morresi and Caterina Bernardini, as well as to all other members of the organizing committee, for all their effort and touching hospitality. Che fortuna avervi conosciuto e grazie mille di cuore!

Finally, with the official part of “Looking for Whitman” project completed, I find myself sitting at my desk, reflecting on the last few months, and writing down some of the incredible aspects of the whole Whitmanic experience. Even though my feelings are still running very high, I can easily isolate my deepest and ever-lasting gratitude to Karen Karbiener for all her unselfish support and encouragement, the contentment for being a part of such a wonderful experience and all the benefits, professional and personal, I have been given through it – not only that my view of the classroom experience has been enriched, but I had opportunity to listen and to talk to some of the greatest experts in Whitman oeuvre, and learn a great deal from them. Discussions we led during the Whitman Week in Macerata and during the semester in Novi Sad have certainly left an indelible imprint on me and confirmed me in my belief that poetry does matter and that poetry really keeps us awake and ever burning. So, that is the final and the most invaluable aspect of the whole Whitman experience.

“Here my last words, and the most baffling,

Here the frailest leaves of me, and yet my strongest-lasting,

Here I shade down and hide my thoughts – I do not expose them,

And yet they expose me more than all my other poems.”

(from  “Calamus 44”, 1860)

Can poetry matter?  As part of their final assessments, I asked my students to respond to Dana Gioia’s controversial 1992 essay.  Each of the recent poetry converts gave a well-reasoned and enthusiastic affirmative response, and I found myself happily nodding along with them.  Poetry really does matter, as I witnessed firsthand bringing Walt Whitman to Serbia.  He sounds as true, beautiful, and useful in the Balkans as he does on my own Brooklyn Bridge.  Walt, wherever you are, it must do your heart good to know that we’re all still listening, still learning.

You, where you are!

You daughter or son of England!

You of the mighty Slavic tribes and empires! You Russ in Russia!…

All you continents of Asia, Africa, Europe, Australia, indifferent of place!

All you on the numberless islands of the archipelagoes of the sea!

And you of centuries hence, when you listen to me!

And you, each and everywhere, whom I specify not, but include just the same!

Health to you!  Good will to you all—from me and America sent,

For we acknowledge you all and each.

(from “Salut Au Monde!”, 1860)

I’m hoping to see and hear you at the annual marathon reading of “Song of Myself” on Sunday, September 26!  It’ll be the seventh time we declare Whitman’s all-embracing lines from the deck of the barque Peking and over the East River, sailing them from Mannahattta to his beloved Brooklyn.

You don’t have to read to participate– but if you’d like to, please email or call Christine Modica with your top three sections (using the 1891-1892 edition’s breakdown).  She’ll assign the sections on a first come, first serve basis.

The reading will begin at 3:00 aboard the tall ship Peking, located on Pier 16 at the South Street Seaport.  If you do decide to participate, please arrive no later than 2:30. Check in will be located on Pier 16 near the forward gangway of Peking.  If you need to arrive later, please let Christine know when to expect you.  All readers will be admitted to the event for free, as will Seaport Museum members. Guest admission to the event is $5.

Christine’s email:  cmodica@seany.org
and phone: 212-748-8738

Here’s a photo slideshow of last year’s buoyant reading:

http://karbiener.lookingforwhitman.org/page/2/

Looking forward to celebrating Whitman’s spirit with you!

Karen

–If you would understand me go to the heights or water-shore,
The nearest gnat is an explanation, and a drop or motion of waves key,
The maul, the oar, the hand-saw, second my words.

My participation in the NEH-funded “Looking for Whitman” project enabled me to introduce my Serbian students to Whitman as a poet of global reputation and application, and also connected them to other students in Whitman seminars across the US.  Grant funds provided for the introduction of new technologies in our classroom, ensuring that each student would have access to a Flipcam as well as a specially trained assistant (our own beloved Dragan Babic, a senior at the University of Novi Sad).  As a way of encouraging their use of these resources as well as their creativity, I asked each student to design a “cinepoem” that would both verbally and visually represent the translation he or she had composed as part of their final project.  Though all of them worked through frequent internet outages, some were subject to the availability of public computers, and none of them had ever seen a Flipcam before, they each mastered the technology and produced surprisingly professional—and moving—short films.  All of their efforts are viewable on our “Video Map” at http://unovisad.lookingforwhitman.org.

Each of these videos is quite different in style and tone, though they all seem to combine the makers’ deep-rooted love of their country with their new passion for Whitman.  Neda found new freedom of expression in the video mode, as her provocative (even sexy) interpretation of “Calamus 11” demonstrates.  Josip kept the imagery simple and straightforward, preferring to let his translation of “Calamus 6” speak for itself.  Sanja’s visual interpretation of “Calamus 9” invites contemplation, while  Bojana’s setting of the same poem is a Whitmanic celebration of Belgrade, her beloved hometown.  Indira’s translation of “Calamus 22” is recited by a wonderful collective of Serbs young and old (including her toothless grandfather), creating a video montage of overwhelming emotional impact.  And Elma, a resident of beautiful war-torn Sarajevo who commuted seven hours to our class each week, offered a powerful raison d’etre for poetry: it keeps us burning.  Images of Sarajevo’s “eternal flame” segue to Elma’s candlelit reading of “Calamus 9.”

Can poetry matter?  As part of their final project, I asked my students to respond to Dana Gioia’s controversial 1992 essay.  Each of the recent poetry converts gave a well-reasoned and enthusiastic affirmative response, and I found myself happily nodding along with them.  Poetry really does matter, as I witnessed firsthand bringing Walt Whitman to Serbia.  He sounds as true, beautiful, and useful in the Balkans as he does on my own Brooklyn Bridge.  Walt, wherever you are, it must do your heart good to know that we’re all still listening, still learning.

You, where you are!
You daughter or son of England!
You of the mighty Slavic tribes and empires! You Russ in Russia!…
All you continents of Asia, Africa, Europe, Australia, indifferent of place!
All you on the numberless islands of the archipelagoes of the sea!
And you of centuries hence, when you listen to me!
And you, each and everywhere, whom I specify not, but include just the same!
Health to you!  Good will to you all—from me and America sent,
For we acknowledge you all and each.
(from “Salut Au Monde!”, 1860)

Hey Walt! –did you ever consider how fluid and strong and beautiful all of these words would sound… in Serbian?

Sati protiču dugi, mučni i teški,

Sati u suton, kada se povlačim na neko osamljeno i

Pusto mjesto, sjedam, naslanjajući lice na ruke…

That is Elma Porobic’s stunning translation of the first lines of Calamus 9.  Those of you who can read Serbian will not just note her sensitive treatment of Whitman’s language, but her ear for his music.  Elma is one of my six students in “Walt Whitman: The Global Perspective”, and one of three that have chosen to absorb, translate, and interpret Calamus 9 as her final project.  Sanja Stanimirovic offers a different perspective on Whitman’s emotional opening:

Sati teku dugi, bolni i tegobni,

Sati u sumrak, kada se povlačim na neko samotno mesto, retko pohođeno, sedam i zarivam

lice u šake…

And then we have Bojana Acamovic’s nuanced reading:

Sati teku dugi, bolni, nesrećni,

Sati sutona, kada se povlačim na usamljeno i pusto mesto, kada sedam, spuštam lice u šake…

Indira Janic brings another level of meaning to Calamus 22 (later “To a Stranger”) by interpreting him using the Cyrillic alphabet:

Странче у пролазу! Ти не знаш колико те чежљиво гледам…

Neda Kosoric has diligently labored to resolve interesting questions regarding the use of gender in Serbian, in her translation of Calamus 11:

…i njegova ruka lagano prebacena preko mojih grudi,

i te noci ja bio sam srecan.

And Josip brings passion and intensity to Calamus 6 as he continues to try to wrestle down a Serbian word for a distinctively Whitmanic term:

Ne s bilo kim niti sa svima, O adhesiveness! O bȉlo mog života!

Potrebno mi je da postojiš i prikazuješ se, više no u ovim pesmama.

Dragan Purešić,, Karen, Indra, Sanja, Neda, Bojana, and Elma: united we Whitmaniacs stand!

On Saturday 12 December, we were honored to welcome the esteemed translator Dragan Purešić to our classroom at the University of Novi Sad.  In addition to his crucial contributions to the success of the Serbian Book Market Project (see http://www.ceebp.org/book-market.htm for more info), Dragan has published noteworthy translations of the works of William Blake (Belgrade: Plato, 2007) as well as Walt Whitman (Belgrade: Plato, 2008).  He presented us with a memorable lecture on the art of translation, describing some of the challenges he faced when interpreting Whitman’s words for the Serbian people.  “The poem is an artistic entity,” he reminded us.  “The translator is both an artist and an artisan.”  Quoting freely and fluidly from works as wide-ranging as Lessing’s “Laocoon” and “The Godfather Part III”, he charged us with the significance and the perils of our task at hand.  And he inspired us.  “Blessed be the messengers,” he said.  Whitman sounds really good, really true and beautiful, in Serbian.

Ringed round by Dragans: Whitman's women (don't forget Indira, behind the lens!)

Dragan then led a translation workshop (which was further enhanced by the contribution of Novi Sad faculty members Vladislava Gordic Petkovic, Ivana Djuric, and Aleksandra Izgarjan).  We pored over Whitman’s language: what’s the connotative difference between being “content” and “happy”, as we see these terms used in Calamus 9 and 11?  What is behind the unusual statement “I am to wait” at the end of Calamus 22, and how can one achieve that feeling in Serbian?  And when Whitman asks, “I wonder if other men ever have the like” (Calamus 9), does the use of  the idea of  ‘mankind’ deny the poem’s true meaning or enhance its applicability?  Dragan offered suggestions and asked thoughtful questions of all of us; all of us responded and questioned our own understandings of Whitman’s words and intentions.

We strolled out of Classroom 37 three hours later, with full hearts and minds.  You see, Dragan knows Walt Whitman.   He ‘gets’ the poet in a fluid and intuitive way, in addition to possessing a finessed scholarly knowledge of  Whitman’s life and work.  And Dragan communicated his love and understanding for Whitman to us with honesty and passion, encouraging and helping shape our responses to these elusive Calamus poems.

In a few weeks, you will be able to listen to my students’ final versions of their Calamus translations on our “video map” (just go to “Video Map” on top of our class website– http://unovisad.lookingforwhitman.org– and swing the pointer a bit east of Walt’s usual stomping-grounds).  You, too, will be able to enjoy the benefits of Dragan’s sensitive tutelage– as channeled by this outstanding, unforgettable collective of new Serbian Whitmaniacs.

Hvala, Dragan! Vidimo se, Josip, Indira, Elma, Bojana, Sanja, Neda and faithful right-hand man Dragan!

…I ostavlja vama da dokazujete i određujete,

I glavne stvari očekuje od vas.

(the rousing challenge of “Poets to Come”, as delivered by Walt Whitman and Dragan Purešić)

One of our family's treasures is this rare photo of my father and Inge, taken before the onset of Tito's expulsion campaigns in 1944.

21 November 2009.

All day long I walked around thinking that this was the anniversary of Daddy’s death.  I lit a candle for him in the Serbian Orthodox Church in Zrenanin, and told Aleksandra’s mother (who had made some vanille krenzen for a lavish St. Michael’s Day feast I was treated to today) that these were my father’s favorite cookies, that he would be pleased to see (even more to eat) them.  I just called my friend Jackie Gardy to tell her no, I wouldn’t be able to come to the Novi Sad Jazz Festival tonight, that I wasn’t up to it.  You see, seven years ago, I lost my beloved dad.  His end was sudden and quick, the result of a brain anheurism and, undoubtedly, more than a lifetime of trauma and hard work.  In 2002, November 22 became the most difficult day imaginable.  And every year on this date, I allow myself to be engulfed by floods of memories and emotions.  November 22 marks my counter-celebration of self-pity and grief.

Well, November 22 is tomorrow.

I only realized that when I looked at my calendar a moment ago.  Today’s the twenty-FIRST, not the twenty-SECOND, of November.  So that call to my mom, and the drama of thinking about my father on this heaviest of days, could wait another day.

But it felt like today, like today was connected with that other day in 2002 when I last spoke to my father in person and when I had angry words with a thoughtless, disconnected doctor in Glen Cove Hospital, about disconnecting my father from life support.  Such a strange day.  I was teaching at Colby College at the time, and had flown down from Maine to New York the day before, at my sister’s request.  Dutifully teaching my last pre-Thanksgiving classes and giving my students assignments for the break, I drove to Portland Airport in a daze.  When the fog lifted, I was holding my father’s hand in the hospital and thinking about what I needed to tell him.

I will write the story, Daddy.  I promise.

And then blurriness and hospital smell, and then Tante Inge’s arrival and then waiting.  And then hope and then not.  And then blankness.

My father is the reason that I am writing to you from Serbia.  He, along with my great-grandfather, are my loving courage-teachers, my representatives of what the best of us can aspire to be.  Philipp Karbiener (or, as his birth record reads, Филип Михаел КАРБИНЕР) was the first son born to one of the wealthiest households in Sekitsch, Yugoslavia in 1935.  His grandfather, who had served as the mayor of Sekitsch and had  expanded the family’s properties and wealth, saw more potential in the steady gaze of his grandson (see photo above) than in the boy’s father.  From an early age, my dad had received tutelage on land and agricultural management; by age nine, he was a skilled horseman who could gentle-break the wildest stallion on any of the family’s four farms.

He was nine years old, too, when he was expelled from his home and placed in the first of four detention camps set up by Tito for the ethnic Germans of Vojvodina.  His father, sister, grandparents and Onkel Philipp (my grandmother’s brother) all went with him, while his mother was sent to a forced labor camp outside of Luhansk, Ukraine.

My dad became the head of the family in these camps.  His father was stultefied by the displacement, and was physically and mentally useless—a mere shell of a man.  Inge was a hysterical four year old.  And his grandfather once again reached over his 33-year old son to grab the boy’s skinny shoulders.  The inheritance was lost, but Philipp still represented hope and the future.  Blue steely-eyed gaze met gaze.  You are in charge now.  You take care of your sister, your father.

And so the boy did.  Sneaking out of Camp Gakowa to work for Hungarian farmers, he carried salt, potatoes, and corn back under the barbed-wire fence to feed his little sister, his sullen father, his sickly grandparents.  Philipp declined offers of free passage over the Hungarian border by the farmer’s son—a border patrol officer—so that he could continue his missions in and out of the camp.  He was eleven, going on twelve.

He even got caught one time.  The Red Army guards at Gakowa were known for their particularly cruel punishments, such as making rule violators stare at the sun to the point of blindness.  My father’s sentence was comparatively light: he was sent to the basement of an abandoned farmhouse flooded with water.  Seating him on an uneven stool in the brine, the guards ordered that he stay there all night—and that he sing loudly, so they’d know he was down there.  My dad defiantly blared a steady stream of Lutheran hymns and German folk songs, much to the soldiers’ disgust.   But Daddy ultimately suffered the most from this incident.  He never sang again.  Though he loved to hear my sister and I croon nursery rhymes or Christmas songs, he never mustered the will to chime in.

When Tito’s camps were dissolved in May 1948, my father, aunt, and grandfather were sent to work on a ”community farm.”  Whether by the cruelty of fate or Tito’s envoys, they were placed on one of their own salasches: Szenttamas salas, just outside of Srbobran.  It had been the largest of their land holdings, and had been registered under my father’s name before he could read its ‘katasatar’ number in the Srbobran Grundbuch.   On its 150 acres stood a horse stable, barn for milk cows, ”magazin” for corn and grain products, a long manager’s house, and a large farm house complete with cellar and ‘summer kitchen.’

Four years after the family’s last visit to this salas, the meticulously kept fields of wheat and corn were now overgrown with weeds.  Hundreds of  farm horses had been set free and now roamed wild, their hoofbeats echoing over the Vojvodina plains through the night.  Foxes darted throught he doorless portals of the farmhouse, which was partially occupied by a group of Roma.  My grandfather saw the lice on the women’s long hair and ordered his children to sleep outside on the porch.  Conditions were so poor that he decided to try and find a foster home for Inge, now barely eight years old.  As he wandered through the burnt-out villages in search of someone to take her in, my 13-year old father went looking for work in the neighboring fields.

He first found work on the sheep farm of Pero Milotic, just outside of Srbobran.  They were good to him, though he soon realized that his skills as a horseman might be better utilized on a bigger farm.  Pajo and Radinka Gavanski of Srbobran offered him a job breaking in horses on their salas.  He liked the work and excelled at it; Radinka felt compassion for the pitifully skinny boy and, perhaps, admired his sense of responsibility towards work and family.  Her generosity towards my father is part of our family lore.  For a good year or so, he benefitted immeasurably from her gifts of food, shelter, and human kindness.  I like to think that they provided each other with some basic needs in a time of crisis: a son’s devotion, a mother’s love.

Spending 22 November as well as Thanksgiving in Serbia without my family this year, I decided to combine these two landmark dates in one mission: to locate some of the several people that enabled my father’s survival, and to thank them personally for their priceless gift to us.

I called my friend Slobodan Jovn, who runs a cab company in Novi Sad (Heligon Taxi: 064 232 0816).  Was he up for another ‘research adventure’, to Srbobran this time? ”No problem.”  (He always says that.)  We sped off from Novi Sad at 9 am on Friday morning, a thick fog setting the perfrect mood for our detective work.

Srbobran has preserved its majestic center, a cluster of grand Austro-Hungarian structures around its high-baroque, double-spired cathedral.  One of these is the Registrar’s Office, where a clerk named Stefanka remains Srbobran’s walking, talking town record.  She listened to Slobodon’s translation of my request.  Pero Milotic?  No, she was drawing a blank with that name.  Radinka Gowanski? (she looked at my Germanized spelling.  Serbs don’t use ‘w’s.)  Hm.  Radinka Gavanski?  Radinka?  She opened a huge metal file cabinet, pulled down several oversized books, and began to look through the town records.  And then the death records.  Looking over her glasses at her fellow worker (Zita; of course we’re all on a first-name basis), she asked her to call the police station.  And then she took out the well-thumbed mountains of citizenship records.  I watched helplessly, trying to distract myself with the view of the town’s ‘wedding room’ next door, with its grand chandelier and dark wooden panelling.  The enormously high ceilings (15 feet, at least) and grand décor must make young couples feel the momentousness of the occasion.  Turning back around to Stefanka’s office, I noted how much smaller it was, despite the amount of information contained in the room.  Her filing system had had to expand upward rather than outward, utilizing unreachable wall space far above our heads.

About forty minutes later, Stefanka paused over  a worn blue index card.  Radinka Gavanski.  30 September 1925- 21 December 2002.  She lived at 73 Petra Drapsina even after her husband died and the salas lands had been sold.  And though she had been childless, someone had come in to the police station to report her death— Rajko Pivncki, presumably her brother.  Sarplaninska 46 in Novi Sad, of all places.  We could look him up in the phone book.

The sadness of realizing that I was too late to thank Radinka in person, was eased by the fact that I might be able to thank her through a visit to another family member—and by way of a visit to the house where she and my father had developed their special friendship.  Families don’t live on their salasi in Vojvodina; they might stay temporarily as an escape from a more urban existence, but their everyday lives were always conducted from their homes in town.  The house at 73 Petra Drapsina was thus the place my father would have shared his meals with the Gavanskis, where he slept to escape the cold of the windowless Szentatamas salas, where he found an open door and a warm hearth in an otherwise cold and closed world.

We walked right in to a humble but welcoming courtyard.  And there was something magical about this place, as careworn and tired as the house and garden looked.  Perfect stillness greeted us—this, despite the healthy flock of chickens and geese in the backyard coop. Beets stewed quietly on a table near the front door.  Late tomatoes hung sleepily from the vine.  A quince lay perfectly split in half, knife by its side, on an old table against the back barn.  Smoke rose gently from a little stove pipe on the roof.  A child’s socks danced on the clothesline.  A pair of women’s clogs rested on the front stoop.  And the lace-curtained front door was open, inviting us inside.

At first, Slobodan and I shouted our ”dobar dan”s around the house and into it.  But gradually we too succumbed to the absolute peace of this scene.  While he noted the old mud construction of parts of the outbuildings, I envisioned my father as the thirteen year old boy who had also enjoyed this simple, pleasing garden.  After enduring four years of near-starvation, exhaustive labor, and humiliation at the hands of his captors, my father had been offered comfort and affection in Radinka’s humble home.

...Radinka, are you there? Spirits from the past linger in the corners of her former backyard.

As we walked out, we saw an old woman emerge from her own gate next door.  Yes, of course she remembered Radinka.  An open-hearted person, a good neighbor.  They lived next door to each other for well over 50 years before Radinka died.  Now there were Bosnian refugees living in the house.  She didn’t know much about them, they kept to themselves.

Radinka’s house, then, opened its doors to many different needy people at points of crisis.  To my  13 year old father, in the wake of a traumatic separation from his mother, displacement from his home, and survival of a brutal ‘ethnic cleaning’ of the Vojvodina Germans.  To the Bosnian refugees, who now seek asylum after a horrific period of religious persecution and genocide in their homeland.  And to me.  Though my suffering cannot be compared with these two examples, I too have been given sustenance during a difficult moment of loss.  Radinka helped me recover my father, understand this complex, loving man better, love him all the more.

How can I begin to thank such people?  Where, in my bounded vocabulary, can I find the words to describe how grateful I am to Radinka, ‘working woman’ who found it in her heart to be generous to others when most people felt forced to think only of themselves? How can I help commemmorate these everyday heroes that refuse to let the status quo of the moment dictate their own actions?

I can start here and now.  We are all so very responsible for what we do, no matter what we have led ourselves to believe, no matter how others have sworn they forgive us, they understand.   All our decisions, great or small, indicate our mettle.  Will you help the homeless man carry his bags up those steep stairs to the 125th St. 1/9?  Do you take in the blue-eyed boy, though he’s a living embodiment of ‘the enemy’ to people in power?  Will I find and thank the surviving members of a family that gave my dad life and love?

This Thursday, Aleksandra and I are planning to spend part of Thanksgiving at a nursing home.  Rajko Picncki, it turns out, sold his house at Sarplaninska 46 and now resides in one of several such facilites in the Novi Sad area (the guy living in his house right now didn’t know which one).  On Tuesday, we’ll be making calls to the list of nursing homes we’ve compiled, hoping to track Rajko down.  And then, after a baking marathon (vanille krenzen, maybe), we’ll offer our thanks to Rajko and the memory of his sister Radinka.

Thanks, Daddy.  For everything. Love always.

The trio enjoying the fruits of my father's harvest on the threshold of his former house in Sekitsch (now Lovcenac), Vojvodina.

My cousins Lisa and Michelle came to visit me for a few days last week.

–Very nice, you say.  Been there, done that.  Don’t families just do this sort of thing?

What if I told you that they left their families and busy schedules in Chicago and the Philadelphia area, respectively, to visit me here in Serbia?  That they’ve never been here before, and that they don’t know another living soul besides me who lives in this part of the world?  And that  they’re not exactly my cousins in the strict definition of the term?

Michelle and Lisa came here on a mission motivated by love.  Though we’re only distant blood relations (their grandmother and mine were first cousins), we’re bonded by history, our devoted interest in the story of our family, and a time-honored friendship.  Michelle’s father Helmut (godfather to both Lisa and myself), Lisa’s dad Ewald (much-beloved Onkel to Michelle and me), and my father Phillipp (their late ‘Onkel Phil’) were all part of the last generation of Karbieners/Karbiners born in the Vojvodina town of Sekitsch.  The family lines had remained in this small town from 1786 to 1944, when the ethnic German residents of Vojvodina were expelled from their homes.  Homeless and homelandless, our family was torn apart by physical separation, forced labor, disease, starvation, and torture.  Surviving against all odds, these young men and their parents eventually emigrated to America (Helmut and Ewald in 1950, my father in 1955) with little more than a vision of a bright future there.

Though they had lost nearly all of their worldly possessions and now faced a challenging reassessment of their cultural identity, surviving Danube-Swabians quickly tried to re-establish what had always been at the core of their communities: family and the bonds of friendship.  The new American émigrés were only too happy to find each other alive and well, and took comfort in settling within close proximity of each other in the Ridgewood/Glendale/Middle Village straddling Brooklyn and Queens.  Families lived together (my grandparents, for example, lived in the apartment below ours) and worked together at knitting mills and meat-packing plants, like Tru-Fit and Merkel’s in Brooklyn.  And when we firstborns came along, we too developed bonds and friendships while frequenting the German-Hungarian Soccer Club, Niederstein’s, Plattdeutsche Park Restaurant, and of course our own elaborate house parties.  Now that I have been living in Vojvodina for a few months, I see that our parents tried to surround us with the comforts they had known ‘back home,’ particularly the food: cremebitte, bundt cakes, dobosch tortes, and apfel strudel were among the treats served at our birthdays (though all we kids really wanted was a Carvel cake).

As the American-Donauschwaben families grew and prospered, many of us moved out of the ‘old’ neighborhoods.  But though the branches grew upward and outward, the roots remain strong. Every time my mother checks up on the old house (which we now rent), she returns vowing that she’ll move back to Middle Village one day.  Our family patriarch Onkel Ludwig still takes his daily walk on Metropolitan Avenue; he’s even found some comfort in the apple strudel and cute waitresses of the Arby’s that replaced Niederstein’s.  And all those parties and gatherings that we firstborns were obliged to attend, have secured lifelong bonds and precious friendships.  Michelle, Lisa, and I—all bossy older siblings that loved school, hated boys (for a while, anyway), and benefited from the unconditional love and support of fathers–  are bonded by our respect for our shared history and our dedication to family.  And in our own 21^st century American way, we carry forth the Danube-Swabian sense of community that held the lot of us together for over 150 years.

Which may help explain why these accomplished, dynamic, busy women decided to put their everyday lives on hold to visit me in Vojvodina— and to journey into our family’s past.  It was not an easy trip for either of them, in any sense.  For starters, it’s a long way from Chicago and Phillie to Novi Sad.  Lisa’s fabulous husband Mike, perhaps rightly so, worried about security issues enough to get her an international cell phone.  Michelle’s adorable and adoring son Leighton and daughter Sabine missed their mom, particularly because she wouldn’t be there to see their Halloween costumes.  And then there were the many political, psychological, and emotional issues we all faced, returning to the place that had expelled our family.  Sixty five years ago, our families had been forced to surrender our homes and land.  Many were placed in detention and forced-labor camps, and some were tortured and killed by people who might still be living in the area.  Just what sort of welcome could we expect?  And how would the modern-day residents of Lovcenac feel when they found out we wanted to see the houses our fathers were born, the vineyards and farms that they owned, the homeland that they still cherish?  In Serbia, the forced expellations of ethnic Germans after World War II has remained a closed topic until the last few years; currently, the issue of war reparations issue further complicates the matter.

Lovcenac 2009: remnants of the tree-lined streets of Sekitsch (this is Zweiterreihe, now ЂУРА СТРУГАРА, with the house my father grew up in lying just beyond the corner house).

A doorway into the past of present-day Lovcenac.

Smiles broke out around the room when we saw the record of the birth of their grandfather, my Onkel Ludwig, in 1915.  “He’s still alive!”  I exclaimed to Stanka, forgetting that she didn’t know a word of English.  “Really alive!”  Lisa rejoined, and we analyzed the slight hand that had written in what we saw as a momentous occasion: the birth of our family patriarch.   Born in Austria-Hungary, Ludwig was officially recorded under the Hungarian name Lajos (“lye-oash”).   His son Ewald, Lisa’s dad, was also recorded in Hungarian in 1942—and to see the elaborate Hungarian headings and political symbolism was to feel the pressure of those times.  During World War II, Vojvodina was divided and occupied by the Axis Powers, and Sekitsch had officially been part of Hungary again.  And yet in 1935, my father had been born in Sektisch in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia.  The Cyrillic writing on his birth record served as proof.

My father's birth record, written out in Serbian Cyrillic. It's the first time I've seen it (and realized he had a middle name).

The birth record of Michelle's father, written in Cyrillic. Helmut would have been 70 the week we visited his hometown.

Mich noting the vineyard-inspired carvings on the facades of Kula Er Gasse.

An example of a dolled-up 'German house' on the corner of old Kula Er Gasse and Maximiliangasse.

Perhaps we should have been more nervous.  But the walnut trees seemed to protect us with their mellow, yellow leaves, and the air was fresh with the fragrance of quince.  ”Good morning,” piped a young boy from across the street—obviously practising his English, since it was four in the afternoon.  Walking down this wide street, I felt a sense of peace, of familiarity.  Though I’m a city girl (like my Oma) at heart, I understood at that moment the sense of contentment that small town life must have brought to my ancestors.

”There it is!” The house, like Ludwig himself, was a quiet but sure standout.  The only building to face the Kula Er Gasse at an angle, it seemed to look at us curiously out of the corner of its eye, over its shoulder.  ”Izvolite?”

It was an older Monte Negrian man, actually, who now addressed us.  Somehow, in a motley combination of stunted Serbian, botched German, and desperate English words and gestures, we communicated that this house was the birthplace of their dads, that their grandfather had lived here.  Well, would we like to go in and see it?  He knew the owner.  Zlata.  Very nice.  She’d be pleased to show us the house.

And so the old door opened.  Black-haired Zlata in a bright red t-shirt greeted us with unabashed enthusiasm; her assortment of dogs, with more trepidation, maybe because we were eyeing them so closely.  I knew what Mich and Lisa were thinking: Helmut and Ewald had a dachshund growing up.  Had the dogs remained after their families were expelled?  I remembered Inge’s stories of her own little dog, that tried so desperately to follow her as she and her brother were carted off to the camp at Gakowa.  One of the Russian officers had kicked the dog to the side.

Who knows?  Dogs are survivors too—and one of these little guys did look like he could have a bit of dachshund fierceness and longitude in him.  In any case, the apple trees were certainly living descendents.  As Michelle and Lisa explored the spacious backyard and fields beyond, Zlata ran inside and brought out what must have been the three biggest fruits of the harvest.  For us.

Stepping back in time: Michelle and Lisa are invited (back) into their fathers' brithplace!

We were then escorted inside the simple stone house,.  Michelle and Lisa’s delight and exclamations provoked Zlata to give us a full house tour, and we found the dark hallways opened to bright, warm rooms.  In the living room, we caught each other’s eyes as we marked the presence of the old stove.  Ljiljana Ljustanovic had told us that when many of the Monte Negrian families had moved into these houses, they didn’t know what to make of the elaborately tiled German stoves.  Thinking that these tall objects were perhaps monuments, they destroyed most of them.  But here stood the very stove that had warmed the winters of Ludwig, Gretchen, Helmut and Ewald.  Now we, too, felt the glowing warmth that they had experienced.  And that felt indescribably good.

In the photo below, you’re looking at four women who, in the simple gesture of a group hug, are breaking through formidable and time-honored boundaries.  Here you see the Monte Negrian and the Danube-Swabian united by mutual understanding and respect, despite our radically divisive history.  You see the realized possibility of reconnecting with the so-called ‘lost’ past or the ‘dead and gone.’  And in this very moment, you see the future of three cousins—one that is all the brighter for the bonds that have grown stronger, the hearts that now beat bigger.

Thank you, Lisa and Michelle for the experience of a lifetime—of many lifetimes.

I actually saw what he meant when Aleksandra, Alphild and I took our first look around Salas 137, one of the several Vojvodina “farm-estates” now more devoted to entertaining tourists than harvesting wheat and corn.

Salas 137 attempts to portray a type of existence that my family knew and loved for a century and a half, though it is lost to us now.  My father, along with his parents, grandparents, and everyone else in the Vojvodina village of Sekitsch (now Lovcenac), were expelled from their homes, dispossessed of their properties, and put into death- and work-camps at the end of 1944.   After nearly eight years of suffering, sickness, the experience of watching others tortured, killed, or die of starvation, my father, his sister, and their father were reunited with my grandmother (who had been working in a coal mine in a forced-labor camp in the Ukraine, near Luhansk).  Homeless and homeland-less, my Oma decided for them all: “America is the future.”  On the 17 of December 1955, they caught their first glimpse of the Statue of Liberty.

And my father never wanted to look back—never even wanted to tell his daughters about what he had been through, what had been lost and left behind.  He loved America with a fierceness that was eye-roll-worthy to my sister and me when we were younger.  He seemed content with the fact that he had a precious few family photos from his own youth, and no tokens or trinkets or papers that linked him to another place or time.  I’m as sure that his disinterest in our family history inspired my own stubborn interest in that subject, as I am certain that his allegiance to New York led me to my own dedication to our hometown, the greatest city on earth.

But traces of the past remain.  Wounds heal, but leave their mark.  And the proud new resident of Brooklyn, New York—the twenty-year-old city boy who worked in a meat factory and lived in a railroad flat—couldn’t shake his passion for horses.  Before I learned to ride a bike, my dad was carting me off every Sunday to the World’s Fairgrounds.  And as he hand-led the pony round the ring (he insisted upon this, I still remember), he’d tell me stories of the horses on the salasch, particularly Ferner, his favorite.

Alphild, Aleksandra and I toured the well-maintained stables of this representative salas, and then walked up to the farmhouse.  It’s comfortably settled in the midst of fruit-laden walnut trees, curled around itself like an old barn cat.  Salasi in Vojvodina typically included such a house on their property.  Families would spend summer months out here amidst ripening crops as the towns baked in the long stark sun.  As we stepped through the old kitchen doorway, we smelled the coolness afforded by its thick walls and heavily curtained windows.

Though the interior décor included its share of kitsch (I’m sparing you from the photos of the old radio and typewriter collections), check out the great tile stove.  It stands as proof that these “outposts” really were homesteads, and for much more than one season.  To my eye, this type of stove resembles some of the handsomely crafted examples I saw this June in the Museum of Alsace, Strasbourg.  The deep baking oven was new to me, though the lovely primitive decoration felt familiar and homey.

The decorative touch that really captured my interest was the hand-painted “wallpaper,” an effect achieved by rolling a carved wooden cylinder up the walls in rows.  I’m not sure you can see it that clearly from the pictures, but the red pattern around the stove, and the blue chickens framing Aleksandra and me are the product of much labor and precision on the part of the salas housewife (or a professional, if it was a wealthy family).  My friend Jovan Knezevic explained the skill to me as we admired the sunflower design decorating his kitchen in Feketic.  “It was a great skill to know just where to end, and where to begin the next row,” he explained, pointing out the patterns that lined up both horizontally and vertically.  And it’s so much better than wallpaper on these uneven walls—so much prettier and more eye-catching than a single color.

Really, though, the finest art exhibited in these salasi wasn’t on the walls, but on the plates of the lucky folk around its dining table.  The menu of Salas 137 was ten pages long—and available in English to boot.  The translations artfully described the “relationships” between the meat and vegetables in a dish, with mouth-watering descriptions to tickle the palate and unfamiliar phrases to twist the tongue.

Though I never had the taste for it when I was a kid, “Rindfleisch” now made my heart pound for the first time.  “Meat cooked in a soup with tomato or dill sauce—just like a Sunday at your granny’s (580 dinar).”  Oma, what would you say about the low price on this meal that took you so long to make?  But it wasn’t simply the dishes with German names that induced a dizzying wave of nostalgia.  On the opposite page, “Sarmice” was described as “ground meat nicely wrapped into cabbage leaves, stacked into a ceramic pot and baked in a village stove (560 dinar).”  This blending of German and Slavic tastes is found on every page of the menu, right down to the desserts—where “creme bitte” kept happy company with “baklava.”  Just look at our lovely appetizer plate, where delectable cheese-filled pita slices were accompanied by schinken (here being devoured by Alfild, a Kansas native who appreciates the time and effort behind these homemade delicacies).

–that’s Aleksandra indulging in the last of the cherry baklava.

Food does so much more than bring friends and family together round a table.  It brings together cultures, creating interest in difference and blending diverse tastes and preferences.  As my Oma continued to make coffee in a Turkish pot in her New York apartment, so do Serbian guests of Salas 137 get a taste of the her famous “schnee nockerl.”  No matter how seperatist cultures claim they stand, their food choices make plain the everyday give-and-take of life in these farming villages.  Out here on the wide plains of Vojvodina, people learn to work together, to live together, and even to sup with one another.  One more quote from the delectable Salas 137 menu will illustrate my point.  “The recipe is secret,” begins the description of the “homemade fine pate from ‘Salas’” appetizer.  “It was given to us as a gift by a heir to once well-known butcher, a Vojvodinian German.”

It pleases the soul well to know that a long-ago act of generosity is still recognized and appreciated, by such a diverse—and hungry– audience.

After the meal, we took a long late-afternoon stroll around the grounds.  Old salas maps indicate that these properties were commonly thin and long, and Salas 137 seemed to stretch back endlessly as we left the farm’s outbuildings behind us.

We delighted in finding orchards laden with fruit.  That little pear tree filled our bags with future snack food (geez, should I have admitted that?), and the quince trees perfumed the air with their delicate scent.  Wildflowers and what looked like tobacco plants grew in between the lines of the plantings.  The quiet scene evoked images of a healthy “Schlaraffenland.”  Didn’t anybody come back here and harvest these fertile trees?  Perhaps they were really just for show, or what remained from an earlier working orchard.

The goat took a fancy to Alphild, particularly afterAleksandra identified and plucked wild basil just for him.  And I found poetry and strange comfort in the fields of freshly harvested kukuruz, or ‘kookoorootz’ as my father used to say, smiling at Tanya and me.

“Bring the horses round to the salasch.”  Those were among the last words of my grandfather in 1989.  After a tumultuous life of great loss and even greater new beginnings, Opa was dreaming of his idea of heaven.  And it is no wonder to me anymore, why his idea of peace and perfection was a Vojvodina farm.  As the sun set on our day at Salas 137 and the Yugo pulled away from the homestead’s twinkling lights, I felt the pull of long-lost roots.