Unseasonably warm weather.
It looks like it is going to be above 70 all week, so the people of Zagreb have retaken the streets. Well, actually, they never really completely gave them up. Last week I was going to post something about Zagreb refusing to surrender to the change of season. It was getting cold out, especially after dark, but people refused to stop sitting outside at the cafes. Well, their perseverence has been rewarded (well, actually, it is a southwestern wind bringing warm air up from the Adriatic).
So, I am taking a break from the newspaper reading room to shop for more old books (I picked up Stjepan Radic's political writings and autobiography). The newspaper library exhausts me. Part of it is the physical conditions. I basically have to stand up and read bent over the entire time I am there because of the way the newspapers are bound. Part of it is the mental exersize of reading the daily recounting of rather traumatic events. The last two days I've been there, I've been reading though the last 4 months of 1918. It is facinating to watch an entire political order come appart at the seams. The kind of political and social transfromation that this part of the world went though in the space of a few weeks in staggering. On the one hand, it is kind of amaizing how the old system kept running, in the face of the inevitable (at least inevitable from the perspective of hindsight). Even as the Empire collapsed, the local imperial government kept chugging along. The institutional continuity is interesting as well. Most of the imperial institutions were maintained, but the individuals were replaced. Almost every day's paper has an article about a particular institution and who was being removed and who they were replaced by. For example, the entire judiciary was replaced over night, but the courts and their juristictions persisted.
Some of the article show just how many things we take for granted in a modern society can just dissapear or become problematic over night. A couple of interesting articles were "What money are we using?" and "Who is the government right now?" There were also a lot of troops just wandering around; Italian cavalry in northern Croatia, Serbian, French, and Czeck troops ariving in Zagreb, the Italian Navy grabbing up as much of Dalmatia as they could, and Hungarian troops trying to get back to Hungary, since Croatia no longer was part of Hungary, and Croatian troops trying to get back to Croatia from the Southern and Italian fronts and occupation duty in Russia.
On one hand it is kind of mind boggling just how much change took place in such a short amount of time, and yet, it was a very orderly chaos.
I'm not really sure if there is a point to all of those observations, but it is what's been consuming my life for a few days.
Once again, a longish post that I may (or may not) check for spelling and typos later.
So, I am taking a break from the newspaper reading room to shop for more old books (I picked up Stjepan Radic's political writings and autobiography). The newspaper library exhausts me. Part of it is the physical conditions. I basically have to stand up and read bent over the entire time I am there because of the way the newspapers are bound. Part of it is the mental exersize of reading the daily recounting of rather traumatic events. The last two days I've been there, I've been reading though the last 4 months of 1918. It is facinating to watch an entire political order come appart at the seams. The kind of political and social transfromation that this part of the world went though in the space of a few weeks in staggering. On the one hand, it is kind of amaizing how the old system kept running, in the face of the inevitable (at least inevitable from the perspective of hindsight). Even as the Empire collapsed, the local imperial government kept chugging along. The institutional continuity is interesting as well. Most of the imperial institutions were maintained, but the individuals were replaced. Almost every day's paper has an article about a particular institution and who was being removed and who they were replaced by. For example, the entire judiciary was replaced over night, but the courts and their juristictions persisted.
Some of the article show just how many things we take for granted in a modern society can just dissapear or become problematic over night. A couple of interesting articles were "What money are we using?" and "Who is the government right now?" There were also a lot of troops just wandering around; Italian cavalry in northern Croatia, Serbian, French, and Czeck troops ariving in Zagreb, the Italian Navy grabbing up as much of Dalmatia as they could, and Hungarian troops trying to get back to Hungary, since Croatia no longer was part of Hungary, and Croatian troops trying to get back to Croatia from the Southern and Italian fronts and occupation duty in Russia.
On one hand it is kind of mind boggling just how much change took place in such a short amount of time, and yet, it was a very orderly chaos.
I'm not really sure if there is a point to all of those observations, but it is what's been consuming my life for a few days.
Once again, a longish post that I may (or may not) check for spelling and typos later.
posted by The Solitary Traveller at 1:44 PM
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