What's up.

More research and writing. This is an example of the stuff I found last week. It's from the day after the formal celebration of the return of the statue to the square. The headline at the top translates roughly to "The Unmovable Soul of the Croatian Nation." That's a rough translation because DUH could also mean spirit, and NAROD could also mean people. That's the issue with doing work in a different language; a lot hangs on the specific meaning you give to certain words in certain contexts. But any way you translate it, it is a very strong statement, and it supports my thesis.

So, last week was a good week over all for research. This week is starting off rough. For example, the article I posted last week references a specific book. Now, I had seen this book in the Zagreb City Library computer catalog last time, but it was kind of low on my list because it was only about Lower Town and it was specifically called a sociological study. I had more than enough other books to get through. But anyway, now that I have this article, and I realized the book is really much more about the city structure, I figured I would move it to the top of the book list. Unfortunately, they have "upgraded" the library catalog software, and it doesn't produce the same search results that it used to, so now I can't find the book using subjects that you would think would pop it right up (Sociology, Lower Town, Urbanism) . I'm going to try again today using another search and hopefully that will work.

As to what's going on in town. It is Carnival time. Here they use the German word Fashing for it (funny, because back in the 30s it was called Carnival). It is kind of strange because not many people are into it. Carnival was banned for about 50 years, so people don't have a lot of attachment to the idea any more. The city did do a program on Saturday and I think Sunday (I didn't go out to check), but the only people in costume really in the crowd were little kids. So, maybe in a generation or so Carnival will be back to what it used to be here.

There are two public pettision drives going on at the moment (the HP people with the Ustase flag and the anti-EU/anti-NATO drive seem to have shut down shop for the moment). Both relate to urban space. One is an effort to stop a huge new project in down town, and the other is an effort to get Tudjman's statue moved to a more promenant location. I doubt either has much impact.

The building project is proably going to go through, since it has already been approved. The pettisioners are unhappy because:

1) the project will take out a couple of nice older buildings and really change the character of a nice little square in the middle of down town and

2) it is clearlly a pretty corrupt endeavor because there guy who wants to do the project is good friends with the mayor and a lot of top level people in the city government and he got the land cheap from the city and there was no public debate about approving the project. So, on this one, clearly the fix is in.

The other one is really just a publicity drive. Moving the statue has nothing to do with public sentiment, just local politics. At this point people could really just care less about Tudjman, even if he was the "First President of the Republic."