Tapping into my Serbian roots

So, what happens when an American girl with Swedish and Serbian roots goes to the Greek island of Corfu with her husband to celebrate her 14^th wedding anniversary?  They stumble upon the Serbian Museum of Corfu and spend the better part of the morning revisiting her Serbian roots!

We had noticed on the city map that there was a Serbian museum in Corfu.  How random was that??!  I told Steve that I really wanted to visit this on one of our days filled with walks around the city and poking our heads into all the little nicks and crannies of this fascinating island.  It was our wedding anniversary, November 6^th, and we were enjoying a lovely walk in the old city.  I was already fascinated by the bells that went off regularly from the Orthodox church which we could see outside our bedroom window at the AirBnB.  We arrived at the museum…..only to find a note propped up on the front door of the museum that was written in Greek and Serbian.  Since neither one of us speak either of those two languages, we were pretty disappointed in the moment.

Barb standing in front of the museum in Corfu

And then a voice spoke up:  kako sti? (Serbian for "how are you").  Now, you need to know….I don’t speak but a few words of Serbo-Croatian.  That’s my retirement dream, to learn the language of my father.  But as soon as I heard those familiar words, I knew that we were in a good place.  I went and spoke with this gentle mannered gentleman and told him that I didn’t speak any Serbian, but my dad had come from former Yugoslavia and we were curious to know about why there was a Serbian museum on Corfu.  He made a quick phone call, and the person responsible for keeping the museum open came within minutes and opened the museum for us and put on all the lights and let us walk around.

The first gentleman said “when you’re finished with the museum, come and we drink coffee together”.

Which is exactly what we did.

This picture reminded me of the photos of Serbian military in the church social hall on the south side of Chicago where we participated regularly in activities with my father

The mural painted on the wall and stairwell was especially moving, telling a dark side of the history of mankind in Europe

We walked thru the museum, read another chapter of European war history and refugees who were forced to leave Yugoslavia and evacuated to Corfu.  The Serbian government was effectively evacuated and set up their home base on Corfu.  During the First World War.

When we were finished at the museum, we then slipped down the street and had coffee and conversation for the next 2+ hours ~ with the shop owner and a woman who was a tour guide on Corfu who had a Serbian father and a Greek mother but who had grown up in France.  You could even hear her French accent as she spoke fluent English with us.  It was lovely.

Steve getting a Serbian history lesson on the Greek island of Corfu

 

Barb pretending to be a passenger on one of the evacuation boats

High point of the morning:  when the Serbian shop owner opened his shop and had me try on a cap from his region of former Yugoslavia, which is also the region where my dad came from (FYI this is in present day Croatia).  I was a young girl on the south side of Chicago at St. Simeon’s Serbian Orthodox Church once again.

My father had a hat like this!

Roots.

They’re so amazing!