Mother Tongue by Tania Romanov

Author:Tania Romanov
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Travelers' Tales
Published: 2018-01-27T05:00:00+00:00

Sasha with Zora and Deda Marinovič.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

The golden child

Nine months after the wedding Zora and Tolya’s son Sasha was born. Sasha, short for Alexander, was named for his Uncle Shura, yet another nickname for Alexander. Zora and Tolya were beside themselves with joy. Tolya’s first nephew had been born the day of their wedding, and Zora already had two young nephews in the capital, so they were surrounded by family and babies. Fortunately, Sasha was a quiet and easy baby from his first days. And of course he was brilliant.

While Zora, now living in Serbia, was busy recovering and learning how to take care of a newborn, her father and other Istrians were celebrating a vital moment in the life of their own country.

On September 15, 1947, just four days after Sasha’s birth, Istria was formally reintegrated into Yugoslavia as part of Croatia and Slovenia. The northern part went to Slovenia, and the largest piece, including Medulin, went to Croatia. The Istrians celebrated in spite of the fact that many young people, like Zora’s cousin Matte, had wished for a separate state of their own. At last, they were free of the horrible yoke and persecution that started when Mussolini came to power just after Zora’s birth in 1922.

Not everyone rejoiced. Many Italians now lived in Istria. Some had been moved into Istria after the first war and had displaced Slavs like Zora’s family, but others had been there for generations. Now a reverse persecution started, and many were moving back to Italy, in a forced reverse migration. It seemed there could be no shift in that geopolitical landscape without pain to some part of the population.

Zora’s father regained some of the land he had owned—the pieces closer to the sea that had no houses on them—but the Marinovič family home stayed with the relatives who had moved in when the family fled. They were not about to give it up and even resented the parcels Martin regained. It hurt Martin to think about them and this feuding. He knew he wasn't going back to live there, but he had hoped that ridding themselves of the Italians would bring a deeper sense of connection to his homeland. Instead, there was this permanent reminder of how things had gone wrong.

The acreage Martin again owned had some fig trees and grapes on the most buildable plots. The land was flat and had rich soil and gorgeous views of the water. Sometimes they vaguely talked of building a summer home there, where everyone could gather and celebrate the family and their heritage.

Meanwhile, Zora was happily living in Belgrade. Daria Pavlovna had grudgingly moved into the smaller room. Zora was used to large families and tight spaces, so just four of them in the apartment felt like a luxury. She hadn’t brought much with her from Zagreb—a few embroidered and crocheted pieces her mother had made—but the apartment looked familiar. It was simply decorated, with worn furniture and old pots and pans. She did buy some new cake pans when she realized there were no implements for baking her torte, cakes.

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