My family is a mix of Serbian and Hungarian influence on my maternal grandmother's side. I still have a complicated relationship with Hungary because of the stories my grandma told me from the concentration camp she was interned at during the WWII. She was about 11 when she got taken together with her family. I know some Hungarian to this day. And I deeply hate knowing it because I know why she learned it.
My maternal grandfather is a Serb from the beautiful city of Mostar. He wrote down his recollection of the events of establishing the independent state of Croatia. To cut the story short, people were gathered at one of the meeting points and told that new state was proclaimed and if I remember correctly,one of the ladies,a catholic Croat told him to run. He ended up in Nedić controlled, German occupation zone of Serbia where he was shielded by a family of strangers. He was about 12 years old. He lived for years thinking he was the only survivor.
My paternal grandfather is from Split. We can trace our branch of the surname for I think around 200 years. But as of today I don't know the origin. I actually know the least about it. What I know is that my close relative organized the resistance in the city and together with Mokranjac was the greatest south Slav composer in history. Famous people were connected to us but that is irrelevant for now.
My paternal grandmother is from a very rooted family of Šibenik. We go centuries back. We are catholic Croats. And obviously we had a difficult relationship with the Italians. Cultural, political and physical domination is visible until today. That side of my family did what entirety of Šibenik did. We joined the only right side of the WWII. And we payed for it. Buildings in Šibenik and surrounding areas are full of my family's surnames commemorating our sacrifice for the liberation and unification of the fatherland.
My parents met in an elementary school in a border city with Italy. The area is effectively trilingual. Rapid industrialization made Serbo-Croatian an unofficial language. Slovenian was the majority language and Italy was still projecting it's domination via various channels.
And there my story actually begins.
All the blockbusters I saw for the first time were Italian dubbed. Terminator. Back to the future. Lion King. Disney's Robin Hood. You name it. It took me years to rewire my brain to start singing along the songs from cartoons in the original language.
But my parents gave me a gift. Or the upside of the horror, madness,evil and insanity of the destruction of my homeland.
They gave me music.
Today Toto Cotugno died. I loved his music.
I am ashamed to say it but despite my reservation towards the Italian nationalism I sang along to L'Italiano. And then my favorite one.
Solo noi.
The reason why it's special to me is because when Teo's mom came for the first time to stay with me she was very nervous in the car. So I played music from my phone. That was the song that came. And it was perfect in my mind.
I'm sure that Toto touched hundreds of millions of people. If he touched just mine it would have been enough.
But he did so much more.
Buon viaggio. Grazie per tutto.
Resti in pace.
Adesso siete solo voi.
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