Game of Thrones

October 7, 2023

Dubrovnik, Croatia

Power struggles. Money. Tribalism. Treachery. Resilience.

Yes, I’m talking about the fantasy TV series Game of Thrones, much of which was filmed here in the medieval walled fortress city of Dubrovnik. But I’m also referring to the history of the Balkan region, including Greece, Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia Herzegovina, Montenegro, as well as their neighbor Budapest, all of which I’ve been visiting over the last five weeks.

There is much physical beauty in this part of the world, both natural and human-made. From the sunny Greek islands to the mountainous Bay of Kotor in Montenegro; from the ancient Parthenon to the clifftop monasteries of Meteora to the spectacular Church of St Sava in Belgrade, much of this part of Europe is gorgeous.

But as a crossroads of civilizations, this area has seen more than its share of conquest and cruelty. The armies of Alexander the Great, the Roman legions, the Ottoman Turks, the Venetians, the Austro Hungarian empire, all imposed immense suffering and destruction upon the inhabitants of these mountains and coastlines. And then along came the Nazis and the communists and their torture, genocide, and repression.

Our tour group visited Tito’s Bunker, an underground command center built during the Cold War for Marshal Tito of Yugoslavia and his military command. This secret complex of rooms and passageways under a mountain in Bosnia was intended to help Yugoslav leaders repel an invasion or survive a nuclear war. But a wall plaque in one of the rooms, placed there much later, summed up the real issue: “Behold a cathedral of fear, built within a mountain of power, but bigger than it.”

Fear, money, and power were behind the violence of the warring families in Game of Thrones, and the same forces were at work in the Balkan wars of the 1990’s. At that time, with the post communist breakup of Yugoslavia, Serbia attempted to impose its will upon and seize territory from the other former Yugoslav republics, just as its friend Russia is doing today in Ukraine. The Serbs repeatedly bombed a hospital we visited in Vukovar, Croatia, and then captured its patients and staff and executed about 260 of them. Serb snipers targeted and killed 60 children in Sarajevo, along with killing and wounding large numbers of adults. And Serbian forces committed genocide in Srebenica, slaughtering about 8,000 Bosnian civilians. The Serbs weren’t the only guilty parties in that war; Croatia too committed atrocities, as did others. But the Serbs were by far the worst perpetrators of horror.

A few days ago, as our tour group crossed from Bosnia into Montenegro, we came within maybe 100 miles of the border of Kosovo, another former Yugoslav republic that Serbia still covets and claims as Serb territory, even though the vast majority of Kosovars want nothing to do with Serbia. In 1999 Serbia began ethnic cleansing and genocide in Kosovo, until NATO intervened and stopped the rampage. Serbs still feel victimized by NATO, as I found out when I visited their capital of Belgrade. The Serbs I met were friendly, but Serbs in general are often in denial about their past and present relationship with Kosovo.

Yet in spite of the bitter memories of many people in Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia Herzegovina, and elsewhere, the younger generations have mostly moved on from the wartime memories of their parents and grandparents. Last night, at our farewell dinner for this part of my tour, our 30 something tour leader Frano expressed to us his heartfelt appreciation for our visit to his home country Croatia and its neighbors. In his emotional remarks he urged us to look past all the atrocities that we have been learning about in the Balkans, and instead to see that the different Balkan ethnic and religious groups are slowly healing their wounds and intermingling again. He’s optimistic about the future of Croatia.

Given the long history of war in this area, and the complexity of human nature, I’m not quite as sanguine as Frano about the prospects for long term peace. There has to be a massive shift in human consciousness for war to no longer be an option. I expect that throne games, power plays, nationalism, and tribalism will continue for the foreseeable future.

Tomorrow I’ll visit the Fort of St Lawrence, one of the Dubrovnik film locations of Game of Thrones, then join a new tour group as we head up the lovely Dalmatian Coast. After the impressive cities of Athens, Budapest, Belgrade, and tourist-mobbed Dubrovnik, I Iook forward to some downtime on the Croatian islands. And then in a week from now I go home, where I can leave behind the European infighting for the good old USA, where thankfully there is no political drama.