The Danube Read online

  (How serious people's faces have become.)

  Why are the streets and the squares emptying so rapidly,

  Everyone going home so lost in thought?

  Because night has fallen and the barbarians have not come.

  And some who have just returned from the border say

  There are no barbarians any longer.

  And now, what's going to happen to us without barbarians?

  They were, those people, a kind of solution.

  CONSTANTIN CAVAFY1

  The next morning I wake early in the Hotel zur Linde, walk out into the sunshine, and buy a local newspaper to devour with my toast, in the black and white breakfast room. A headline in the Stuttgarter Zeitung announces the centenary of Karl May's death, at the age of seventy, on 30 March 1912.2 May was the German poet of the American Wild West, without ever going there in person. He taught himself to write during spells in prison for petty theft, and created two of the most endearing characters in German fiction: Old Shatterhand, the German emigrant to America, and Winnetou, the Apache Indian chief he befriends.3 When US troops occupied western Germany at the end of the Second World War, they were astonished at the romantic vision of the United States entertained by their hosts, faithfully learnt from May's novels. In central and eastern Europe, children in playgrounds to this day choose to be Indians, largely thanks to Karl May, while their peers in western Europe mostly want to be cowboys. His detractors like to remind readers that Adolf Hitler loved his novels, while his defenders point out that Albert Einstein did too. The books have never really taken off in English translation. May confused readers, and quite possibly himself in later life, by identifying so closely with Old Shatterhand, that the two characters rolled into one. ‘And so I found myself in a new and strange life,’ writes Old Shatterhand, ‘and beginning it with a new name, which became as familiar and dear to me as my own.’

  ‘The paths we really took are overlaid by the paths we did not take,’ wrote the East German novelist Christa Wolf, ‘I can already hear words that we never spoke.’4 Eastern Europe is a kind of mirror image of the Wild West in the west European imagination: the Wild East, where priests crucify nuns to exorcise them, where factories smoke like chimneys, and from whence swarthy Gypsies emerge to slaughter swans in the parks of London or Vienna. That is the tabloid version, but there is also a more intellectual variety, of various peoples caught up in a kind of eternal hostility to one another. But the Danube washes all of them, reminding them of other lands, from which visitors arrive – to trade, or rest or settle. The Danube offers solace, and preaches tolerance. And in countries far from the sea coast, the river reminds people of the power of nature.

  Just as I found no barbarians in the east, I didn't find any in the west either. The east Europeans come to the west to work, not to steal, at what are often the most menial jobs. The care with which the river environment, in its tamer or wilder fragments, is protected in Austria and Germany, offers a model of civilised behaviour from which many in the East could learn.

  The traveller puts her, or his best foot forward, and comes not to speak, but to listen. By accident I left my tape recorder by the source of the Danube, recording the waters of the Breg and the Brigach flowing together. When I came back, hours later, I found it still there, in the darkness, recording every cry and whisper.

  Notes

  Introduction. The Lips of the Danube

  1. T. S. Eliot, ‘The Dry Salvages’, from Four Quartets, Harcourt, New York, 1943.

  2. Friedrich Hölderlin (1770–1843), Sämtliche Werke, trans. Maxine Chernoff and Paul Hoover, Berlin, 1846. See .

  3. Andrei Ciurunga, Canalul, trans. Mihai Radu and Nick Thorpe, from the booklet available at the memorial at Poarta Albǎ to those who died building the canal.

  4. See . For a background to the archaeology of the Dobrogea region, see Valentina Voinea and Glicherie Caraivan, Human-Environment Coevolution in Western Black Sea Coastal Region (5th Millenium BC), Proceedings of an International Conference, Alexandria, 3–5 November 2010, Editura Renaissance, Bucharest, 2011, pp. 49–60.

  5. The Lost World of Old Europe: The Danube Valley, 5000–3500 BC, ed. D. W. Anthony, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 2011, pp. 179–89.

  6. John Chapman and Bisserka Gaydarska, ‘Colour in Balkan Prehistory’, in Early Symbolic Systems for Communication in Southeast Europe, ed. L. Nikolova. BAR Intern. Series 1139, Archaeopress, Oxford, 2008, pp. 31–56; John Chapman and Bisserka Gaydarska, Spondylus gaederopus / Glycymeris exchange networks in the European Neolithic and Chalcolithic, Durham University, Department of Archaeology, 2011.

  7. Philip L. Kohl, The Making of Bronze Age Eurasia, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2009, pp. 23–56.

  8. L. Séfériadès, ‘Spondylus and Long-distance Trade in Prehistoric Europe’, in David Anthony, ed., The Lost World of Old Europe: The Danube Valley, 5000–3500 BC, Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, New York University and Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 2010, pp. 179–90.

  9. Kingdom of Salt, 7000 Years of Hallstatt, ed. Anton Kern, Kerstin Kowarik, Andreas W. Rausch and Hans Reschreiter, Natural History Museum, Vienna, 2009.

  10. Marija Gimbutas, The Goddesses and Gods of Old Europe, Thames and Hudson, London, 1982.

  11. See The Lost World of Old Europe, ed. Anthony.

  12. The Danube Script, Neo-Eneolithic Writing in Southeastern Europe, Exhibition Catalogue, Brukenthal Museum. See especially Harald Haarmann and Joan Marler, pp. 3–9.

  13. See 〈www.viminacium.org.rs〉.

  14. Herodotus, The Histories, Book II, Ch. 5, trans. Aubrey de Selincourt, Penguin Classics, Harmondsworth, 1954.

  15. Nick Thorpe, '89 – The Unfinished Revolution – Power and Powerlessness in Eastern Europe, Reportage Press, London, 2009.

  16. Yehuda Bauer, A History of the Holocaust, Franklin Watts, New York, 1982.

  17. Danube Bike Trail, Vols 1–4, Bikeline, Verlag Esterbauer, Rodingersdorf, 2008.

  18. ‘Fukushima radiation spread as far as Romania’, 25 August 2011: 〈http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/6/3/034011/fulltext/〉.

  1. The Beginning of the World

  1. Herodotus, The Histories, trans. Aubrey de Selincourt, Penguin Classics, Book 5, ch 10, Harmondsworth, 1954 p. 317.

  2. 〈http://molluscs.at.gastropoda/index.html?/gastropoda/freshwater/neritidae.html〉

  3. Mór Jókai, ‘Arany Ember, 1872, The Man with the Golden Touch’, in Mór Jókai, Timar's Two Worlds, trans. Hegan Kennard, M. J. Ivers, New York, 2010.

  4. See 〈http://norwaygrants.org/en/Activities/Project-events/Biology-sociology-and-tourism-to-preserve-the-Danube-beluga-sturgeon/〉; 〈www.ddbra.ro〉.

  5. Neal Ascherson, Black Sea – The Birthplace of Civilisation and Barbarism, Jonathan Cape, London, 1995.

  6. For much of the data on sturgeon in this book, I am indebted to Radu Suciu, and to his teacher, Nicolae Bacalbaşa-Dobrovici (1916–2010).

  7. Razvan Voiculescu, Dobrogea inceptul lumii (Dobrogea – The Beginning of the World), bilingual Romanian and English edition, Editura Q-T-RAZ, Bucharest, 2008.

  8. On silkworms in the Ottoman empire, see 〈http://www.academia.edu/168776/Patterns_of_Proto-industrialization_in_the_Ottoman_Empire_The_case_of_east­ern_Thessaly_ca.1750–1860〉.

  9. Gavrila Derzhavin, old Russian national anthem, trans. Alexander F. Beck. See 〈http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grom_pobedy,_razdavajsya!〉

  10. Patrick Kinross, The Ottoman Empire, Jonathan Cape, London, 1977; The Folio Society, London, 2003.

  11. Constantin Ardelean, The European Commission of the Danube and the Results of Its Technical and Administrative Activity on the Safety of Navigation, 1856–1914. See 〈http://www.academia.edu/1016592〉.

  12. For Ceauşescu's attempts to drain the Danube, see inter alia: Daily News, 22/2/90: http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1241&dat=19900222&id=dGhTAAAAIBAJ&s
j­id=DYYDAAAAIBAJ&pg=2806,2185405.

  13. Well illustrated by the statement of the Romanian Communist Party dissident Silviu Brucan to this author, November 1987 in Silviu Brucan, The Wasted Generation – Memoirs of the Romanian Journey from Capitalism to Socialism and Back, Westview Press, Boulder, CO, 1993.

  14. Jacques Cousteau studied the Danube with his team from 1990 to 1992. See 〈http://www.cousteau.org/expeditions/danube〉.

  15. ICPDR Joint Danube Survey 2, Vienna, 2008.

  16. See 〈http://www.bestcombat.cc-intro.info/beluga-sturgeon-community-based-tourism〉.

  17. Kindly translated by Onur Yumurtaci of the Anadolu University Faculty of Communication Sciences, Department of Film and Television, Eskişehir.

  2. The Kneeling Oak

  1. In Gerard Casey, Between the Symplegades – Revisions from a Mythological Story, Enitharmon Press, London, 1980.

  2. See 〈http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._A._Rosetti〉.

  3. For a good summary of the case against more barge traffic on the Danube, see 〈http://www.wwf.hu/media/file/1180873628_danubereport_4.pdf〉.

  4. The letter begins: ‘Hear now, my son, those things of which I think you should not be ignorant, and be wise that you may attain to government. For I maintain that while learning is a good thing for all the rest as well, who are subjects, yet it is especially so for you, who are bound to take thought for the safety of all, and to steer and guide the laden ship of the world.’ Byzantine emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus, De Administrando Imperio, c.950 AD, ed. Gy. Moravcsik, trans. R. J. H. Jenkins, new, rev. edn, Washington, D.C., Dumbarton Oaks Center for Byzantine Studies, 1967, pp. 49–51; 167–71, 57–63.

  5. Elizabeth Taylor died on 23 March 2011.

  6. Data cited by Aurel Bajenaru.

  7. No English translation exists. A French translation has been made, but is out of print. There is also a film called Europolis, based on the life of Eugeniu Botez / Jean Bart: Cornel Georghita, Europolis (2010); see 〈http://www.europolis-film.com/?lang=en〉.

  8. For the water tower of Sulina, see 〈http://www.romguide.net/Visit/The-Water-Tower_vt5c5〉; for The Danube Delta Biosphere Reserve, see 〈http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/588/〉.

  9. Interviews by the author with Maria Sterp et al., Poiana Sibiului, summer 2005.

  10. Sfântu Gheorghe film festival: 〈http://www.festival-anonimul.ro/home_en〉.

  11. Mak Dizdar, Kameni Spavac – Stone Sleeper, trans. Francis Jones, DID, Sarajevo, 1999.

  12. Jason and the Argonauts, Stephanides Brothers’ Greek Mythology, Trans. Bruce Walter, Sigma, Athens, 1998.

  13. Romanian Folk Tales, trans. Ana Cartianu, Editura Minerva, Bucharest, 1979.

  14. Nicolae Densusiana, Prehistoric Dacia, 〈www.pelasgians.org/website1/06_02.htm〉.

  3. Mountains of the Fathers

  1. Ibn Battuta, Travels in Asia and Africa 1325–1354, trans. H. A. R. Gibb, George Routledge, London, 1929.

  2. Andrzej Stasiuk, On the Road to Babadag – Travels in the Other Europe, Harvill Secker, London, 2011.

  3. F. W. Hasluck, Christianity and Islam under the Sultans, 2 vols, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1929; H. T. Norris, Islam in the Balkans – Religion and Society between Europe and the Arab World, Hurst, London, 1993.

  4. Andrea Weichinger and Nick Thorpe, The Vineleaf and the Rose, A Journey into Bosnia, documentary, TintoFilms/ MTV, Budapest, 2001.

  5. See 〈http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/8682669.stm〉.

  6. Hasluck, Christianity and Islam, Vol. 1, p. 95.

  7. For a fictional, but very readable, novel based on the Leprosarium in Tichileşti, see Ognjen Spahić, Hansen's Children, Istros Books, London, 2012.

  8. For the Lipovan Russians, see 〈http://www.crlr.ro/index_en.php〉.

  9. An Orthodox prayer from the third Sunday of Lent, which is known as the Sunday of the Veneration of the Cross: ‘The Church fathers equate the life-giving cross with the tree of life and plant it in the middle of the Lenten pilgrimage. It was the tree that was planted in Paradise; it is to remind the faithful of both Adam's bliss and how he was of deprived of it.’ See 〈http://orthodoxwiki.org/Sunday_of_the_Holy_Cross〉; and: 〈http://byztex.blogspot.hu/2011/03/before-thy-cross-we-bow-down-in-worship.html〉.

  4. The Colour of the River

  1. Gimbutas, Goddesses and Gods, p.238.

  2. Bertolt Brecht, Selected Poems, trans. H. R. Hays, Grove Press, New York, 1959. The poem is a remarkable recognition of the failure of communism, by a believer. A section of the poem reads:

  You, who shall emerge from the flood

  In which we are sinking,

  Think –

  When you speak of our weaknesses,

  Also of the dark time

  that brought them forth.

  For we went, changing our country more often than our shoes,

  In the class war, despairing

  When there was only injustice and no resistance.

  For we knew only too well:

  Even the hatred of squalor

  Makes the brow grow stern.

  Even anger against injustice

  Makes the voice grow harsh. Alas, we

  Who wished to lay foundations of kindness

  Could not ourselves be kind.

  3. Manuela Wullschleger, Neolithic Art in Romania, Arte-m, Bucharest, 2008.

  4. Gimbutas, Goddesses and Gods, p. 17.

  5. Chapman and Gaydarska, Colour in Balkan Prehistory.

  6. For more on the controversy, see especially 〈Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Archaeology#Marija Gimbutas〉.

  7. Romanian Radio International, article on Anghel Saligny, 18 October 2010.

  8. For the hardship experienced during the building of the canal, see, inter alia: 〈http://www.magtudin.org/black%20sea.htm〉.

  9. For the cave churches of Basarabi, see especially Constantin Chera, Basarabi – The Cave Churches Complex – Description of the archaeological site and of the carved images, 〈http://constanta.inoe.ro/pagini/p13.html〉.

  10. See 〈http://kroraina.com/pb_lang/pbl_2_4.html〉.

  11. The Romanians discount the Bulgarian claims 〈http://constanta.inoe.ro/pagini/p13.html〉.

  12. Herodotus, The Histories, Book IV, Chapter 93, p. 272 (referring to the Getae). For the controversy over who exactly the Getae, Dacians, Scythians and Thracians were, and where they came from, see 〈http://www.sino-platonic.org/abstracts/spp127_getes.html〉; see also The Romanian Space in Medieval Cartographic Representations, Radio Romania International, 27 January 2011.

  13. See 〈http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dacian_language〉.

  14. Marguerite Yourcenar, Memoirs of Hadrian, Librarie Plon, Paris, 1951, trans. Grace Frick, Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, 1959, p. 56.

  15. Heraclitus, fragment LXXIX. See commentary in Charles H. Kahn, The Art and Thought of Heraclitus, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1979, p. 201.

  16. Mihai Vlasie, How to Get to the Monasteries of Romania, trans. Luminita Irina Niculescu and Diana Presada, Editura Sophia, Bucharest, 2003, p. 48.

  5. The Dogs of Giurgiu

  1. Elias Canetti, The Memoirs of Elias Canetti – The Tongue Set Free, Farrar, Strauss & Giroux, New York, 1999, p. 7.

  2. See 〈http://www.romguide.net/Visit/Lower-Danube-Museum_vt44b〉.

  3. Pencho Slaveikoff, The Shade of the Balkans – A Collection of Bulgarian Folksongs and Proverbs, David Nutt, London, 1904; 〈http://www.archive.org/stream/cu31924029895467/cu­31924029895467_djvu.txt〉.

  4. For more on Eliezer Papo, see 〈http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/11891-papo-eliezer-ben-isaac〉.

  5. See WWF Factsheet: ‘Navigation Project: Romania-Bulgaria’, 18 January 2010.

  6. Nick Thorpe et al., Tearing Down the Curtain: People's Revolution in Eastern Europe, Headway Books, Hodder Arnold H & S, London, 1990.

  7. For Ruse, see Nikolai Nenov, Guidebook; 〈www.parnas.bg〉; Thracian Treasure of Borovo, 〈www.museumruse.com〉.

>   8. Canetti, Memoirs, p. 7.

  9. The information here is taken from notes from the museum catalogue.

  10. Ali Haydar Midhat, The Life of Midhat Pasha: a record of his services, political reforms, banishment, and judicial murder, J. Murray, London, 1903.

  11. For Ilija Trojanow's documentary (in German), 17 December 2007, see 〈http://www.zdf.de/Mainzer-Stadtschreiber/Gespr%C3%A4che-mit-Opfern-und-Zeitzeugen-5363280.html〉.

  6. Gypsy River

  1. Interview with the author, May 2011.

  2. Kinross, The Ottoman Empire, p. 56.

  3. See 〈http://www.velikoturnovo.info/arte.php?Codf=3&Codr=29〉.

  4. For Aleko Konstantinov, see The Everyman Companion to East European Literature, ed. R. B. Pynsent and S. I. Kanikova, J. M. Dent, London, 1993, pp. 199–200.

  5. Maria Todorova, Imagining the Balkans, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2009, pp. 39–42.

  6. Sonia Kanikova on Aleko Konstantinov, in The Everyman Companion to East European Literature, ed. Pynsent and Kanikova.

  7. For details about the Persina Nature Park, see 〈www.persina.org〉.

  8. Kinross, The Ottoman Empire, p. 56.

  9. Ibid., p. 58.

  10. Mehmed Genç, ‘L'Economie Ottomane et la guerre au xvii siècle’, Tunica 27, 1995, pp. 177–96, cited in The Ottomans and the Balkans – A Discussion of Historiography, ed. Fikret Adanir and Suraiya Faroqhi, Brill, Leiden, 2002, p. 15.

  11. Gábor Ágoston, ‘Habsburgs and Ottomans, Defense, Military Change and Shifts in Power’, Turkish Studies Association Bulletin, 22, 1, 1998, pp. 126–41.

  12. Metternich had changed his views markedly since 1828 when he wrote: ‘We look on the Ottoman Empire as the best of our neighbours: since she is scrupulously true to her word, we regard contact with her as equivalent to contact with a natural frontier which never claims our attention or dissipates our energies. We look on Turkey as the last bastion standing in the way of the expansion of another Power …’ Metternich's Letter to Prince Paul Esterhazy, the Austrian Ambassador in London, 2 December 1828. Cited in G. de Bertier de Sauvigny, Metternich and His Times, Darton, Longman & Todd, London, 1962, p. 247.