In 1971, the great Croatian actor Relja Bašić (1930-2017) fronted a black and white documentary in which he talked to some remarkable elderly characters about what Zagreb was like before 1914, when German (i.e. Austrian) and Hungarian influences were more pronounced in the vocabulary and habits of the capital. For example, it was the Hungarians who seem to have introduced tennis and ice skating to the Croats.
At any rate, I’m not well-versed in the language but I do have an interest in it and the more I watched, the more I understood. One of the Croats in the YouTube comments remarks on how beautifully they spoke. That must aid the watcher. No names are given for the characters so I’ll tag them otherwise. The timestamps are included if anyone wants to hear their actual voices.
The first conversation takes place with the Deaf Man, mostly about the changes he has witnessed on the central square, Trg bana Jelačića. This square is also known as Plac, which is the Croatian spelling of the German word Platz. When asked if the great increase in noise since the tišina (‘calm’) of the old days bothers him, the Deaf Man says at 0:45
‘It bothers me so much that I don’t hear it.’
The Demo Man
Demo Man is tagged thus because he talks about pre-war demonstrations, such as the one on the occasion of the visit of Franz Josef in 1895, when some students burned the Hungarian flag on Plac in protest against an unpopular Hungarian governor. At first, though, he gets asked about what had been on the site of the post office on Petrinjska ulica, near the central park called Zrinjevac (4:29 to 4:34).
‘There it was a common dump and a public toilet.’
More dramatic is his memory (6:26) of the panic in the streets caused by the double Zagreb earthquake (potres) of 17 December 1905 and 2 January 1906, while youngsters like himself were wondering would any building collapse like they had been told about in school (re the big one in 1880).
The Lady Gymnast
She is asked about the Hrvatski Sokoli (‘Croatian Falcons’), a nineteenth-century nationalist movement encouraging physical fitness through gymnastics, a bit like the Gaelic Athletic Association (founded 1884), though without the native ball games that still keep the GAA so successful among the Irish. But that’s another small, circumspect country on the edge of Europe, with a similar sense of humour, built on sarcasm and bathos.
(11.23 – 11.39)
‘Madam, what did you with the Falcons?’
‘Well, running and jumping. I was a leader… one of them jumped down, I had to catch her, but she knocked me into a heap. Angela Dajčova.’
The Man of Fashion (see 14.22 to 15.03) is interviewed beside the bandstand in Zrinjevac.
‘The korzo [promenade] was just on the northern side of Ilica [the main shopping street]. It was enough [for them] to walk up and down, up and down… then another time there was a korzo here [he indicates streets around the park]… ah, what I mean, it was then [he smiles ironically] that it was no longer provincial, it was big-city… an official town. An official town.’
The lady with the old dear whom they call Omica (see below), which is presumably a diminutive of the German Oma, or granny, corroborates the route of the Ilica korzo and at 15.35 explains what it was all about.
‘A little looking at the boys, they looked back a little, but we weren’t allowed to get together.’
The same lady at 37.01 states that music was the main element of the social life of Zagreb at the time, in public spaces and in private homes.
The Man of Fashion reappears at 16.19.
‘How was the fashion? How were the women?’
‘I don’t know if it’s for fashion but I was looking at their legs.’
‘You looked at their legs? Do you like legs?’
‘A little bit, a little bit. Sometimes very little. A centimetre…’
Then he indicates what little might have been visible over their shoes. As they move on to discussing the headgear once popular among women, he sings a verse of an old song that jokes about their huge hats.
The Theatre Lady has a minor Parkinson’s shake.
From 17.56 she explains that Zagreb fashions were two years behind Vienna and Budapest. She recalls being in Vienna with her mother for a stage adaptation of Anna Karenina and thinking she was the epitome of style for it. They got tickets for the first row in the circle, everything was wonderful, until she got told she would bring shame on her companions at the theatre. With a horrified laugh of remembrance she seems to use a canine simile that’s roughly akin to the English phrase, a dog’s dinner.
“A ja sam mislila, ja sam tak elegantna.”
(‘And I thought, I’m so elegant.’)
The Two Sisters
The one sitting next to Relja responds a little flirtatiously to his charm. It seems she has been noticed by military officers in her youth but she admits to having been a very good dancer, especially at waltzes (23.30). On the topic of clothing materials (e.g. silk), and cleaning and caring for them (25.22), she quips
‘We were not enlightened like people are now.’
At 38.02 her sister behind the table refers to her father ordering confections from Vienna at Christmas. This recalls Orson Welles on the topic of Viennese cakes (from 3:30 in the following link). Welles, as it happens, filmed some of The Trial (1962) in Zagreb.
It’s at 38.45 that the first sister starts talking about public transport. After describing what the trams used to be like, when the conductors counted everything but enjoyed casual delays that were obediently accepted by the passengers, and the trams still made money, she contrasts that state of affairs with the unprofitable trams under public ownership and the fact that the Uspinjača [the funicular to Gorni Grad, the Upper Town] wouldn’t take them (at the time of speaking). I had to look up that last bit. The funicular was closed 1969-74 for repairs.
The Soccer Man
Interviewed outside the National Theatre, the Soccer Man appears several times throughout and talks knowledgeably about numerous subjects, including the first cars and planes seen in Zagreb, and the construction of said theatre, but from 32:38 his sporting memories stand out most, as rather poignant.
‘I was a witness to the first street football games. [Then he names where they took place.] I saw absolutely brilliant exhibitions given there. I’d be out until it was almost dark but we were wild. Later, reports came from England that there were rules and, well, I didn’t go there anymore.’
The aforementioned Omica is the one with the really well-off background. Inclined to pepper her speech with German words and phrases, she seems to have lived in a Schloss. When asked to describe her carriage horses for the theatre (21:28) she simply goes, “lijepi, žuti, mladi” (‘beautiful, yellow, young’). At (35.35) she explains her husband that was very old so she couldn’t go to dances, as he’d have been worn out by them.
Hers is the last word, an ambiguous return to German to explain why she would never go to Gorni Grad again.
“Wenn man alt ist, hat niemand mehr Interesse.”
(‘When one is old, no one has any more interest.’)
Dr. John Flynn 