The Poppy Trail Through the Balkans

Posted on November 10, 2025 by jfkaufmann

The Forgotten Heroine of Three Wars

She is considered one of the most—if not the most—decorated female soldiers in world military history. She was a veteran of three wars: the First Balkan War (1912), the Second Balkan War (1913), and the Great War (1914–1918).

Yet, outside of Serbian-language sources, there’s little about her online. In the eyes of global powers, small countries often have small histories—histories deemed not worth remembering.

Her name was Milunka Savić, born in 1888. She was 24 when the First Balkan War began in 1912—a conflict between the Balkan League (Serbia, Bulgaria, Greece, and Montenegro) and the Ottoman Empire, aimed at ending Ottoman rule in Europe. To protect her ailing brother from conscription–allegedly–Milunka cut her hair, donned men’s clothing, and took his place.

The First Balkan War ended in May 1913. Just a month later, the Second Balkan War erupted when Bulgaria, a former ally, attacked Serbian and Greek forces over the division of Macedonia. It was during this war that Milunka’s true identity was discovered. Her famed Iron Regiment fought fiercely at the Battle of Bregalnica, one of the bloodiest clashes of the war. They bore the brunt of Bulgaria’s assault, launching counterattack after counterattack. On her tenth charge, Milunka was severely wounded. At the field hospital, doctors discovered she was a woman.

She was offered a transfer to the nursing corps. She refused.

In August 1914, the Great War began. Sergeant Milunka Savić, now commander of the Iron Regiment’s Assault Bomber Squad, fought in around 20 major battles against the enemy.

Wounded nine times, she received Serbia’s highest military honors multiple times, along with the two Legion of Honour and a Croix de Guerre (France), Order of St. Michael (Britain), and Order of St. George (Russia), among others. She was nicknamed the Serbian Joan of Arc. Our Mulan—before we ever heard of Mulan.

Her most recent recognition came from Swedish heavy metal band Sabaton, whose music celebrates wartime heroism. Their song Lady of the Dark tells Milunka’s story. If you have a moment, pin a metaphorical poppy to your lapel in her honour and listen to their video.

My father-in-law, shortly after the WWII ended. The war veteran (1941-1945)

After the Guns Fell Silent

Peace was not kind to Milunka. She declined an offer to move to France, choosing instead to remain in her homeland. She worked in a post office. Married, had a daughter, divorced. Adopted and raised three more daughters. She lived in obscurity and died in 1973.

She isn’t entirely forgotten—but she isn’t remembered as she should be. Perhaps that’s what happens when nations have too much history and not enough peaceful time to dwell on it. We tend to remember only the big events and major players.

But, there are countless stories of ordinary–and not so ordinary–people, kept alive not in history books but in memory.

Here are some of them: King Peter I of Serbia, affectionately known among his subjects as “Uncle Pera,” was 71 when he led his retreating army, government, and tens of thousands of civilians through the Albanian mountains to Greece. Albanian Prime Minister Ahmed Esad Pasha Toptani, defying his own government, allowed them passage—saving countless lives.

The king carried a pair of hand-knitted wool socks, entrusted to him by a soldier’s mother. He found the son—but too late. The boy had died of cold and exhaustion. The mother died too, of grief. The king ordered a monument in their memory and kept the socks under his pillow until his death. Some say he was buried in them.

My stepfather, my beloved Dad.

The Great War had the youngest known soldier, Momčilo Gavrić. I wrote about him, a boy who was “adopted” by a passing artillery unit after Austrians slaughtered his entire family. When he was demobilized in 1918, he was just 11 years old.

A Roma trumpeter in the Second Balkan War spied on the enemy, learned their signals, and sounded a retreat on their behalf—causing chaos among Bulgarian troops.

And so on… the endless string of wars and the countless accounts.

My Family’s War Stories

My son’s great-grandfathers fought in the Great War—one was Serbian, another an Austrian—on the same side, under the Austro-Hungarian flag. Both survived. My Austrian grandfather was presumed dead but returned home in 1921 after years in a Russian POW camp and married my Serbian grandmother.

My father, in his early fifties. A WWII veteran (1943-1945)

Both my father and father-in-law fought in WWII. My father was 17, my father in-law only 15 in 1941, when he joined the resistance. My husband’s aunt—our family’s own “Joan of Arc”—was demobilized in 1945 as a colonel in the Yugoslav Army. She was 27.

My great-uncle Anton died in Stuttgart during an Allied bombing in 1943. He was a civilian.

My grandfather Josip, the army barber (1941-1945)

My stepfather was just seven years old when Italy occupied his province during World War II. (His father had been mobilized, though.) He remembered the Italian soldiers with surprising fondness—they weren’t brutal and often helped civilians, even sharing food. One Italian soldier gave him the first chocolate he ever tasted. Everything changed drastically to worse after Italy capitulated in 1943 and the Germans took control.

My maternal grandfather was fortunate: he served as an army barber during the war, a role that spared him from the front lines and the bloodshed.

We say that every generation has its own war. My husband and I came here in 1996—after ours.

The Balkans: Beautiful and Troubled

The Balkans are a crossroads of civilizations and religions. The gateway to Central and Western Europe, the cradle some of the oldest civilizations and cultures. A phoenix—prone to self-burning (on rare occasions when there aren’t outsiders with torches), but capable of rebirth. Tragic yet resilient.

In moments of peace, we clean the ruins and start over. We produce Nobel laureates, brilliant scientists, world-class athletes, pianists, artists, architects.

But war visits us too often. In the 20th century alone, some parts of my former country saw five: 1912, 1913, 1914, 1941, 1991. The lucky ones skipped one or two.

Surprisingly, a quarter of this century has passed in peace—fragile, uncertain, but peace nonetheless. Seventy-five years remain to break the record, though. I’m not holding my breath.

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Twilight at Twenty: A Reader’s “Never Say Never” Journey

Posted on September 26, 2025 by jfkaufmann

How a teenage vampire romance cracked my literary shell and led me to my own stories

This October marks two decades since Stephenie Meyer’s novel Twilight was published — and quickly became a global phenomenon.

There was nothing about it I should’ve liked. I was in my early forties, a mother of two small boys, a lifelong heavy reader with a defined taste. I didn’t shy away from pleasure reads, but my focus was mostly on literary fiction and nonfiction.

Twilight was the ultimate “never say never” experience. It seemed improbable that a teenage vampire romance would captivate me. Yet I remember it clearly: I came home from work with the book, reluctantly opened it that same evening, and finished it — dazzled — in the wee hours of the night.

I still don’t fully understand the lure of that novel, or the series in general. I loved the second book, New Moon, though less so the last two. Still, I read them because I wanted to know how the story ended. Many adored the series fanatically and obsessively; not a small number of critics and readers pointed out its flaws — from Meyer’s story premises and character development to psychological aspects and relationship dynamics. The funny thing is, I think both groups were right. The questionable particulars simply didn’t bother me, nor did her writing style, which was often frowned upon. In my opinion, it was fine. I think she’s a great storyteller.

(Something similar happened a decade or so later with Fifty Shades of Grey — that sharp division between fandom and critics. But there was never a doubt in my mind who was right that time. It was truly awful.)

I liked the characters, contrary to many critics; I understood their stance. Meyer did a good job portraying a 16-year-old girl. A bit of whining, overreacting, and drama is part of that age. I found Bella mature and responsible, loyal and unselfish — a parent to her own mother and a stranger to her father. An introverted child of divorced parents, a girl who had to change cities and schools — I could easily identify my teenage self with Bella. Some saw Edward’s behavior as misogynistic or controlling; I saw the tragedy and struggle of a young man imprisoned in immortality, a 17-year-old frozen soul burdened with a century’s worth of adult experience. Of course I rooted for them both.

I loved the simplicity, symbolism, and beauty of the cover(s).

Alongside the ever-lurking tragedy and quiet melancholy — subtle like the mist around the town of Forks — one of the best facets of Twilight is the “eroticism of abstinence,” which only amplified the incredible chemistry between Bella and Edward. It was beautiful and romantic, and I didn’t want more than that.

It was the book that young boys wanted to read and discuss in teen book clubs. Twilight did for teenagers what the Harry Potter series did for younger kids — it put a book into their reluctant hands and encouraged them to read.

I read Twilight and New Moon several times; Eclipse and Breaking Dawn only once. They tied up the loose ends and finished the story, but I didn’t like (spoiler alert!) Bella’s pregnancy, the fast-growing child, or that wild concept of imprinting. Most of all, I didn’t appreciate the resolution — which happened as a vision, not a real event. I felt cheated out of a good, bloody closing battle. Nonetheless, I have the whole set at home — they’re part of my eclectic bookshelves. I liked the movies too (I have them on DVD), and I think both Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson portrayed Bella and Edward beautifully and true to the book characters. Both turned out to be great actors after all.

The Twilight phenomenon was serious enough to yield numerous analyses, essays, and even nonfiction books. For me, it’s personal — and that might be why I liked it so much. In some way, it paved the path to another “never say never” in my life: my own stories.

Note: this post was edited by Copilot. It seems to have done a good job.

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Quiet People – An Homage to Introverts

Posted on September 22, 2025 by jfkaufmann

A few weeks ago, I was invited to write a personal perspective for my former magazine—on any topic of my choosing. The request arrived just after a brief but intense immersion in the world of extroverts, and I was craving solitude. The article was published on September 18, 2025, in Serbian language. This is its essence.

There is a lingering stigma around introvert personality traits, especially in extrovert-driven environments.

Some progress has been made in the past decade, mostly in how we perceive ourselves—we’re no longer hesitant to identify as introverts. But we’re still waiting for the other side—our noisy, chatty, and “mighty likable” brethren—to recognize the strength of our quietness in a world that never stops talking. Regardless of where you fall on the spectrum, I highly recommend Susan Cain’s 2013 book Quiet, whose title I’ve just paraphrased.

It’s estimated that 30% to 50% of people are introverted. As a laywoman—and perhaps because I’m surrounded by introverts—I lean toward the higher estimate. We’re not a fringe group; we make up half of humanity. Yet introversion is still often seen as a flaw.

Photo by Fernando Santander on Unsplash

Introversion is often confused with shyness, sadness, depression or social anxiety, but these are distinct traits. We’re no more shy, sad, or depressed than anyone else. We’re contemplative, yes, and if we seem lost in thought, it’s because we are—thinking deeply.

I’ve often been asked why I’m “so quiet.” Need I say that only extroverts ask that question? For years, their persistent curiosity about my reserved nature left me feeling that I should be a little more like them and a little less like myself—at least publicly. More relaxed, more cheerful, more talkative. But explaining that I’m simply quiet always felt futile. Extroverts don’t understand.

And why is it that no one ever asks extroverts why they talk so much? Why must we justify our quietness?

Another misconception is that we dislike talking. We’re not fans of small talk, true, but we love meaningful conversations. We’re not antisocial or misanthropic—no more than anyone else. Some extroverts dislike people and use them to feed their egos, yet their social skills are rarely questioned. Our social needs vary: some of us need very little interaction, others more. But generally, we prefer a small circle of close friends. The word “acquaintance” rarely appears in our vocabulary. What do you do with acquaintances besides chit-chat? And for us, chit-chat is a struggle that non-introverts can’t fully grasp.

We are not broken extroverts, and we don’t need to be fixed.

Introverts need solitude and quiet spaces to recharge their mental energy. Our friendships may be few, but they endure the tests of time, distance, and silence. We can enjoy crowds and noise (I’m obsessed with Monster Track shows, Formula 1 races, and other thunderous events), but afterward, we retreat to our mental and physical sanctuaries to recharge. That’s the key difference: we refuel from within; extroverts recharge externally.

If we can choose (and we rarely can), we will rather work alone than in a team. If there is no option (and often there isn’t), we’ll shrug and team up without too much fuss. Although from my experience, when we work together with extroverts, they tend to talk and brainstorm, while we do the actual work. We hate to be put in the spotlight or when we must introduce ourselves to a group of unknown people. I call those ice breakers ice makers — I freeze out of deep discomfort every time I’m pushed in such situations. Introverts often struggle with public speaking and icebreaker activities, preferring low-stimulation environments.

Of course, this introvert/extrovert classification is not black and white; otherwise, the world would be a madhouse. It’s more like the use of hands: one is dominant, but you need both to tie your shoes. I believe (again, this is my opinion) that, in this regard, my kind is more flexible and adaptable than the extroverts.

If necessary, we know how to be more open even though it’s against our nature, or reliable team players even though we know that we would work faster and better alone. Many of us possess the cognitive ability to learn how to be more social and push through unavoidable gatherings without too much trouble. After all, there is always a chance of meeting one of us in such places, some poor introvert, who would rather be anywhere else than there, yet he/she didn’t have a choice but to come. It’s easy to spot such a soul; you just look at the farthest corners. More than one deep and long-lasting friendship between two introverts has been forged that way.

Show me an extrovert who is capable of being alone, working independently and appreciating the silence of his or her own thoughts.

I don’t know if we are born as introverts or extroverts or if we, during our lives, come closer or farther from each other. It’s possible that the combination of nature, heritage and social environment determines which category we predominantly will fall into, or if we’re going to crisscross the borders or not. I haven’t changed a whole lot since I was a child; if anything, my introversion is more prominent now than before. But so are my cognitive faculties to cope, blend in and accept many aspects of extraversion.

Vreme No. 1811, Sep. 18, 2025

My friends are sparse and precious, and most of them are introverts because it was I who chose them. I have a few extroverted friends as well, and we have great relationships because we complement each other’s personalities. But in those cases, I had been chosen. And I think that what they are to me is not what I am to them. They have one hundred percent of me. I have only a piece of them. Maybe a big piece, but still a piece. I am just one of their countless friends, with certain specifications and purpose, because they need so many others to feel complete.

There is little understanding of “quiet people,” even though we’ve been moving the world since the dawn of humankind. In silence, of course. Solitude, not noise, is a breeding ground for originality and creativity, for art and science; nobody can convince me otherwise. It fuels creativity and innovation—many introverts thrive in quiet environments that foster deep thinking. Unfortunately, and not very logically, today’s society—school, businesses, important institutions—is designed for extroverts and their need for external stimulation. This is the world that worships individualism, not character — the world made for “mighty likable fellows”.

And that’s fine. We don’t care much; it’s not in our nature. I only wish that they could see, or that we could explain to them, that our quiet power is that mighty foundation on which their world stands.

*The title of Susan Cain’s book mentioned at the beginning of this little tribute to my strong and silent kin, “Quiet: The Power of Introverts in the World that Can’t Stop Talking”.

**The lovely definition of true friendship, which I partially quoted, is allegedly by Isabel Allende and it goes, “True friendship resists time, distance and silence.”

***This phrase is also borrowed from S. Cain’s book.

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The Divine Wind

Posted on August 15, 2025 by jfkaufmann

During the 13th century, the Mongols tried to invade Japan not once, but twice, in 1274 and 1281.

After the conquest of China in 1230 and Korea in the following year, Kublai Khan turned his attention to Japan, which was only a hundred miles away from his borders. Japan had every reason to be fearful; for several years, Kublai-Khan had been sending messages to the Emperor of Japan demanding that he submit to the Mongols or face invasion. They never reached the Emperor–the shogun, the real power behind the throne, made sure of that.

Divine Wind (my painting)

Furious and offended by the Emperor’s silence, the Mongols set to work on building an enormous fleet of warships and recruited a huge army made of Chinese and Korean soldiers.

In the autumn of 1274, the Mongols launched their first invasion of Japan, known as the Battle of Bun’ei. Between 500 to 900 vessels and about 40,000 warriors reached the shores of Hakata Bay. Outnumbered and outmaneuvered, the Japanese began to withdraw.

Suspecting the Japanese would return with reinforcements, the Mongols retreated to their ships. That night, the typhoon — the divine wind, or kamikaze (神風) — struck the anchored ships in Hakata Bay. (I hope the word in Japanese is printed correctly). By daybreak, only a few vessels remained. The rest were destroyed, taking the lives of thousands of soldiers with them. 

Neither the Mongols nor the Japanese thought it was the end of the war. More determined than ever to conquer Japan, the Mongols started rebuilding their fleet, and the Japanese built two-meter-high walls along Hakata Bay to protect themselves.

Seven years later, the Mongols returned in force. They had a fleet of staggering 4,400 ships and an estimated 70,000 to 140,000 soldiers. Part of the army set out from Korea; another sailed from southern China, finally uniting near Hakata Bay in August 1281. The fiercely defended walls prevented them from coming close to any landing beaches. The fleet didn’t have a choice but to stay afloat for months, getting depleted of their supplies as they searched for an area to land.

On August 15, 1281 (when I started writing this post, it was also August 15, but I was unaware of this small coincidence), the Mongols had had enough–they were about to launch their assault on the much smaller Japanese forces.

I couldn’t find the name of the artist.

And then, it happened again: a massive typhoon hit (and as I learned on one of the YouTube documentaries, it wasn’t even the season for typhoons), wrecking the Mongol fleet. Contemporary Japanese accounts indicate that over 4,000 ships were destroyed and 80 percent of the soldiers either drowned or were killed by Japanese defenders. The second invasion became one of the largest and most disastrous attempts at a naval invasion in history. (I cannot, of course, vouch for the numbers of ships and casualties; I didn’t check the reliable historical sources).

The Mongols never attacked Japan again.

Kamikaze (divine wind) destroys Mongol fleets during their failed 1274-81 invasions of Japan. Woodblock print by Yoshitora, circa 1860.

Now, the reason for this post is the connection between a series of books that I love and a painting that I made. I wrote about the dragon, Temeraiere, the main character in the series of books by Naomi Novik. He is a celestial dragon, the rarest and most powerful in the dragonworld, and he’s capable of making the divine wind. Novik marvelously used the history and legend of the divine wind. (Not only that I love her books, but she also sparked my curiosity about some historical events, including the two Mongolian attempts to invade Japan. The David and Goliath type of stories never leave me indifferent, maybe because the history of my people–and we are small–is full of them.)

Two years ago, I made this painting and I called it “Divine Wind”, not after the historical events (I wouldn’t dare to try that), but as a tribute to my favourite dragon. This is a perfect example of the “backward inspiration” that is so unique to acrylic pouring: I just picked the colours, the canvas size, and chose which technique I was going to use without any intentions.

When the painting was done, I saw Temeraire’s ferocious breath, the divine wind.

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The Never Witch by JP McLean

Posted on August 6, 2025 by jfkaufmann

I had the pleasure of reading The Never Witch in its final stage before the official launch on September 16, 2025.

As a great admirer of JP McLean’s work, I was eager to read her latest novel. It’s the first book in her new series, The Thorne Witch novels.

It was a mesmerizing read from the very first page, and I was quickly drawn in.

The world JP McLean was able to create so effortlessly is complex and exciting without being too ambitious and overcomplicated. One of her greatest skills demonstrated throughout all her books is her ability to create believable magic.

The clever plot, fast pacing, the rhythm and the pulse of this novel are testaments of JP McLean’s creativity and craftmanship. The protagonists—Adeline Thorne, a witch from a well-known family unable to wake up her magic, and her unlikely protector, Luke Churchwell, a warlock, who by a definition should be the archenemy of her kind—are strong and multilayered, motivated and evolving, brave and vulnerable. It’s easy to connect with them—they’re determined to face problems head-on, to act rather than to react, and that resonates with readers. 

Supporting characters are also fully fleshed out, adding more depth to the protagonists and giving the story a meaningful context.

I like the concept of the inherited and bitter yet absurd animosity between the realms of witches and warlocks that their leaders don’t want to resolve, using (and abusing) it as fuel to stay in power. Although it’s a familiar trope, it feels fresh and uniquely developed.

The story is told through the perspectives of several characters (but not too many!), which adds additional layers of dynamics and interest.

If you’re a novice to McLean’s work, you’ll enjoy this delicious blend of magic and suspense (and likely want to go backwards and read the Gift Legacy and the Dark Dreams series). If you read her previous books (also reviewed here on my blog), you’ll find yourself pulled into the familiar yet always original and superb storytelling.

The book is available for preorder on all major platforms (Amazon, Kobo, Chapters Indigo…)

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Train, Voz, Vlak

Posted on July 18, 2024 by jfkaufmann

A few weeks ago, I was waiting beside the railway crossing near my work for it to pass: a mile-long Trans-Canadian train, with three engines at the beginning, two at the end, and more than a hundred cars in between. You may hear of a popular children’s book, Freight Train by Donald Crews. “A train runs across this truck./Red caboose at the back/Orange tank card next/Yellow hopper car…” and so on. Waiting for trains to drive by always brings this story to my mind and I keep repeating it silently. I’ve delivered hundreds of storytimes and often used this book for the little guys so I know it by heart, as with many others. Quite a few of my storytime favourites featured trains — you can’t go wrong with the things that go.


Photo by Louis Paulin on Unsplash

That day, it took a good ten to twelve minutes for the boom gate to lift up again, but that’s nothing unusual. Trains go through the heart of the city, the endless freight compositions compiled of red-and-black engines and cars, although much less colorful than in Crew’s book. They frequently create traffic delays with their slow advance. There is a rail yard in a part of Calgary called Bonnybrook, but not an official station in the city for them to stop and rest.

Trains are one of the interesting constants in my life. I was born in a city that had and still has a railway station. There are two words for trains and stations in my native language, which is Serbo-Croatian (once one language and linguistically still one language since we perfectly understand each other, and have almost identical grammar and vocabulary with some minor differences, but forced and renamed into three separate ones). In Croatian it’s vlak for train, and kolodvor for the station. In Serbian and Bosnian, they are voz and stanica.

These subtle linguistic variations, however, symbolize my life in two (or three) diverse historical and cultural circles geographically divided by the River Sava.

Vlak and kolodvor have been connected to my early childhood and my school holidays spent in my home city, Osijek, south of the Hungarian border in the north of Croatia. The station was only a few minutes from my father’s house: two short blocks down, the first corner right, straight again, turn right again. Before I saw the station, I could smell its unique, memory-triggering scent — a dear mixture of truck steel, wooden railway ties, and the heavy but not unpleasant whiff of grease. I could hear the station’s breathing: an engine would carefully speed up leaving the station; the other one would slow down, arriving with a heavy sigh and a loud hiss. A small, local train with one or two to three passenger cars, which resembled a street car more that a train, would chug in or out with its lighter and cheerful sound. This train, a diesel motor railbus called with the same word, šinobus, in all three languages, connected the big villages and small towns thoughtfully built over centuries throughout the Pannonian flats. I would hear a ding-dong, followed by a voice from a loudspeaker, or the invisible and omnipresent station master blowing his whistle, allowing yet another train to leave the station.

Only then would the station itself come into view: a long, two-storey building with plenty of windows, a spacious waiting room in its belly, with a ceramic-tiled floor, cash registers along the walls, wooden benches, and hanging flower pots sporting robust and colorful geraniums. Once it looked neat and clean, now it’s tired and neglected. Once you could reach every part of Europe from there, today you can travel to only a few other cities and towns. Like many other public places, the station dates back to Austro-Hungarian times, when this corner of Central Europe, among many others, was under the rule of the K u K Monarchie.*

Main Railway Station, Belgrade. Courtesy of Wikipedia

So, at the end of my school break, I would leave my lovely hometown from the kolodvor with a vlak. Only about a hundred kilometers from there, these two words would change, and I would arrive with the voz at the main stanica of my beloved adopted city of Sarajevo, with its strong Ottoman influence (although the the railway station itself was envisioned and constructed during the several decades long K. u. K occupation in 1882, after the Ottomans had left).

The twice-a-year school holiday return to Osijek would have the opposite perspective: from the East to the West, from the mountains to the flats, from the visions of elegant white mosques with green roofs and tall, slim towers that my eyes and my soul loved so much, to the familiar baroque, rococo and neoclassical architecture of my home city. From one geographical and ethnic milieu to another, from one mentality to another, from voz to vlak, from stanica to kolodvor.

Sarajevo’s Main Railway Station

It would not take me long to lean toward the eastern (Bosnian) side although I’d never lost that initial connection to my roots. But my accent quickly changed (it was a natural shift, I was only seven). I developed the recognizable Bosnian lilt and my vocabulary soaked up new words of Turkish and Arabic origins, replacing the German vocabulary of my childhood. It formed and firmed up my mentality as well. I fell in love with Sarajevo, and its easygoing frame of mind, the generosity of its people, and the incredible Bosnian sense of humor, almost always self-directed. With the nature – the green and silver Bosnia, with her high mountains and cool nights even in the peak of summer, the dry, rocky, hot and fragrant Herzegovina, the rushing rivers of the most incredible emerald colors. With the pre-Christian, Bogomil tradition still imbedded in the soul of the people and land, and with Bosnian rich medieval history. With her multiethnic food, and with her incredible and, back then, peaceful and respectful multiculturality in general. It would be hard not to fall in love with all this.

Stecak, monumental medieval tombstones. UNESCO World Heritage Site. Radimlja, Stolac, Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Just before the war, in that terrifying foreplay of insanity that would soon become reality, something beautiful happened to me – a night train Sarajevo-Belgrade (and back). For a year, from one April to another, every second Thursday, I would hop on a sleeper-train for Belgrade and return with Sunday’s night train to Sarajevo. My arrival in Belgrade was marked by the butterflies in my stomach, by the images of early, misty mornings, by someone who was waiting for me; my departure by a tad of sadness overlaid with the optimistic countdown to the next night trip to Belgrade.

Railway Station (kolodvor) in Osijek. By VT – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=23329856

But then the war came and teared up everything quickly and efficiently. I don’t know if that’s for better or worse, but it hurts more, I think. Sometimes, when feelings die slowly, you have time to prepare yourself for the inevitable. Perhaps, but it didn’t happen that way so I can’t really vouch for it. In any case, everything passed and was forgiven and forgotten; only memories of those night travels remind. And my love for Belgrade. I learned then that it was possible to fall in love not only with a person but with a city as well. And that you can fall in and out of love with a person, but not with a city.

A typical small town station and its trademark, “šinobus“

Thus Belgrade has unexpectedly become the third most important city in my life before Canada. It was love at first sight, a deep connection that’s impossible to explain. It was far from my West (Osijek) as much as it was from my East (Sarajevo). A cosmopolitan, shiny, buzzing, welcoming city of two million people; charming as much as dangerous during those war years. Wide boulevards, two mighty rivers, handsome architecture, magical Byzantine-style Christian Orthodox churches. True friendships I forged there with people who embraced me when I showed up in my future magazine straight from the besieged Sarajevo only with my handbag — that was my only material possession. They accepted me without a question. They gave me a job and found me a place to live. They scraped up some clothes for me, they shared their food with me, which was, particularly throughout the horrible 1993, an act of incredible humanity and solidarity — often, we were all more hungry than full.

Nothing of this would have happened — good and bad alike — without my frequent train visits to Belgrade just before the war.

Here, trains have different connotations. My most cherished memories are of my youngest son, who was born, I sometimes think, with a genetically encoded passion for trains. When he was three, four, five, six…we used to go every day around noon to wait for a train that passed nearby our apartment building. Normally an energetic and active child, he would sit on a flat stone that was there, fold his tiny hands in his lap, and wait for the signal to change. It would sometimes take forever, but he wouldn’t leave. And then suddenly he would shout, “It’s coming! It’s coming! I told you it would come”. He would jump to his feet and start waiving vigorously even though the train was still far away. As it would approach us, the engineers, God bless their hearts, all of them, without any exception, would lean out of the window, smile and wave back, and often pull the horn to add to the excitement, as if making small boys happy was required in their job description.

This is the significance of trains here: a long, crawling string of engines and cars, the goodhearted engineers, waiting and waiving; the pure joy of my son, his unwavering belief that the train would come, his endless patience. Not small lessons for a such young fella.

The trains that ran through my previous life trucks taught me something important as well: about the joys of all our arrivals and the inevitabilities of all our departures, and perhaps most importantly, that life indeed happens between these two opposite points.

*The phrase Imperial and Royal (German: kaiserlich und königlich, K. u K.), refers to the court/government of the Hapsburgs in a broader historical perspective. Some modern authors restrict its use to the Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary from 1867 to 1918. During that period, it indicated that the Habsburg monarch reigned simultaneously as the Kaiser (Emperor of Austria) and as the König (King of Hungary) while the two territories were joined in a real union.

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Dark, Dark Tales

Posted on March 21, 2024 by jfkaufmann

What’s wrong with three famous H. K. Andersen’s fairy tales?

A couple of years ago, I wrote a post about a collection of fairy tales I got when I was five, my very first books.

I loved them—particularly some—for their incredible illustrations, which even now, decades later, take my breath away. But story-wise, it was an odd mélange: well-known fairy tales along with obscure ones, simplified children’s classics such as Alice in Wonderland and Peter Pan, Aesop’s and Lafontaine’s fables. Among them were also Hans Kristian Andersen’s literary fairytales, adapted for this collection’s targeted audience–quite young readers, not older than four or five.

I would come back to some stories over and over again, and avoided some others, depending on how they ended. My young mind divided the entire collection into three groups — those with happy endings, those with sad endings, and the fables, which I didn’t care about at all.

The Little Mermaid from my picture books. This is the final image of her. Fortunately, the illustrator had more common sense than Andersen and didn’t depict her death scene

Andersen’s tales included in this collection — The Little Mermaid, The Steadfast Soldier and The Little Match Girl — have always been problematic for me. To say that these stories have sad endings would be an understatement. They are depressing, devastating, and heartbreaking: the little mermaid dies, the little match girl freezes to death, and the tin soldier jumps into a fire with his paper doll ballerina.

Not all of Andersen’s fairy tales and stories are so grim. I’ve always loved The Snow Queen, Nightingale, The Princess and the Pea, and many more. But, without exaggeration, I can also state that The Little Mermaid, The Little Match Girl and The Steadfast Soldier scarred me for life.

What do parents tell their kids when they ask why the little mermaid, the soldier and the match girl had to die?

I don’t believe children should be shielded from every unpleasantry of life, including death, but they surely are not going to understand the existential challenges through these tales. I’m almost grateful for Disney’s sanitized interpretation, The Little Mermaid (1989); given the targeted audience, it’s incomparably more sensible. 

In Andersen’s story, the Little Mermaid falls in love with a prince whom she saved. As it happens in life, he falls in love with another girl, convinced it was her who saved him. In exchange for her enchanting voice, a sea witch grants Little Mermaid legs and ability to dance, but every step she takes feels like knife stabbing and her feet bleed. That’s not all: the Little Mermaid also wants a human soul, so that she can go to heaven when she dies. To accomplish it, she only needs a true love kiss from the prince.

We all know that this is not going to happen. To reverse the magic, she needs to stab the prince with the knife her sisters sacrificed their hair for, and drip the prince’s blood on her legs to get her tail back, which she can’t do, so she jumps into the ocean, becomes a foam, or something else, with the promise of reaching heaven after 300 years, providing she’s been good. Foam or not, she de facto committed suicide, yet this unforgivable sin in Andersen’s times didn’t bother him a bit.

What the frick! Sacrifice, unrequited affection, prohibited love, punishment for having earthly desires, pain (excruciating, of course), blood, purgatory, uncertain promises of heaven… are these the values this story tries to teach kids? It sounds more like a sermon from a pulpit delivered by an overly zealous priest than a fairytale by a renowned children’s author. Not to split hairs, but there is also ground for some serious criminal allegations: premeditated although not executed murder of an innocent man, possession of a weapon for dangerous purpose (the Mermaid); conspiracy to commit murder and accessories to murder (the sisters and the witch). If you have a legal background, tell me which potential charges I’ve missed to mention.

If The Little Mermaid is heartbreaking, even in its absurdity, The Steadfast Soldier is utterly depressing and even more unhinged. A series of unfortunate events befall on the soldier: he was made with one leg due to the shortage of tin, he falls in love with a paper ballerina (standing on one leg) but believes he’s not worthy of her love, he falls out of the window, his searchers almost find him only to miss him at the last moment, he was put in paper boat and pushed into a sewer, then swallowed by a fish, made it back home only to be thrown in the fire for no apparent reason. Carried by a gush of wind, the ballerina follows him. Once again, children are not spared from obvious religious preaching: the story features the recurrent motifs of inevitable suffering for being different and punishment for very human longing. All our efforts to change our circumstances are in vain. The steadfast, one legged soldier did everything to fight his misfortune, yet he was defeated anyway. We shouldn’t be surprised by this outcome. After all, this world is vallis lacrimarum, valley of tears.

I won’t even go to The Little Match Girl; I’m still traumatized. Dead mother, dead grandmother, a Christmas Eve—the time of giving, sharing, loving yet everyone just passes by the little orphan–cold, snowy streets, the girl’s bare feet as a metaphor for her utter misery; vision or hallucinations she experiences as she lights the matches before she freezes to death. Some Christmas story!

What was its intent? I don’t know; I don’t see it. What’s the message? That there is no place in this world for the unfortunate and unprivileged, like in The Steadfast Soldier. That we shouldn’t try to change it (the Soldier at least tried), but keep lighting our metaphorical matches until we’re out of them? Or perhaps Andersen wanted to encourage children to look around and notice those who lived on the fringe of society? Well, if that was his intention, it sounds as effective as eating everything that is on your plate to help hungry children in the Third World.

People often say that the folktales Brothers Grim collected and originally published are harsh and disturbing. They are, but they didn’t start as children’s stories. They were for adults and their purpose was adult entertainment–after the kids went to bed. Soon after publishing them, disappointed by the sales, the brothers toned them down and republished as children’s books.

The meanings of the authentic folk tales (not watered down retellings) are imbedded in our collective consciousness. Their roots are deep in our past and they’re part of oral tradition. Our subconscious–or our archaic, primal mind, if you wish–understands them even if our rational mind can’t always grasp their meanings. Their goal isn’t (wasn’t) just to entertain children, but to educate them about life. Those intuitive lessons stay with us forever. The scary stuff in fairy tales, many agree, is helping children deal with fears and grow emotionally. It’s not unlike the effect of scary staff in movies or books – the fact that we are allowed to experience fear, discomfort, even dread in a safe and secure environment, without any harm or consequences, is fundamentally healthy and emotionally beneficial. It’s hard to argue with that.

Years ago I read an interesting book that talks about these connections: The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales (1976) by Bruno Bettelheim. Relying on the Freudian tradition in psychoanalysis, Bettelheim claims that fairy tales help children solve certain but very concrete existential problems such as separation anxiety, oedipal conflict, fears, and sibling rivalries, serving even as rudimentary sexual education, like The Frog Prince. The book later raised some controversies, including plagiarism, but it made lots of sense to me regardless of who the original authors of those theories were.

None of this I’ve been able to find in those three Andersen’s stories. (Oddly enough, it was The Little Mermaid that established his international reputation.) No ties to our subconscious mind or existential conflicts, only religious preaching about suffering, sacrifice, acceptance of the status quo, and punishments without crime. Something is terribly amiss in some of his work, starting with psychological, rational, and logical foundations.

Having these three fairy tales in mind, it would be interesting to know what kind of inner struggles drove Andersen to delve into the darkest, most depressive and utterly hopeless corners of human soul, mold what he found there, and then present that bleakness to children. He was, according to his biographers, a conflicted and complicated soul, but still.

Aside from the religious bull, another obvious common denominator in these three stories are legs and feet. Makes me wonder what an experienced psychoanalyst would make out of it.

Anyone here with a background in psychology?

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The Story Behind Gerbeaud Slices

Posted on February 26, 2024 by jfkaufmann

In Central Europe, the word Gerbeaud doesn’t need any additional explanation. It could refer to the cake, Gerbeaud Slices, or to Gerbeaud Cukrászda, the equally famous “kaffehaus” in Budapest. Cukrászda is loosely translated as “confectionary” but it describes a very European type of establishment where people go to have a cup of coffee or tea, and a slice of a fine cake. A coffee house/sweet house. There is a recognisable word, “cukor” (sugar), in the root of the word cukrászda (Zucker, zucchero, záchari, zahăr, šećer .. in other languages, all of them derived from the Turkish words şeker).

Gerbeaud cake I made last week: thin layers of dough, apricot glaze and walnuts, covered with shiny chocolate icing.

Gerbeaud cake (Zserbó in Hungarian) is one of my favourite deserts. I make it every now and then. It’s not complicated but it does take some time. It’s a very fine cake, although unusual since the dough is made with yeast, not a common feature in lush, luxurious deserts. The dough stays thin, however, thanks to a high proportion of sugar, which prevents it from rising. The other main ingredients include ground walnuts, apricot glaze and chocolate topping.

Like most famous European cakes, Gerbeaud has its own story. It was named after Emil Gerbeaud, a Swiss confectioner who in 1884 took over the business from the original owner of the café, Henrik Kugler, inventing the cake and renaming the café. Emil Gerbeaud raised the already high standards in cake making, and made the café more opulent. Apparently, the current Gerbeaud Cukrászda sports some of the marble-topped tables that Emil had delivered from Paris in 1900.

Gerbeaud Cukrászda in Budapest

The recipe itself hasn’t changed a lot since then, but the café had more turbulent history. At one point during the WWI it was turned to a stable. After the 1948 nationalization, the family emigrated to Brazil. Gerbeaud Cukrászda was renamed after the square where was (still is) located until then current owner revived it in 1984 by selling the name for two million dollars — and Gerbeaud Cukrászda was reborn.

The café (the address is Vörösmarty Square 7, in downtown Budapest, if some happy occasion ever takes you there) offers many fabulous cakes and deserts, including two of the shiniest stars when it comes to Hungarian art of patisserie: Gerbeaud Slices and Esterhazy Torte.

I use the recipe from the book I call my cake Bible — Kaffehaus by Rick Rodgers, which brings to life the best of the best: the Central European pastry tradition. I’ll leave the story of Esterhazy Torte for another time (it’s on the cover of the book!). It appears that the recipes from this particular book are under copyright, so I found a similar one for Gerbeaud Slices, if it ever strikes your fancy. I would just mention that I make one extra step with apricot jam – I bring it to boil, add some rum aroma to it, then I push it through a mesh to get rid of the stringy bits and pieces of apricots. In other words, I turn apricot jam into a smooth and spreadable apricot glaze. The other modification is the chocolate icing. I make it with 4 ounces of dark chocolate, 1/3 cup sugar, 1/4 cup water and a blob of unsalted butter (1 TBSP). To make it shiny, I cook chocolate, water and sugar until they reach 220 F (3-4 minutes), remove it from heat and add butter, stirring until it melts, then pour it, warm and still liquid, over the cake.

Why did I decide to write this “sweet story”? Every now and then my posts (which are not food related) attract the occasional food blogger, and that was the inspiration for this piece — I just want to see how it’s going to fare. The other reason is that I am a relatively skilled amateur pâtissier, so I was thinking it would be nice to share my creations and experiences. I’m not always inspired to talk about books, reading and writing. If I try hard, I can make a connection, however: Gerbeaud Slices are mentioned in one of my books. But it’s not necessary: every fine cake has a story behind it and perhaps it’s worth retelling it.

Lastly, it doesn’t happen often that my cake looks better than the photo in the book, like my most recent Gerbeaud Slices.

What is the best cake/desert you’ve ever tasted?

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The Physics of Chemistry

Posted on February 18, 2024 by jfkaufmann

A couple of days ago, I was compiling a booklist of epic love/romance stories for the library website. Poking around the Internet for examples beyond Elizabeth Bennett and Mr. Darcy inspired some associative thinking about memorable literary couples and amazing chemistry in other genres.

The chemistry between two characters isn’t easy to define, but we know when it’s missing. Many describe it as a spark, the interaction between two or more people that makes them feel alive on the page. I see it as awareness–physical, mental, emotional, from the beginning to the end of the book; everything else is generated from there.

Photo by Alex Kondratiev on Unsplash

I don’t think it’s difficult to create chemistry, particularly in romance fiction. There are countless books with believable, sizzling, subtle, subconscious bonds and ties between the protagonists, and just as many ways to evoke it. The chemistry in movies–or lack thereof–is a more fascinating subject since it is often hit-or-miss. The story could be great, the dialogue well-written, the actors skilled in their trade, but the movie still might not work on the chemistry level. It seems to me that it’s coming from the actors themselves. More puzzling still is the fact that the same actors sometimes can bring it up on the screen, other times not.

There are literary couples who would be expected on such a list: the already mentioned Elizabeth Bennett and Mr. Darcy, unavoidable Jane Eyre and Mr. Rochester and, of course, Catherine and Heahtcliff (it’s rather a dark chemistry between the latest two; as much as I love the novel, it’s hardly a love story. It rather an anti-love story, in fact: love shouldn’t be obsessive, destructive and utterly selfish as their was).

I checked many similar online lists, and on all of them I found Anna Karenina, so I yielded and put it in my list, even though it is not a love story and even less a romance. The chemistry in it is irrelevant, which is how it should be since the novel focuses on the moral aspects and catastrophic consequences of the socially ostracized relationship between Anna and Vronsky, not their love story itself.

Here are some other highlights: one of my most beloved novels, Dracula by Bram Stoker (which has one of the greatest and truly immortal quote, “I’ve crossed oceans of time to find you.” Gary Oldman once said that it was worth playing the role just to say that line).

Some historical romances I’ve read more than once, like The Bridgertons novels by Julia Quinn, and the my tree top Maiden Line books by Elizabeth Hoyt: Wicked Intentions, The Duke of Midnight (a sort of the eighteenth century London Batman story 🦇), and The Duke of Sin, featuring the most colorful, controversial and irresistible male lead in contemporary written historical fiction–the intelligent, cunning, scheming and lovable Valentine Napier, the Duke of Montgomery.

Brokeback Mountain by Annie Proulx. I only read the book, never saw the movie. I remember reading it one afternoon during my break, and being unable to utter a word for the rest of the day. Even today, after so many years, when I think about it, gaping sadness washes over me.

The Scottish Prisoner by Diana Gabaldon: the infinitive, eternal, hopeless love between Lord John and Jamie Frasier, the man who can’t return John’s feelings, and yet he couldn’t ignore them, always takes my breath away. Lord John’s unflinching loyalty and love despite of the impossibility of its realization, his determination to help anyone close to Jamie no matter the risk; Jamie’s gradual acceptance of John’s nature, his growing respect and understanding– this is one of the greatest, selfless and purest one-side love stories written in contemporary popular fiction.

A great example of friendship chemistry is the Temeraire series by Naomi Novik: a stunning, emotional and believable story of Captain William Lawrence and his dragon.

Here is my No. 1 mystery fiction duo — Hercule Poirot and Captain Hastings – no need to elaborate on this easygoing, genuine and enduring friendships based on not similarities but differences. I read all the Hercule Poirot novels more than once or twice, and I can’t count how many times I watched the BBC series, Poirot, with David Suchet (except the last Poirot book and the last episode, which I never ever will read or watch). Capt. Hastings doesn’t feature in all of them, but the stories I love the most are those with him in them beside Poirot. The friendship chemistry between them is absolutely adorable. It must be chemistry—nothing else written by A. Christie has the same appeal to me.

And finally, there is another type of chemistry, perhaps the most important of all — the one between the book and the readers. Not unlike love chemistry, it’s undeniable yet slippery to explain, but if I was pressed to try, I would say it’s good storytelling (and it includes the ability to create chemistry between characters). It is not an universal experience, however, but a very intimate perception. This is, for example, the reason why I love Twilight and New Moon. To me, Stephanie Meyers is a great storyteller (and many other readers will disagree). In any case, it’s topic too broad to tackle it in a blog post.

What is chemistry to you? What are your favourite couples? Any universally loved couple that you don’t care about? What about friendship chemistry?

Let me know what you think. I love reading comments. They often reveal such interesting views and opinions.

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Am I the only one who doesn’t like it?

Posted on February 7, 2024 by jfkaufmann

A few thoughts about the latest trend in romance book covers

In the last several years, there has been a significant change in romance book covers, for both contemporary and historical romances, towards cartoon depictions of the main protagonists. I work as a cataloguer and have the privilege to see new books before the public. It would be hard not to notice the shift, probably the biggest one since I started working for the library.

I have mixed feelings about this new trend. It gives authors the ability to present their protagonists the way they think they should be presented; I get that. At the same time, they mess with the reader’s imagination. Once you are visually nudged in a certain direction, it’s not easy to ignore it and conjure someone’s physical appearance in your mind. It has happened countless time in movies, isn’t that? In some instances it does work (I love to imagine Count Dracula as Gary Oldman presented him, or King Aragorn as Vigo Mortensen); some other times — I would say more often — the overlaying is less successful.

Unsuccessful…

I prefer not to see any face on the cover. I don’t mind human figures from the back, or from the neck down, but not the faces. I can count on one hand the fortunate examples, and rarely in romance fiction. It’s also possible that most readers don’t care — after all, it was said that at the height of his career, the famous model, Fabio, was featured on sixteen covers per day. You couldn’t avoid him if you wanted to read a romance book.

Among all the genres, romance novels sported some of the most horrendous covers: ripped bodices, clinch covers, images that would be today perceived as sexist, and with a good reason, not to mention the visual horror of blended images, usually with two heads floating in the clouds or in front of the mountains; “winter” covers with she and he dressed in the 1980s knitted sweaters and caps with ear flops… The era of shirtless (and faceless male torsos (The Six Pack Special!) did bring in some memorable covers, though (Jacy Burton’s Play-by-Play series, for example). Such covers are still among my favourites: female and male upper bodies, or just male torso, hot but not vulgar.

Perhaps, this new trend is trying to outrun the many stigmas tied to romance fiction: being trashy, being shallow, being cheap. New covers bring new vibes — of subtle romantic tension (even for the steamy novels), and of visual cues about the characters and plot.

… and successful (IMHO)

The fashionable illustrated (cartoon) covers are also visually appealing thanks to the injection of bright, almost neon colours – green, fuchsia, orange, red, yellow. They often imply a humorous tone, although the cover and the story sometimes don’t match in that sense (if they did, 2/3 of romance novels published these days would be rom-coms.) Some covers are definitely better executed than the others. They also could be too much revealing, and sometimes misleading. For example, if you are not partial to romance stories with a specific type of characters (like overweight heroines, or doctors, for example), you’ll see the clues on the cover. If you hadn’t known, you might have read the book, and liked it. If you don’t care about romance novels with pets in them (I love them), the cover will warn you.

Still, my biggest issue is the representation of the physical look of the primary characters. I don’t think authors should force their visions upon us but rather let us form our own. My characters are firmly set in my imagination to the smallest detail. My Elizabeth Chatwin, for example, resembles Hedy Lamarr, a great silent movie era star, whose photos I studied when I was writing the book. Many readers wouldn’t even know who Hedy Lamarr was, but they’re free to imagine Elizabeth however they want.

This current cover hype has spread not only onto mysteries, but also on general fiction. I like them there more than in romance novels. They could be quite beautiful. Nonetheless, it’s a new fashion, another dictate of the publishing industry (I always cringe a bit when I hear these two words together. Publishing, writing and art should never be an industry), and many known and unknown authors are willing to jump on that particular bandwagon. Take the above-mentioned Jaci Burton as a case point: her latest book which I’m reading now, Housebroke, has him and her on the cover presented in that cartoonish manner, along with four of the five dogs appearing in the book. He doesn’t look older than eighteen, nor did she, even though the main character is about thirty in the book, and she isn’t a late teenager either. It looks infantile, silly. The story itself feels bland, without juice, it’s overly simplified and templated, without depth and without much chemistry between Linc and Hazel–a far cry from some of her earlier novels from Play-by-Play series. (The five dogs are the most interesting part of the novel.) And we all know she could do much better. In other words, not only that she tried to plant particular images in our heads, but those images don’t correspond with the characters in the story, except when it comes to hair color.

The bottom line is always the same — what matters is what is between the covers. I’m frustrated not with the covers, or old and new trends, but with my inability (and not only mine, as I hear) to find a decent romance (or other genre) read, even by the well-known and beloved authors. Not only covers have changed, apparently.

One fact remains: the best books I’ve ever read didn’t have anything on the cover except the title and the author’s name.

Any thoughts on covers you want to share?

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