Međimurje: Meeting place of rivers and cultures

The land of Croatia is a crossroads. It has been since recorded history and will probably always remain so. Just look at its profile on a map: the crescent-shaped country looks as if it had been pressed at the center and pushed toward western Europe and up against the Mediterranean Sea. It has survived, packed densely with the strength and resilience of its people.

Perhaps one of the places in modern-day Croatia that has most played a role in history as a crossroads is the area from which my family emigrated. It is today's Međimurje county (Međimurska županija), an area within the Drava River basin in Croatia. Situated on the northernmost edge of Croatia, Međimurje county currently shares borders with both Slovenia and Hungary and is also very close to Austria. Its western border meets the foothills of the Alps while its eastern edge touches the Pannonian plains.

Over the centuries the area has been ruled by various different nation-states, including the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Kingdom of Hungary (it was formerly part of Hungary's Zala county), and of course most recently, Yugoslavia. The music, cuisine and even the language of the area is rich with cultural influences from its neighbors, predominantly Hungary.
Vinko Žganec, a contemporary of the well-known Bela Bartok, spent much of his life collecting and recording Croatian folk songs, including over 15,000 from the Međimurje area itself.

The crossroads of Međimurje has seen many travelers pass through, including Evliya Çelebi, the famous Ottoman traveler of the 17th century who mentioned the area in his books.

My great-grandparents Ferencz & Ilona (Bence) Ujlaki and their families were residents of the villages of Legrad and Donja Dubrava on the Eastern edge of today's Međimurje county. Today Donja Dubrava (once known as Alsódomboru) still lies in the county. Legrad was also once part of the county, but was "pushed" out to neighboring Koprivničko-križevačka county (Koprivničko-križevačka županija). The reason has an interesting story behind it.

The name Međimurje, taken from the words međi (between) and mor(j)e (sea), means "between the seas". The area is located at the confluence of the Drava and the Mura Rivers, thus it was named Međimurje.

The villages of Donja Dubrava and Legrad are very close to the actual confluence of the two rivers. On the map below you can view Donja Dubrava on the left and Legrad a little further to its southeast, across the Drava. (The Mura, not shown on the segment of the map below, lies just to the northeast.)


According to Ivan Ivan Vecenaj-Tišlarov in his book To My Homeland, "The Drava has never been timid and humble... The history of continuous changes in the Drava River course are both interesting and tragic. It has most affected the inhabitants of Legrad."
Legrad was once situated on the same side of the Drava as Donja Dubrava, but in 1710 the river changed its course after a flood and placed the village of Legrad to its south instead of its north. Since the river was considered the border, the county's border moved and as a result Legrad's legislative affiliation was changed because of natural causes. It is interesting to wonder what the residents of the time thought about the displacement of the town through this type of "divine geographic intervention".

The history of this part of the greater Podravina (Drava River basin) region in Croatia goes back to the Neolithic period (early Stone Age). Legrad itself is known for the 7th to 8th-century B.C. Thracian-Cimmerian archaeological discoveries. The Croats settled in the area shortly after the Romans: in the 7th century. Some of the first preserved written documents refering to the area where these two small villages now lie were written during the Middle Ages in 1232 about the Vizmic estate (Bistrica parish). The village of Donja Dubrava was first recorded by name in the year 1446 (as Uj Dombo).
The area was protected during the time of the Turkish invasions by the noblemen of the Croatian Zrinski family. Their success prevented the area from ever being conquered by the Turks, although surrounding areas succumbed during the 16th and 17th centuries. The Zrinski family castle and fortress, named Utvrda Novi Zrin, was a formidable sight in the 17th century to would-be invaders.


Lucic (or Lucius) and Blaeu's inclusion of the Map of Illyria below in the Atlas Maior of 1667 was dedicated to Croatian ban (viceroy or ruler) Petar Zrinski. The dedication begins as follows:

To the most illustrious and noble lord, Prince Peter of Zrin, the ban of the Kingdom of Dalmatia, Croatia and Slavonia, hereditary ban of the Littoral, hereditary captain of the Legrad fortress and Medimurje peninsula...

Legrad and its neighbor Donja Dubrava (Alsódomboru) went on to continue as an important urban market area for many centuries, with industry centered on traditional craft-making, milling, lumbering, grain farming, livestock breeding, sieving for gold, fishing, and boat and raft trade. (You can see some of the beautiful traditional basket-weaving techniques from the local area still practiced today at Gondola.hr. (These baskets can be purchased in the United States through Hubert Company.)

By the time of the births of my great-grandparents in the late 19th-century, both villages had lost somewhat of their importance as a centerpoint for trade in the area, and had settled into a more quiet existence. The early 20th-century saw a period of high emigration and both villages remain small towns today. Donja Dubrava reached its peak population in 1910 with almost 3,500 people, and today has roughly 2,300 residents. Legrad today has about 2,700 residents.

Thanks to a current resident of Legrad I have some beautiful 2008 photos to share along with my own historical photos of the home village of my great-grandparents.

Legrad's Holy Trinity Catholic Church (Župa Presvetog Trojstva) was built around 1780 - a beautiful late-Baroque one-nave parish church. In the year 1790, Donja Dubrava received its own parish church - St. Margaret (Župa sv. Margarete dj. mč.) - after branching off from the old Bistrica parish in Donji Vidovec (Župa sv. Vida mč.). Unfortunately, Legrad's church suffered damage during World War II, but still stands and remains beautiful today.


Donja Dubrava is home to several statues dated 1757, including images of the Holy Trinity and St. Mary, athough I have no photos of these to share with you at this time. The park in Legrad's center square has been graced since the early 18th-century by a group of five columns, including one dedicated to the Holy Trinity and one to St. Florian, shown below.


I'm not sure about the date of origin of Legrad's school building, but I do know that my great-grandmother attended school there as a child in the 1890s. Below are two pictures of Legrad's school, taken about a century apart.
I hope you enjoyed this short history of Legrad, Donja Dubrava and the Medimurje region of Croatia. I'll leave you with a few images of the train station from which my great-grandparents left their home village for America and of the beautiful Drava River, source of sustenance, trial and inspiration to the Croatian people for centuries.


Author's notes:
This article is based on research that I have done about the history of the Međimurje area over a number of years. In addition to the links included within it, the information in this article was based on (but not limited to) the following sources. If you have any corrections or helpful additions to Međimurje: Meeting place of rivers and cultures, please contact me.

Sources of images:

• 2008 photos of Legrad from resident photographer (contact the author for more information)
• Historical photographs in possession of the author
• Images of Peter Zrinski and Legrad's fortress from Hrvatski Povijensni Portal's Utvrda Novi Zin webpage
• Map of counties of Croatia from Wikipedia's Međimurje County webpage
• Map of Croatia's northernmost counties, including confluence of the Drava & Mura Rivers from Avijacija Bez Granica
• Map of Illyria 1666 from Croatian History's Coat of Arms webpage

Other sources:

• Croatian National Tourist Board's Legrad webpage
• Croatian National Tourist Board's Prelog webpage
• EKO Legrad's Povijest Legrada (in Croatian)
• Ethnographic Museum Zagreb website
• Hrvatska Elektroprivreda's Novo Virje Hydroelectric Power Plant Environmental Impact Study
• Općine i Župe Donja Dubrava (The Municipality of the Parish of Donja Dubrava) by Zvonimir Bartolić, Dragutin Feletar, Petar Feletar, Vladimir Horvat, Ladislav Kranjec, Hrvoje Petrić, published by Meridijani, 2007. (English introduction)
• Triplex Confinium's Drava Valley Multiple Borderlands
• Wikipedia's Koprivnica-Križevci County webpage
• Wikipedia's Međimurje County webpage

This article was written for the 47th editon of the Carnival of Genealogy hosted by Jasia of Creative Gene. The topic, "A Place Called Home", focuses on the hometowns of our ancestors. Stop by for some other looks at the significant places in the stories of family historians like myself.

Here's to a little Haiku

Before we leave National Poetry Month behind (not poetry itself, mind you) I thought I would share an interesting bit of trivia that I learned recently.

You are probably familiar with the famous Haiku of Japanese origin. Did you know that the countries ranking in order of the "most prolific in Haiku" are:

1. Japan (no surprise here)
2. United States
3. Croatia!

Not only have the Croatian people taken to the appreciation of this type of poetry, but they have produced some wonderful Croatian Haiku.

Take the following award-winner of the prestigious Ehime Prefecture first prize in 1990's National Cultural Festival of Japan, written by Croatian poet Darko Plažanin:

nakon oluje
dječak briše nebo
sa stolova

after the storm
a boy wiping the sky
from the tables

I can't resist good poetry in any form (Haiku or other) and I couldn't help sharing this bit of trivia (and taste of poetry) with you.

For more information about Haiku in Croatia and how it got its start, see Haiku Poetry in Croatia by Darko Žubrinić.

Poetically inspired and wishing to try your own hand at the fun? Visit David McMurray's The Process of Composing Your Own Haiku.

Even better: how about touching on your family's heritage within the form of a Haiku?

That just might be a great way to guard against wordy family histories...

One-hundred posts for 100 Years in America

In case you didn't notice...

100 Years in America just quietly passed a milestone: one-hundred posts!

(Thanks to footnoteMaven for the creation of the celebratory poster above!)

Now I know that's not a huge number in the world of blogging, and this blog has not yet even hit its one-year anniversary, but since one-hundred is the significant number here at 100 Years in America I thought it would be right to reminisce and celebrate a little.

100 Years in America began, appropriately enough, with a post about my Croatian great-grandmother Ilona Ujlaki's stop at Ellis Island on her journey to America. Since that first introduction to our family's heritage, you've had the chance to read more about this young mother's trials at Ellis Island, about how Ferencz & Ilona's family grew once they had settled in America, about the suffering of one of their grown children, and about the joyful wedding of one of their daughters (complete with a Flying Cloud).

I introduced another branch of the family from Hungary with their arrival to the U.S. in 1907 by way of Hamburg, Germany. The trip that my great-grandmother Maria Tóth took with her four children was not for the faint-hearted. You might have enjoyed reading about my discovery of her infant Lajos' name on the ship's passenger list - a great-uncle of whom I had never heard. I have still not learned the full story of Lajos' short life, but hope to share it here at 100 Years in America once I do. On the lighter side, Lajos' older brother grew up to inherit a love for fine cars from his father - a trait that has been passed down in the Tóth family to today's youngest generations.

Through the writing of this blog I have not only been given an avenue to share my genealogical research with my extended family members, but have also been able to get into contact with others who are researching their own families' stories. I opened this year with a question: Where was your family in 1908? This question struck a chord with many. As a result I enjoyed a fascinating look back one-hundred years ago through the articles of other family historians.

I hope that you've enjoyed learning about my family's heritage, getting ideas on how to celebrate holidays with Hungarian and Croatian traditions, gaining a few genealogical tips along the way for your own research, and learning a little bit about me through 100 Years in America.

Please join me in celebrating my first one-hundred posts. I hope you'll continue to read and to share this journey with me!

Historical Yugoslav maps, oh my!

Just when I thought my little digression into maps was over for a time, I've been notified of another wonderful group of topographical resources to enjoy finding my way through.

Thanks to Janos Bogardi's discovery while browing Forum.hr, I can wind my way through old military maps covering Croatia from the early 20th-century along with a large collection of maps covering the former Yugolavia, including today's Slovenia, Serbia, Crna Gora (Montenegro) and the one I'm currently most interested in: Croatia.

Janos was kind enough to dig through these links and find me a direct link to the map covering the area in present-day Croatia around the confluence of the Drava and Mura Rivers, including my ancestors' very own villages of Donja Dubrava and Legrad. (Shown below - click on the map or follow the link above to zoom in for easier viewing.)

Did I mention how much I appreciate Janos Bogardi's Radix: Genealogy Research in Hungary website? His site and RadixLog are a treasure-trove of information for Hungarian (and it seems various Eastern European) heritage-seekers like myself. Stop by for a visit to see what other genealogical finds he might have in store for you.

"Keepers of the absent": the homes of our ancestors

Several photographs in my collection that I treasure show my great-aunt Helen (born Ilona Tóth) standing in front of our family's ancestral home in Hungary.

Born in Hungary, but raised in America after emigrating with her family in 1907, Aunt Helen went as an adult in 1975 back to the village of Korlát, Hungary (now in Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén County) where her mother's family, the Némeths, originated. The notes on the photos and information from another family member indicate that this land was in the Németh family for four generations (two-hundred years). I hope to visit someday soon and take my own photo in front of our family's ancestral home, if it is still standing.

Andriana Škunca, a contemporary Croatian poet, has written a moving poem about a deserted house left to its lonely self. Reading her poem entitled Keeper of the Absent, reminded me of Ivan Curkovic's description of his recent visit to his father's childhood home in the "old country". In Forgotten Photos & Memories Ivan described his first-hand impression of this once-busy household, aging floor boards now creaking and filled with cobwebs.

Here in honor of Poem in Your Pocket Day and with the hope that I may someday soon be able to visit the houses that hold the memories of my ancestors' days, is Andriana Škunca's poem (in both English and Hrvatski):

Keeper of the Absent
by Andriana Škunca
Translated by Mario Suško

The deserted house comes alive again, it opens and gives away everything it kept in solitude. The odour of mildew, the squeaking of a dilapidated floor. The cracks are familiar with everything that got sneaked in. Only from time to time the wall interior, ever crumblier, becomes visible.

The house, a keeper of the absent and their perpetual yearning. Although chipped at the edges, it collects the thought that has built it. The stars concur from air. Silent, they preserve its shape.

Čuvarica odsutnih
by Andriana Škunca
Napuštena kuća iznova oživljuje, otvara se i daruje sve što je čuvala u samoći. Zadah plijesni, škripa dotrajala poda. Napukline pokazuju prisnost sa svime što je uvučeno u njih. Samo se ponekad vidi sve istrošenija unutrašnjost zidova.

Kuća, čuvarica odsutnih i njihova neprestana čežnja. Premda načeta po bridovima, skuplja misao što ju je gradila. Zvijezde se suglašavaju izdaleka. Šutljive, čuvaju njezin oblik.

For more information about Andriana Škunca and her poetry see Croatia - Poetry International Web.

Source: Škunca, Andriana. Predivo sve užIh dana. Zagreb: Društvo hrvatskih knjižEvnika, 2002.

Fighting words

It was the poem that started the revolution - the words that kicked off the War of Independence. Hungarians were declaring their freedom from the Hapsburgs in March 1848, and Hungarian poet Sandor Petôfi provided the words of war - and they were fighting words.

In honor of National Poetry Month and Poem in Your Pocket Day, I thought I'd share with you this famous poem in Hungarian history. Here is an excerpt in both English and Hungarian:

National Song (Excerpt)
by Sandor Petôfi
Translated by Adam Makkai

Rise up, Magyar, the country calls!
It's 'now or never' what fate befalls...
Shall we live as slaves or free men?
That's the question - choose your 'Amen"!
God of Hungarians, we swear unto Thee,
We swear unto Thee - that slaves we shall no longer be!

...

Magyar's name will tell the story
Worthy of our erstwhile glory
we must wash off - fiercely cleansing
Centuries of shame and condensing.
God of Hungarians, we swear unto Thee,
We swear unto Thee - that slaves we shall no longer be!

Where our grave-mounds bulge and huddle
Our grandson will kneel and cuddle,
While in grateful prayer they mention
All our sainted names' ascension.
God of Hungarians, we swear unto Thee,
We swear unto Thee - that slaves we shall no longer be!


Nemzeti dal (Excerpt)
by Sandor Petôfi

Talpra magyar, hí a haza!
Itt az idő, most vagy soha!
Rabok legyünk, vagy szabadok?
Ez a kérdés, válasszatok!
A magyarok istenére
Esküszünk,
Esküszünk, hogy rabok tovább
Nem leszünk!

...

A magyar név megint szép lesz,
Méltó régi nagy hiréhez;
Mit rákentek a századok,
Lemossuk a gyalázatot!
A magyarok istenére
Esküszünk,
Esküszünk, hogy rabok tovább
Nem leszünk !

Hol sírjaink domborulnak,
Unokáink leborulnak,
És áldó imádság mellett
Mondják el szent neveinket.
A magyarok istenére
Esküszünk,
Esküszünk, hogy rabok tovább
Nem leszünk!

For more on Hungarian poet Sandor Petôfi and his role in the revolution of 1848 see Comet of the Revolution: Petôfi from A History of Hungarian Literature: From the Earliest Times to the Mid-1970s by Lóránt Czigány or the website of The Museum of Literature Petőfi, Budapest.

"Mazes, windings and turnings": a little digression on maps

Before I get too far from the subject of maps, I couldn't resist sharing with you a few other interesting map resources and a fascinating series of exhibitions currently on display for map lovers like myself.

The city of Baltimore, Maryland is the place to be over the next couple of months as thirty-four area arts and cultural organizations participate in a Baltimore Festival of Maps and, as their website explains, explore "the rich history and contemporary interpretations of maps and the mapping process". The central focus of the festival (and the originator of its idea) is the exhibit at the Walters Art Museum entitled Maps: Finding Our Place in the World. According to Will Noel, curator, "it is the greatest map show in fifty years." The website explains that "the exhibit will feature a variety of unique, rare, and often beautiful artifacts, including maps on cuneiform tablets, medieval maps, manuscript maps by explorers, globes, maps of areas all around the earth, and maps of nowhere: utopias and imaginary maps. Highlights include three maps by Leonardo da Vinci, J. R. R. Tolkien’s map of Minas Tirith, and Thomas Jefferson’s map of the proposed contours of the states of the Union."

You can view some of the special maps that are a part of the exhibition or take a tour of the exhibit guided by its curator below:

The video above (which provides a nice overview of the exhibit) is part four of the five-part tour of the Walters' map exhibit. You can also view parts one, two, three and five.

As stated on the Urban Cartography blog, "Most people think of maps as useful tools to get us somewhere, but 'they also tell us who we are. They reveal the priorities and technologies of our own civilizations and those of the past,' said William Noel, curator of manuscripts and rare books and curator of the Maps exhibition at the Walters."

I found many of the maps in this exhibit interesting, such as:

• Hernán Cortés' map of the Aztec captitol city of Tenochtitlan (before he conquered it)


• The original Mercator projection of 1569 by Gerard Mercator himself (see below)


• John Snow’s map of the 1850s cholera outbreak in London (in which he located a well as the source of the disease and therefore proved its spread was not airborne)


• Harry Beck's 1949 map of the London Underground (noted for its simplicity)


• The 1982 map of the users of the internet: all eighty-eight of them

Genealogists can benefit in many ways from perusing maps of all kinds. I found interesting the 1895 map in this exhibit (shown below) of one west-side Chicago neighborhood, among the first of its kind of map, which shows the earnings and ethnicities of many city-dwellers at the time.

If you are a map lover like myself, you might enjoy visiting the following locations "on the map" in the world of blogs and websites:

• You Are Here, Hon (with a focus on Baltimore's Festival of Maps)
• The Library of Congress' American Memory Map Collections
• Fresh Logic Studios World Atlas
• Map the Universe: My Journey into Antique Map Collecting
• Strange Maps
• The Map Room
• Euratlas: Maps and Pictures of Europe
• Google Maps Mania
• Google LatLong: News & notes by the Google Earth & Maps team
• Contours: The Official Blog of National Geographic Maps

And a final quote for you with appreciation to all the "experienced travelers" that have created maps of the many corners of the world:

“The world can doubtless never be well known by theory: practice is absolutely necessary; but surely it is of great use to a young man, before he sets out for that country, full of mazes, windings, and turnings, to have at least a general map of it, made by some experienced traveler.”

~ Lord Chesterfield, 1694-1773

Maps, maps and more maps

As I mentioned in my previous post, a picture is worth a thousand words, and maps are one of my favorite types of pictures when it comes to genealogical and historical research.

I posted earlier about the 1880 Hungarian Hátsek Ignácz atlas online. Janos Bogardi of Radixlog has suggested several more online historical map resources for Hungary. They are:

• County maps from the Pallas lexicon
• Gönczy maps, early 1900s
• Görög maps, early 1800s
• 1800 Atlas Regni Hungariae

Here's one more of interest that I have used to learn more about my Hungarian ancestors' homeland: Counties of the Hungarian Kingdom (1913)

These are wonderful windows into the world of my ancestors who lived in the Austro-Hungarian empire.

Interested in maps for other parts of the world? Check out these two great sites:

• The Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection (or more specifically, the historical maps in their collection)
• The David Rumsey Historical Map Collection (which focuses primarily on cartography of the Americas from the 18th and 19th centuries, but also has maps of the World, Asia, Africa, Europe, and Oceania).

Be warned - you can lose track of time as you get lost traveling the world at these sites.

Can't find what you're looking for at the above? Check out the Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection's veritable library of links to other general map sites or historical map sites.

So many maps - so many windows into the world of my ancestors.

Now if only I could learn to pronounce all the names of their various towns and counties!

A thousand words and a few pictures

They say, "A picture is worth a thousand words..."

I say: "Possibly even more when the words you'd like to read are written in a language that you can't easily understand!"

Years ago I learned about Dr. Dragutin Feletar's book about the history of Legrad, Croatia.

Last summer I became aware of his new book (authored with several others) regarding the history of Donja Dubrava. Published by Meridijani, Dr. Feletar's publishing company, it is entitled Općina i župa Donja Dubrava (The Community & Parish of Donja Dubrava).

Meridijani also has a book of interest to me written by Petar Feletar entitled Istočno Međimurje (East Međimurje). The vintage photo of villagers in the local folk-costume of my ancestors just calls me to read this book!
I was also interested to find a part of Donja Dubrava's history online via the Central & Eastern European Online Library (a good source for many a genealogist with European roots). The article, also written by Dr. Dragutin Feletar, is about the history of Donja Dubrava's lumbering industry and includes mention of the firm Ujlaki-Hirschler & Sons, perhaps a link to my family. The article is entitled Donja Dubrava - Središte Splavarstva na Rijeci Dravi (Donja Dubrava - Center of Lumbering & Floating Trade on the River Drava).

Another interesting item I found on the web was a small excerpt of Legrad's history on the website Eko Legrad.

So many good historical resources!

Then, a couple of weeks ago, Janos Bogardi of Hungarian genealogy's Radix suggested I take a look at a 1912 history of Legrad that he found published online at the Nagykanisza public library website (the library is named for István Halis). Legrad was formerly part of Hungary's Zala county, so both Hungary and Croatia have played a role in its fascinating story. Nagykanizsa, still in Hungary today, is not too far from Legrad and Donja Dubrava (both today in Croatia) and was visited by my ancestors who had lived in those small towns. (My great-great-great-grandparents appear to have gone there to have their portrait taken in the late 19th-century.)

All of these resources are wonderful, but they share one drawback:

They are all (to my eyes and ears, at least) in a foreign tongue!

The Nagykanizsa library's 1912 history of Legrad is in Hungarian. All of the other resources that I mentioned above are in Croatian. Another problem on top of that, as Janos Bogardi explained to me, is that the library's Hungarian history was scanned and then translated using OCR so the results are sometimes challenging even for a native Hungarian speaker to understand.

So many great resources in my hands, but I can't read any of them! (Yet...)

On top of all of these wonderful discoveries of historical reading material in Croatian and Hungarian, did I mention that I have been corresponding with several readers of 100 Years in America who are current residents of Legrad and Donja Dubrava? And, you guessed it, not all of them have written to me in English.

Another linguistic challenge for this student of Croatian genealogy and therefore (by default) a student of Hrvatski!

A picture is truly worth a thousand words for someone like me who struggles with genealogy in a foreign country and foreign language (or languages, as in my case). However, I value those words tremendously when they pertain to my family's heritage, whether they come by the thousand or by the handful, and even if it takes me awhile to understand them.

If you have any additional recommended reading for me in Croatian or Hungarian, please don't hesitate to send it! And of course, emails in Hrvatski or Magyar are just as welcome, although it may take me awhile to respond.

Hvala (a Croatian thank-you) and köszönöm (a Hungarian thank-you) to those that have sent me recommended reading materials and photos and to all of my 100 Years in America readers throughout the world!