St. Sava Serbian Orthodox Church (Broadview Heights, Ohio)

St. Sava Serbian Orthodox Church

2151 West Wallings Road

Broadview Heights, Ohio 44147

440-237-7620

http://www.saintsavachurch.org/

Tattoos Make the World Go ‘Round

Hindu God Ganesh, Remover of Obstacles

Kosovo Polje 1389

Srpski Četnici Ravna Gora–za Dedu (Serbian Četniks from Rava Gora–for Grandfather)

Hindu Goddess Kali

Buddhist proverb about friendship from the Dhammapada

Kuntu Zangpo and Kuntu Zangmo engaged in yabyum

 

 

Tattooed people make friends with each other quickly.  I notice this whenever I go somewhere with my tattoos exposed, especially the half sleeve on my left arm or the full coverage of my back.  It’s sort of a given that we can talk to each other as if the ink gives us a key to the other person’s soul.  We know all the local tattoo parlours, who does great work, who is shitty, who has the best prices.  Conversations in grocery stores, malls, or Home Depots are common for strangers who may only have in common a love of body art.

 

Today I went to Nature’s Bin, the local organic shop I frequent, and I was wearing cropped yoga pants and a tank top.  I wasn’t there more than 60 seconds before a woman shopping with her husband asked about my Kosovo tattoo.  “Excuse me, what are those numbers on your arm?” she asked, without joking that they are my prison numbers as most jackasses do.  “My husband saw those numbers on somebody else?  What do they mean?”  I was happy to oblige, since I got that tattoo specifically to explain to people why Kosovo is Serbian land.  It was during the NATO bombing in 1999 when we were, as always, being blamed for killing poor, defenseless Albanians who had never harmed a Serbian fly.  NATO and the United States were on the side of the Albanian majority in Kosovo, but failed to understand that they were the majority because of years of murdering native Serbs; the Turks and Tito moved Albanians into Kosovo to force stubborn Serbs off their land.  Luckily, some Serbs (like my paternal grandfather’s side of the family) stayed despite constant threats and killings.   Anyway, I wanted to explain to ignorant Americans why that land was so important to us, why every Serb in the world would die to save it, and why NATO and the US should stay the fuck out of it.  My stock answer to people is that 1389 is the year of the Battle of Kosovo, where the Serbs resisted Ottoman invasion.  We were defeated but put up a hell of a fight yet were defeated and suffered 500 years of Turkish occupation, but we do like to explain that were it not for our resistance, all of Europe would have eventually become Muslim.  The Battle of Kosovo is the biggest holiday on the Serbian calendar, it is what makes Serbs Serbian.  28 June 1389 is a date recognized by ever Serb, young and old, and is commemorated in every Serbian Orthodox Church as Vidovdan.

So I gave this fellow shopper and tattooed freak the Reader’s Digest version of what my 1389 tattoo meant.  Her husband said he noticed that I have a few others, and I told him that I have 18 and showed them a few others.  They were impressed with the colour and quality of my work, especially the fierce Hindu goddess Kali on my back.  “I just changed my name to Kali,” the woman told me.  That’s pretty cool!  Her husband kept asking to see my back, amazed at the detail and design.  They didn’t have as much ink as I do, but they said they do want more.  She had a dragonfly on her upper shoulder that was brand new, and something on her lower back; he had a Native American scene on his right arm, and some Sanskrit writing mixed in with other spiritual stuff on his left. 

Of course, we talked about where we get our work done, what we want to get next, all the normal tattoo conversation.  Since they live on the West Side of Cleveland they had never heard of my place, All Tattoos, which is on the East Side, but I do what I can to promote them whenever I am asked about my work.  It’s the only place I’ve ever gotten tattooed, it’s clean, it’s reasonable, and I’ve never had any problems with any of my tattoos.  

We probably talked for ten minutes, and it was pretty cool.  I love talking about my ink, and I love to hear other people describe the symbolism behind theirs.  I see lots of tattooed freaks on the West Side who are more like me, pretty well-covered and with a variety of styles.  Most East Siders–with the exception of hippy-filled Coventry–have stuff like Harley logos, panthers bursting out of their calves, and lion heads.  I’m not hating on anyone’s ink, but some of the shit people get is just trashy!  But everyone has their own reason for getting a certain tattoo so it doesn’t matter what I think.  This couple had more of the spiritual stuff that I like, though some of mine are just fun and symbolic in other ways.  It’s all about expressing yourself, whether anyone else likes it or not.  And that’s why there is such an unspoken bond between tattooed freaks.  We know what it’s like to be questioned by non-tattooed people, we understand the process of picking out a piece of art that we want engraved on our bodies for the rest of our lives, we have all felt the same pain (though for me it’s not pain but a form of relaxation, a release of anxiety, and a therapeutic process by which I am reborn as a work of art with each new piece).  We are like a secret society but one that outsiders can recognize the secret handshake of.  Our body canvasses can make us the target of misunderstanding, discrimination, and fear, but more importantly they give us a deep connection to other human beings that nothing else can provide.

But please, non-tattooed vanillas, stop asking us “Did it hurt?”  That just makes you sound lame.

 

 

Some Serbian History…

I found this great blog that explains pretty much everything you need to know about Serbian history:

http://vatopaidi.wordpress.com/2009/06/15/the-events-surrounding-the-battle-of-kosovo-1389-and-its-cultural-effect-on-the-serbian-people/

Medjugorje and Guilt

I read an article today from BalkanInsight.com  about the Pope defrocking the priest who calls himself the “spiritual leader” of the six parishioners who claim to have seen an apparition of the Virgin Mary in the hills of Medjugorje in what was then Bosnia-Herzegovina, Yugoslavia, in June of 1981.  The Catholic Church has never recognized Medjugorje as any sort of holy place, though hundreds of thousands–if not millions– of believers have flocked to the location in search of the Blessed Virgin.    

Medjugorje is the site of the massacre of almost 600 Serbs in World War II.  There is plenty of guilt on all sides of war, and in WWII the Ustaša, who allied the independent Croatian state with Hitler, committed atrocities against the Serbs, Jews, gypsies and other groups that made the Nazis cringe.  The senseless and cruel murder of women, children, and priests in Medjugorje is a cause for shame and discomfort about the history of WWII, and of the Croatian people.  I am not suggesting that all Croatians supported the Nazis or approved of such brutality, as many who objected were also tortured and killed by the Ustaša.  The guilt of this massacre must weigh heavily on the minds of those who remember first-hand what happened, and their ancestors should never forget those who died. 

Guilt is a powerful thing, and whether the Catholic Church believes those six children saw Mary that summer day in 1981 or not, I think there is something to it.  What’s more Catholic than guilt?  If Mary did appear, it should have been a warning of things to come.  The apparition was seen 40 years almost to the day after the massacre, just after Serbs placed a memorial plaque for those murdered.  Yugoslavia’s Communist dictator Josip Broz Tito, who had just as much blood on his hands as anyone else, had died the year before, and within 10 years the country fell apart and thousands were killed in the ensuing wars.   

There are many significant events in Serbian history that took place at the end of June, starting with the holiest and most patriotic of all days, Vidovdan

A fire near the statue of Our Lady of Medjugorje

The most famous Serbian picture of the Battle of Kosovo

 (St. Vitus Day), on 28 June 1389 (I have a tattoo which commemorates the event).  On this date the Battle of Kosovo occurred, where Serbians defended themselves–and Christendom–against Turkish invasion.  We lost, however, though Vidovdan is still celebrated as a point of Serbian pride because we did stand up against oppression and defended our way of life and religion in the face of remarkable odds.  On the same date in 1914 a awkward teenager named  Gavrilo Princip assassinated the Archduke Ferdinand and his wife who stupidly chose Vidovdan as the day to tour their crumbling empire.  This sparked the first World War.  Just before Vidovdan in 1991 Croatia declared its independence from Yugoslavia (Slovenia was the first province to leave, but there are hardly any Serbs there so the fighting was minimal), which led to massive bloodshed.   

I tell you this so you can understand the significance of the history behind current events, not just in the Balkans but everywhere.  In the Balkans history definitely is not in the past, good or bad.  Those kids who claimed to have seen Mary in Medjugorje may indeed have seen something, but it does not appear that it was the Queen of Peace as many believe.  The world was much different in 1981. Communism still controlled Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, though there were sparks of resistance in Poland with the Solidarity movement.  President Reagan talked tough on them Russkies, thriving on all the political bullshit the Cold War allowed Republicans to get away with for all those years.  The US didn’t acknowledge the role it played in creating the Soviet Bloc, and most Americans don’t have a sense of guilt about it.  I’m not sure how the Britons feel, but they likely have a much different take on it since their homefront was FUBARed by the German Blitz during the war.  Americans have not had to deal with such things on our territory–Pearl Harbor was a military attack, and except for the little matter of the British burning the White House in 1814, average Americans have not had to deal with such brutality and random violence since the Revolution.  And even if we had, we suffer from short-term memory loss.  People in most countries have been there for centuries and centuries, many on the same land their ancestors cultivated, and have a much different sense of history and patriotism than do most Americans (not counting Native Americans, of course). 

Those kids who saw Mary in Medjugorje may or may not have known about the massacre of Serbs.  I find it hard to believe that they did not, though Communists generally rewrite history to glorify themselves and “the people’s struggle”.  Since it was an Ustaša atrocity and not a commie one, and since the Serbs had just placed a plaque at the site, it is likely that they knew.  Who knows what they were taught?  Who knows what role their families may or may not have played in the massacre?  Guilt was in the air, guilt and blood and the spirits of those innocent Serbs who were killed simply for being Serbs.  Those kids had a religious experience that day, but not the kind most people think.  What they saw at Medjugorje was a premonition, one that could not have been changed even if they had recognized its significance at the time, but one which has certainly manifested itself in a horrific manner.  Since history repeats itself it seems that we will never learn from it; it is a self-fulfilling prophecy in the Balkans.