Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, January 16, 1992 TAG: 9201160362
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: MADELYN ROSENBERG HIGHER EDUCATION WRITER
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Medium
CROATS CELEBRATE NEWS ABOUT HOME
Lijepa Nasa Domovino; our beautiful country.The Croatian anthem was blaring from the stereo in a typical student apartment near Virginia Tech's campus. It was a song of celebration - one of several that Ognjen Pavlovic and Dinko Gudelj played Wednesday afternoon as CNN buzzed on the living room television set.
The songs reminded them of home, where there were sure to be celebrations after the European Community announced that its 12 member nations would recognize Croatia and Slovenia as independent countries. And listening to the songs was one of the few ways Pavlovic and Gudelj, students and roommates, could be a part of it.
"They had said we would be recognized today, but then there was talk: `It's not going to be. It is going to be,' " said Pavlovic, who is from the capital city of Zagreb.
And in the end, it was.
"Now we're a country on the map," said Gudelj.
Croatia has been in a civil war with neighboring Serbia since it declared its independence six months ago. Thousands of people have been killed in what is being called "the greatest destruction in Europe since World War II."
Some believe the recognition of Croatia could cause the war to intensify. Others believe it could contribute to ending the strife and to keeping the cease-fire.
Pavlovic and Gudelj talk easily, quickly, trading off parts of their country's story. They have known each other for years, played tennis against each other since they were 10 and played on the same team since they came to Tech on scholarships.
They are not very political, they say. They are too busy.
But they found the time last semester and in this first week of the new one to pass around a petition asking that America, too, recognize their country's independence. And they find time to collect whatever bits of information they can about life at home.
Pavlovic's house in Zagreb is full; aunts, uncles and cousins who have fled from war-torn parts of the republic have moved to the capital where the army can protect them.
But Gudelj's house in the nearby town of Karlovac has been empty for three months. That area became a battleground, and his family, too, fled to Zagreb.
So far, they said, 25,000 to 30,000 have been killed - unofficially - in this war. Some they have known; their closest friends have been spared.
And their families, too, seem out of harm's way.
They have friends who are fighting. And everyone, it seems, owns a gun.
But there was little talk of killing on Wednesday, as Pavlovic pushed the volume button on the TV remote control to better hear news about his country, or about tennis, when the announcer gave a tournament update.
The talk instead was of celebration, of what people might be doing back home.
"For some people, this is the happiest day in their lives," Pavlovic said.
Especially for the elderly, who remember the years before World War I, before Croatia and Serbia were folded together into what later would be called Yugoslavia.
A teammate stops by.
"We were just recognized today," Gudelj tells him, when he slides the glass of the back door.
"I heard that," he said. "That's good, huh?"
"It's great," Pavlovic says. "It's the best thing."