Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, January 1, 1995 TAG: 9501030084
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV2 EDITION: HOLIDAY
SOURCE: LAURA ZIVKOVICH
DATELINE: GUEST COLUMN LENGTH: Medium
Growing up in the suburbs of Pittsburgh, my schoolmates often looked puzzled as I would brag that I was excused from the next day of classes - Jan. 7 - to observe Serbian Orthodox Christmas with my family.
Some confused my ethnicity with one more familiar to them: Siberian. Maybe they imagined me traveling on a dog sled to a small wintry village protected by armed guards from the work camps. I would enthusiastically try to explain that Serbia, not Siberia, was the homeland of my ancestors and one of the three countries that formed Yugoslavia after World War I.
My family name, Zivkovich, stands out more here in rural Southwest Virginia than it did in Pittsburgh and the surrounding coal-mining towns of Western Pennsylvania that were settled by Eastern European immigrants.
Now, however, when people ask about my ethnicity after stumbling over the pronunciation of my surname, they immediately recognize "Serbian." They look deep into my eyes, wondering if I could be capable of such atrocities as bombing bread lines or "ethnic cleansing."
As a second generation Serbian-American, I have watched with horror these past three years as the war in the Balkans escalated. I've tried to come to some kind of understanding of the problems there.
I wonder about distant relatives who lived in Zagreb, now part of Croatia, whom I had met years ago at my Aunt Dorothy's house.
They are only faces to me now. The girl, Tamara, seemed mature for her age of 17, as she interpreted for her father (who reminded everyone of Mikhail Gorbachev).
Aunt Dorothy, asking Tamara and me to pose for a picture, noted the similarities between us - age, height and features. She kept me apprised of the family's whereabouts for several years. In a 1992 letter, Tamara explained her family's house swap with a Croatian family who lived in Belgrade, Serbia, each hoping for peace and safety.
I lost my closest link to Tamara over the Thanksgiving holiday with the sudden passing of my aunt. The last news I heard was that her family had lost everything but life in the war.
Here in the United States, my family will keep its Serbian heritage alive by celebrating again this year the age-old traditions when aunts, cousins, brothers and children all gather in our family's homestead in Penn Craft, Pa., on Saturday.
I can't wait to see the excitement in the eyes of my cousins' children as they anticipate the Christmas tradition of "going in the straw."
The floor beneath the kitchen table will be covered in heaps of straw, symbolizing the manger where Jesus Christ was born.
Throughout the day, the adults unload their pockets and throw rolls of change into the straw. After what to the children seems an endless dinner with a long toast, blessing, song and several courses of food, they get to jump in the straw and find the money.
I will watch as all through the meal the kids will slip down in their chairs and peek into the mounds in search of the shiny silver treasures. If they dangle their feet into the straw and jiggle them, the pieces of change suspended in the heaps of straw fall and jingle against the hard, green tile floor creating an air of excitement and competition.
It's so much fun that each year my father's sister Zora (I'd tell you how old she is, but she'd never speak to me again) graciously volunteers to represent a family member too little to jump in or one who hasn't even been born yet!
My Aunt Pearl faithfully bakes a silver dime into a delicious round, sweet bread that we pass around the table. I will pull off a small piece this year. The dime, supposedly bringing luck to its finder, is uncannily effective at predicting marriages and births in the Zivkovich family.
My father's always eloquent toast will stir memories of both happiness and loss, honoring tradition and those no longer here to partake in it. Prematurely, at the age of 56, he is the patriarch of my extended family, the only living son in my grandparents' bounty of eight children.
During the daylong celebration, members of my generation who don't have the Serbian Christmas carols memorized by heart will stumble over the song sheets my cousin Diane will pass out. We hope to keep learning about Serbian culture to keep it alive in our family and pass it on to our children, a job quite different from our parents and grandparents who struggled to assimilate to the American culture.
This year at the celebration I will pause to think of my distant cousin Tamara whom I met those summers ago. If she has survived the war, she is only a few years younger than I am.
I wonder this year if she is enjoying the same customs with her family - in peace.
Laura Zivkovich is a New River Valley bureau editorial assistant.
by CNB