All day long I have been mulling over the first verse of a poem that I was forced to learn in school: “Stay here. The sun of foreign sky will never warm you as this one will.” I googled these words in Croatian, and the name of the poet popped up at once: Aleksa Šantić (1868-1924). Fucking bastard. The sun of foreign sky, my ass. All those who have ever felt like him even for a second should remember the Latin proverb that nails him down as a petty nationalist: Ubi bene, ibi patria. Let Aleksa Šantić burn in hell forever.

Addendum (April 3, 2017)

When I revisit this piece so many years later, there is not a trace of anger in my heart. Back in 2009, I was infuriated to be called a foreigner or furešt in the land of my ancestors. No longer. Now I am a foreigner for true. And the sky of Istria is forever foreign for me. But so is any other sky, I hasten to add. I am far from complaining about it, though. Born a foreigner, I will die a foreigner, too. As for Aleksa Šantić, I can only hope that his nationalistic zeal helped him along in his life straddling the Nineteenth and Twentieth Century. Nationalism, racism, and religious fundamentalism are nothing but crutches of the infirm. Still, their lives would be unimaginable without them.