-Caveat Lector- from: http://www.suc.org/~kosta/tar/external/e-150595-truc_bruc- francesca_von_habsburg.html <A HREF="http://www.suc.org/~kosta/tar/external/e-150595-truc_bruc- francesca_von_habsburg.html">Francesca von Habsburg, Archduchess of Austria. </A> ----- Comentary of talk given by Francesca von Habsburg (Archduchess of Austria): "Restoration & Reconstruction of War-Damaged and Vandalized Art & Architecture in Dubrovnik, Croatia" National Press Club Morning Newsmaker Monday May 15, 1995 0900 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Only some twenty souls were in attendance. The Archduchess apologized for stumbling over her script, drafted by an anonymous hand inexpert in English phraseology.2 Her Highness said Her Highness prefers to speak extemporaneously rather than reading. Touted as an art historian and founder of "ARCH," an organization to train restorators in former USSR and Yugoslavia, Her Highness mispronounced stele as a monosyllable, tantamount to catastrophe as trisyllabic. "I have nothing against the Serbian people, but..." Some of Her Highness's best friends are certainly Jews, too. Then, Her Highness went on: the good Serbs, 100,000 educated ones, have left Belgrade. Her Highness made repeated reference to "the Serbian National Army" [sic] and its "systematic" destruction of Croatian artistic heritage. Some 40 35mm slides were projected. The first one showed a damaged neo-Baroque building with a distinctly Orthodox cross. I asked "what kind of church is that?" Quoth Her Highness: "Catholic." Said I: "It's Orthodox; look at the cross. Any iconographer can see that." The audience was generally quiet then, but two shills and the moderator tried to hush me.The building was the Orthodox church of St. Nicholas in Mirkovci, the steeple shelled, iconostasis riddled with bullets, and the interior -- not shown -- dynamited in 1991. Despite the title of the talk, most of Her Highness's slides were not of Dubrovnik. Her Highness showed a slide apparently made from an old snapshot, showing herself as a girl with mother and father in Mostar, with parents. Her Highness observed that this slide was "reversed," indicating familiarity with this one, but she repeatedly said of art objects on other slides: "this is from a little town, I don't remember exactly." Regarding the old Turkish bridge at Mostar, Her Highness said it had been "burnt" down, I interjected: "it was a stone bridge. It was blown up, and not by the Serbs, by the Croats." Herself, with some irritation replied: "everyone knows it was destroyed by the Croatians." Her Highness remarked that many objets d'art were damaged not only by bad Serbs, but even more by poor conditions of storage in dank cellars. Apparently confusing her childhood tours to the Dead Sea and Death Valley with the plate tectonics of the region (Italy and the Alps rising, Dalmatia sinking, Her Highness explained to the audience [blessed are the meek] that "Dubrovnik was originally under sea level." For a finale Her Highness showed three slides, the ultimate and antepenultimate showing the shell of a two-level villa at Cilipi, near the airport. (Airports are seldom found inside the walls of medieval cities these days.) Between the exterior views of this villa Her Highness showed an interior shot of a gutted building. I requested Her Highness to show the last three slides again. "They're not the same building," I said. A couple people were hostile to this. Rattled, Her Highness ran through the last three slides again. I said "The villa in your pictures has two levels. The interior shot has five or six floors. It's the library of the Serbian Orthodox church in the Old City of Dubrovnik." Some guests appeared able to count and note the mis-match. "We'll just have to agree to disagree," said Her Highness amicably. "I'll bet you a sixpack of Stiegl beer," I retorted jovially. Her Highness then brought up Vukovar, alleging that the Bauer Collection of modern art had been stolen by the Serbs. I raised my hand. The moderator insisted that I could not make any statement, but only ask a question. I asked: "May I give you the information I have from the Curator of the Vukovar Museum?" Her Highness: "Yes." I: "The Bauer collection was housed in the city museum, originally the palace of Graf Eltz. Croatian forces held the palace until the fall of the city on 19 November 1991. When they left, the Bauer Collection was gone with them. The Bauer collection is not housed at Novi Sad, where many treasures of the area are housed." The moderator got huffy, demanding "only questions!". I reminded him that I had asked a question, i.e. "May I tell you what the information given to me by the Curator of the Vukovar Museum?" Her Highness had said yes, so I continued: "I personally inspected parish registers, written in Latin (my MA specialization was in medieval Latin), some dating back 200 years, which had been used in place of sandbags by Croatian snipers firing from the palace windows. The Curator also informed me that the prehistoric artifacts excavated at nearby Vucedol (a late copper, early Bronze Age site of ca. 3000 BC, a culture related to the Baden Culture south of Vienna), had also been taken by retreating Croatian forces." The presentation ended. A few of the public lined up to meet her Highness. I stepped in line, but the moderator demanded to see my press credentials (but not those of anyone else), and summoned security. Escorting me to the desk, the moderator with great ceremony greeted Jvrg Haider, extreme right-wing Austrian politician (Freiheitliche Partei vsterreichs), just arriving for his gig, following the Archducal slide show. A big day for Gem|tlichkeit. The security man was gem|tlich. Then off to Senator Helms' office with photos in living color of involuntary organ donors, Serbs slaughtered in Croatia for the health care providers of the German transplant market, the surgery performed in Austrian-built mini-hospitals on a van chassis. ML ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ----- Aloha, He'Ping, Om, Shalom, Salaam. Em Hotep, Peace Be, Omnia Bona Bonis, All My Relations. Adieu, Adios, Aloha. Amen. Roads End Kris DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substance�not soapboxing! 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