City Walls

DUBROVNIK, CROATIA

City walls seem like such ancient things, relics from another time. But the last time these city walls were under siege was in my lifetime, not quite 24 years ago. From the top of the city walls, one can look out over the rooftops and peer down into the narrow streets of the stone and tile city snug within its walls. On the other side the clear turquoise water of the Adriatic Sea shimmers in the sun. As I follow the walls behind a long line of tourists from all over the globe, it is hard to imagine the time not so long ago when the city was under siege. Siege. Even the word sounds ancient, a word for the history books and not for the modern tongue. Though the old city walls proved meager in their ability to guard against the weapons of modern warfare, still the city sought shelter inside its walls. I went to an excellent photo exhibit in the city at a gallery called War Photo Ltd. The permanent collection features photos from the siege of Dubrovnik that began in the weeks before Christmas in 1991, as well as portraits from Bosnia, Kosovo, and Croatia as a whole, in their wars for independence. There is also a gallery dedicated to photos from even more recent wars. Right now there is a selection of photos from Ukraine, and other recent exhibits have included Syria, Palestine, and the Congo. The photos are all at once beautiful and terrible, both stunning and heartbreaking. I look at the faces in these photos, the portraits of families who lived for months in stairwells and basements, who sought water first from cisterns and drainpipes and later delivery trucks, who lived in fear and by candlelight  for nearly seven months, and I find it impossible to think of war as either a necessary evil or as something which could ever be considered just. I look at the faces of Dubrovnik from a different time, and I see their pain and exhaustion and grief, and I wonder where they are now. Though many survivors fled the city, many stayed and I am certain they are here now. At a time when the city was constantly under fire and basic necessities were hard to come by, could they ever have imagined that not even 25 years later their city would look like this? More or less intact, gift shops displaying trinkets and postcards, restaurants clamoring for the attention of throngs of tourists who follow tour guides bearing flags from Germany, France, Bahrain, and Japan? Certainly there are scars here that as a foreigner, I do not see. But in spite of the pain and strife that might still linger, this city is thriving. Surely that is the best tribute to those who lost their lives defending this city.