Jovana V. Jovanovikj
The three granpas and the iceman
anecdotes and snippets from my family's life
One address many states!
My great-great grandpa from my father’s side, Petar Robev, lived for almost a century and he never ever change his address or even his house. Being born in 1908, he started his life in the Ottoman Empire, then continued living in the Kingdom of Serbia (1912). In 1915, the Kingdom of Bulgaria occupied Skopje and it kept it until the autumn of 1918 when it became again a part of the Kingdom of Serbia. About a month after recapturing Skopje, the Kingdom of Serbia united with the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs into the newly established Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes. So, when grandpa Petar was just 10 years old, he already lived under 4 different states and governments, without ever leaving his home, but the story does not end here. In 1929, the country changed its name again becoming the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. At the beginning of the Second World War, the Tsardom of Bulgaria occupied Skopje. The Tsardom capitulated in 1944 and for a while Nazi Germany directly occupied my dear hometown Skopje for a couple of months. On November 13th, 1944, Macedonian partisans liberated Skopje and it became part of the Democratic Federal Yugoslavia which quickly became Federal People’s Republic of Yugoslavia (1945), renamed the Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia in 1963. Finally on September 8th, 1991, Macedonia proclaimed its independence and my great-great grandfather died in the Republic of Macedonia. Throughout his life he never changed his address, but he lived in ten different states. A typical Balkan life!
The Soldier on three continents
My great-great grandpa Boris Nedelkovski, from my mother’s side, was a participant in the Balkan Wars (1912-1918). In 1912, during the First Balkan War, the Serbian army quickly occupied his village of Sekulica in the vicinity of the town Kratovo. As a young and healthy man he was recruited in the auxiliary troops of the Serbian Second Army. They were dispatched to the vicinity of Istanbul, where they assisted the Bulgarian Army to break the last Ottoman defense lines near Istanbul and he participated at the Siege of Adrianople (1912 – 1913). He vividly remembered the Sea of Marmara, the first sea he ever saw in his life. Several months afterwards, the allies from the first Balkan War broke their alliance, starting the Second Balkan war. So, my grandpa Boris was back in the trenches again, this time fighting against the Bulgarians in eastern Macedonia. The short war ended with the military defeat of Bulgaria and the Bucharest peace treaty which divided ethnic Macedonia into three parts. In 1914, he was recruited again by the Serbian army, and he fought in northern Serbian against Austro-Hungary, later retreating with the Serbian forces through the Albanian mountains to the Adriatic Sea, when in the autumn of 1915 the combined forces of Germany, Austro-Hungary and Bulgaria attacked and conquered Serbia. With his military comrades he recuperated for a while regaining his strength in the then French colony of Tunisia, later serving for a short period of time with the Serb forces on the Greek island of Corfu, and he spent the last two years of the war in the trenches of the Macedonian Front. Most probably, without even knowing, he shot at his younger brothers on the Macedonian Front. They were recruited by the Bulgarian Army, and they spent the war as Bulgarian soldiers on the other side of the Macedonian Front directly opposite their brother Boris. In 1918, he returned back to Sekulica, after 6 years spent as a soldier on three different continents (he was also part of the Serbian detachment which briefly fought in the allied campaign on the Marmara Sea in then Ottoman Turkey). My grandma even nowadays vividly remembers his stories about his time as a Serbian soldier during Balkan Wars and the First World War. He recounted colorful stories of the different countries, peoples, and customs he met and discovered, but he omitted the stories about the horrors of the war. Ironically, later he never travelled abroad until the end of his life, decades after the end of the First World War.
The rational priest
On my mom’s side as their surname clearly demonstrates, Popovski (pop means an orthodox priest), I come from a long line of orthodox priests. My great-great grandfather Jovan whose name my grandfather and I bear, was a very famous priest of the central church in Kumanovo called Saint Nicholas. There are many anecdotes about Pop Jovan who was very witty, rational and with good humor. My favorite story, as told by my grandfather Jovan, goes like this. Once, a large pipe from the Kumanovo water system burst and virtually flooded an entire neighborhood of the town. The folks were in panic, and they also asked for divine intervention to stem the flow of water, so they summoned Pop Jovan to recite a prayer on the site of the disaster, asking God to stop the flow of water. Immediately after he came, Pop Jovan told them to call the fire brigade, to ask the authorities to shut down the entire water system, and to find plumbers to fix the pipe. He promised the affected citizens that he will deliver a beautiful prayer only after the fire brigade drains the water and the plumbers replaces the pipe.
​Histories first crime thriller
​I managed to track my ancestors until the second half of the 18th century and unfortunately just a couple of known grandpas and no grandmas. However, some 200 generations ago I have a known ancestor, my dear old granduncle Ötzi. His frozen remains were discovered by hikers on the Italian Alps. His body was so well preserved that scientists easily decoded his DNA, and they were shocked to find out that he lived 5,800 years ago. His maternal haplogroup is the haplogroup K1 which is like my own haplogroup of K1a4c, so Ötzi and I share a common grandma. Poor Ötzi is the first murder mystery in the recorded history, because scientists discovered that he was struck down by a stone arrow and then stabbed to death.
