The Soul Is Indestructible – Interview With Julienne Busic

Julienne Busic with statue
of her late husband Zvonko Busic
in Rovanjska, Croatia
Photo: Private collection

 

You’ve been operating a foundation (Zaklada Zvonko Bušić Taik) in Zvonko’s name for several years now. Tell me about the Foundation’s work

– The Foundation was initiated by former Premier of Croatia Nikica Valentic, who became friends with Zvonko (Busic) and admired him very much. He offered space in his office building and that’s how it all began. Among the founding members are Drazen Budisa (past president of the Social-Liberal Party, former political prisoner during the Tito dictatorship, and also a friend from student days), and many others who have a place in Croatian history. We have been involved in many humanitarian activities; for example, delivering Christmas gifts to impoverished families with many children in Slavonia, and collecting canned goods and other groceries for families who suffered in the floods several years ago. Lidija Bajuk, one of Croatia’s best singer-songwriters of ethno-music in the world, donated a concert on behalf of the effort. We’ve also organised musical evenings with the children of war veterans as the performers. Many of them are extremely talented musicians and opera singers! And not to forget our Valentine’s Day party for very special couples, war invalids and their spouses, who have remained by their side and been their most important support and comfort! Our translation project – English translations of books about the Croatian war of independence – is among our most important ongoing projects. So far we have translated and offered on Amazon and the Internet two such books, In the Eye of the Storm, by Ante Gugo, and The Croatian War of Independence by Ante Nazor. A third is coming up soon, about the siege of Vukovar and the human aspect of the aggression against the city. This project was possible in large part thanks to a radiothon organised by the Croatian radio program in Australia (Pero Maric is the director). So once more, thanks to the Australian Croats for their unending support for valuable projects. We even had the pleasure and honour of meeting with the President of Croatia, Kolinda Grabar Kitarovic, and presenting her personally with our first book!

Julienne Busic (Second from L) with
former Premier of Croatia, Nikica Valentic (third from L)
Photo: Private collection

Now that the Vukovar Day of Remembrance is approaching, can you talk about your third book, Living Cells, which deals with the subject of rape as a war crime through the eyes of a survivor during the siege of Vukovar?

– I just taped a long documentary program for Croatian radio on this subject, which will be broadcast next week prior to the Day of Remembrance. As some might know, Living Cells (for which I was honoured to receive the prestigious A.B. Simic literary award several years ago) is based on the true story of a friend of mine who was held for months as a sex slave in Vukovar during the siege. Her story was particularly disturbing because she was forced to choose between three soldiers; in other words, they forced her to choose her rapist or else threatened that she would be raped by all of them and others as well. This was an evil psychological twist that was almost as bad as the rape itself, at least in my opinion. Later, many friends and neighbours accused her of willingly “cooperating”. Otherwise, why would someone “choose” her rapist? Not only was she branded as a rape victim, as though it were her fault, but also accused of having done it voluntarily, even received benefits from it. So this issue is a complex one, and needs to be addressed by several ministries. First, the Ministry of Health and Social Services needs to provide therapy for the victims, and the Ministry of Defenders must ensure the women receive some kind of compensation. Many are destitute still today. And of course, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs must take action to get the perpetrators back to Croatia to serve their sentences. The two rapists in my friend’s case both fled to Serbia and therefore never paid the price for the horrific acts. And without justice being served, it is difficult to forgive. The women want to forgive, but until the perpetrators address their crimes and pay their debt, express remorse, it is difficult for the wounds to heal. This isn’t a pleasant topic, I know, but we need to inform women’s groups and human rights groups outside Croatia about our victims, create a network, raise our voices. My book is the only one I’m aware of that addresses rape as a war crime against Croatian victims, so I hope people will read it and perhaps donate a copy for their local university, a school, a group dealing with this issue.

Nino Raspudic (L) Julienne Busic (C)
Drazen Budisa (R)
Photo: Private collection

How are you coping with the loss of your husband? It’s been four years now.

– It might sound strange, but I don’t feel that I’ve “lost” him. He is always with me, guiding me, sending me messages only I can understand. Philosophically speaking, the physical body is just a collection of atoms and degradable materials that are reabsorbed into the earth. The natural process of birth, death, and regeneration. But the soul is something else and it’s indestructible. I take great comfort in that. In the end, he paid in full his debt to society, he never intended to harm anybody, and the fact that he served 32 years in prison, two years longer than the law allowed, didn’t bother him in the end. He often commented that he was grateful for the last two years because he discovered two philosophers, Pierre Hadot and John Cottingham, who provided explanations for many issues he’d been grappling with all those years. Unfortunately, he didn’t recognise the world into which he was finally released, and couldn’t find his place in it, couldn’t find a way to be useful. He was also deeply disheartened by the materialism, the Ego that seemingly ruled everything, the lack of idealism, the placement of party over homeland, and the vindictiveness of petty, superficial souls, so he went on to discover the ultimate Truth that can only be found in Death. He gave everything he had for his people and country, for their freedom, for his greatest love, Croatia.

Julienne Busic and
President of Croatia, Kolinda Grabar Kitarovuc (C)
Photo: Private collection

—————————————

Julienne (Julie) Busic (maiden name Julienne Eden Schultz) is a successful American writer and a worldwide well known political activist (alongside her late husband Zvonko Busic) for the freedom of Croatia at the time (1970’s) when Croatia was still a part of the oppressive communist totalitarian regime of Yugoslavia. Julie lives in Croatia and dedicates her life to book writing, promoting and actively taking part in translating into the English books by Croatian authors on the topics of the Croatian War of Independence and painful destinies of victims of crimes committed against Croats during that war. She remains a devoted humanitarian, concerned and seeks to promote human welfare of Croatian victims of war crimes. Interview conducted by Ina Vukic

 

LIVING CELLS at Amazon

 

Underpass Launch Presenting Croatian Literature Translated Into English

Screenshot Homepage underpass.co

Screenshot
Homepage underpass.co

 

Julienne Eden Busic Photo:ABCPortal.info

Julienne Eden Busic
Photo:ABCPortal.info

The American born, wife and widow of the Croatian freedom activist Zvonko Busic, award-winning author Julienne Eden Busic, whose first novel “Lovers and Madmen” from 2000 brought her inside the world of notable literary creation but also quite central in energising Croatian writers to have their works translated into English, published online and, hence, bring Croatia closer to the English speaking world through translated stories…literature. Julienne, with the help of the Zvonko Busic Taic Foundation, has been organising workshops for Croatian authors, Croatian Writers Association, in Zagreb Croatia on “Basics of publishing in English” for many months now and has had US based Terra Chapek present at those workshops. Julienne has been a potent energy behind what is occurring today in this field.

Finally! There’s now an online “hub” where people who aren’t able to read and understand the Croatian language adequately, or at all, so as to fully enjoy original literature by Croatian writers can visit and enjoy not only the great imagination a skillful author can bring to a page but also the soul of literature of a culture, of a nation. How great is this!

Terra Chapek Photo: pamelacarterjoern.com

Terra Chapek
Photo: pamelacarterjoern.com

Terra Chapek, editor in chief of the just launched Underpass, is a freelance editor, writer, and communications professional currently living in Portland, Oregon. She has worked in book publishing as an editor and marketer, in educational publishing as an editor and proposal writer, as well as in journalism as a reporter and editor. Co-editor Jelena Primorac is a translator, proofreader, copywriter and English language teacher who grew up in the U.S. and has mostly been living in Zagreb since college. She is co-author of Flirting in Croatian – A Vacationer’s Guide and her writing her been featured in Time Out Croatia magazine.

Translated literature has a new online home at Underpass.co.

The online magazine will feature fiction and narrative nonfiction from around the world. With a focus on translations into English from small and marginalised language groups, Underpass aims to be the English readers’ shortcut to rarely explored cultures and countries.

Underpass’s first stop is Croatia. The launch edition features a diverse collection of writing from established, award-winning authors, as well as new and emerging voices. Selections range from edgy stories of soccer hooligan brawls and misfits in modern Dalmatia to war stories from the 1990s and historical fiction about Croatian life pre-WWI.

We are charmed and impressed by these stories and we’re thrilled to be sharing them with an English-speaking audience,” said Terra Chapek, Underpass editor.

The following authors are featured in the Croatian launch: Tomica Bajsic, Boris Beck, Miroslava Buljan, Nada Crnogarac, Ksenija Kusec, Zoran Malkoc, Gordan Nuhanovic, Luka Ostojic, Sanja Pilic, Dinko Relkovic, Tomica Scavina, Ivana Sojat Kuci, Dinko Telecan, Zoran Tomic, Vedran Volaric, Zoran Zmiric.

Underpass will publish translated fiction and narrative nonfiction, with an on emphasis stories that give readers a strong sense of place.

Commitments are that Underpass will publish two to three new stories each month and is accepting submissions on a rolling basis. For more details, please see submission guidelines at Underpass.co\submissions.
While the journal is accepting submissions from all places with small and marginalised languages, it will focus on literature of Croatia and nearby countries until a new country can be launched with a critical mass of quality submissions.

Underpass is an exit ramp to niches of the world that don’t usually make the international ‘trending’ list.” So if you think you have a story, a translation…for Underpass them at editor@underpass.co. Happy writing! Happy reading! I hope you enjoy this face of Croatia also!
Prepared by Ina Vukic, Prof. (Zgb); B.A., M.A.Ps. (Syd)

Croatia: Boundless Is Love For My Country – The Life And Death Of Zvonko Busic

Zvonko and Julienne Busic Photo: croatia.org

Zvonko and Julienne Busic
Photo: croatia.org

People who have not personally experienced the blighting devastation oppression of totalitarian regimes cause to human lives may find it difficult to understand acts of extreme determination by individuals in efforts to right the terrible wrongs impaled by such regimes. By large numbers, Croatian émigrés, who or whose family fled the communist regime of former Yugoslavia, with which they did not agree, understand only too well the personal sacrifices individuals make in their efforts to keep the hope of freedom and self-determination alive – to help make the hope into reality.

Love for ones country is sublime, but also like a painful disease that grows ever so insufferable as oppression flourishes, and must find a release.

So please, don’t call it nationalism – call it patriotism.  But whatever you call it, examine your soul and see how much love for your country you hold in your chest – you will find that whatever you call this love, it is a great love; it is the place from whence the word “home” arose; it is a place where you are safe and you are – you.

Even though communism in former Yugoslavia had flourished for decades after WWII – much due to “western” admiration of Tito who stood against Stalin in late 1940’s, I dare say – 1970’s was still the time when the oppressive communist state regime of former Yugoslavia engaged in war against Croatian nationals at home and those living abroad. The regime was determined to obliterate Croatian national pride, even if it did pretend to offer crumbs of “ freedom” along the way – e.g. abolishing the mandatory Serbo-Croatian language in official use during 1970’s and introducing Croatian or Serbian languages to be used as one pleased, one or the other.

And now I come to the reason for this post. Zvonko Busic, a Croatian emigrant whose boundless love for Croatian freedom and freedom from oppression has earned him both fame and infamy on an international scale.

Zvonko Busic used fake explosives in 1976 to hijack a TWA plane out of La Guardia Airport, New York, and planted a bomb beneath the Grand Central Terminal in New York which, upon efforts to detonate it at a bomb disposal polygon well away from where it was left a police officer was killed. Hijackings for political reasons were quite common during 1960’s and 1970’s – especially when such drastic and desperate measures had the aim of exposing brutality and oppression by a state, a government …
Zvonko Busic, who was 30 at the time and living in Manhattan, said at the time he wanted to draw attention to Croatia’s struggle for independence from Tito’s Yugoslavia.
He and his American wife Julienne Eden Schultz, as well as three Croatian men (Frane Pesut, Petar Matanic and Mark Vlasic) who had also been living in the USA, boarded the flight on the evening of Friday, Sept. 10. The plane, a Boeing 727, was carrying more than 80 passengers and crew members bound for Chicago.
Today, The New York Times writes:

During the flight Zvonko Busic handed a note to a flight attendant, who delivered it to the pilot. The note said that he and his co-conspirators had five bombs on board and were commandeering the plane, and that another had been planted in a subway station locker under Grand Central. Implicit in the note was that they would detonate the devices if their demands were not met.
The hijackers demanded that a declaration of Croatian independence be published in The New York Times, The Chicago Tribune, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times and The International Herald Tribune in Paris, the next morning. They also demanded that authorities drop leaflets printed with the declaration over London, Paris, Montreal, Chicago and New York.
Their demands were largely met: all the newspapers except The Herald Tribune printed the declaration, and leaflets fluttered over all five cities, some from an escort plane, some from helicopters.
But what the hijackers had displayed as one of their bombs was actually a metal pot with wires and clay cobbled together to look like the real thing. The hijackers had smuggled the components through security and assembled them on board. Only the one below Grand Central was real, as the New York City police discovered after being directed there while the hijacking was in progress.
In his note, Mr. Busic explained where the bomb was hidden and how to remove it safely. He never intended to detonate it, he said later; it was a ruse, to convince the authorities that he had real bombs on the plane.
The police officers took the device to a bomb squad demolition range in the Bronx. There, as officers tried to defuse the bomb, it detonated, killing Officer Brian J. Murray, partly blinding Sgt. Terrence McTigue and wounding Officer Hank Dworkin and Deputy Inspector Fritz O. Behr.
Meanwhile, the plane was heading for Europe under the escort of a Boeing 707, making four stops to refuel; the 727 was not designed for trans-Atlantic flight. In one stop, in Gander, Newfoundland, 35 hostages were released.
The French government allowed the plane to land in Paris when it became clear that it was low on fuel. Surrounding it at Charles de Gaulle airport, the French police shot out its wheels during a 12-hour standoff that ended with the hijackers’ surrender at 8 a.m. Sunday, Sept. 12.
None of the hostages were harmed.
“I wish them well,” one passenger, Warren Benson, told The New York Times. “They had nothing against us, but wanted only to get a story across. They were concerned for our welfare, and we were treated well during most of it.”
Returned to New York, the hijackers were charged with air piracy resulting in a death and conspiracy. Croatian partisans helped pay for their defense, and the defendants had $4,000 converted into a trust fund for Officer Murray’s two young children. The officer’s widow, Kathleen Murray, later said she regretted accepting it.
All five were convicted in 1977. Mr. Busic and his wife received mandatory life sentences, while the others — Frane Pesut, Petar Matanic and Mark Vlasic — received 30-year sentences”.

Julienne  Eden Busic was released on parole in 1989 after serving thirteen years in the minimum security Federal Correctional Institution at Pleasanton, California. She remained dedicated to her husband Zvonko Busic and their deep and purest love for each other as well as for Croatia. She initiated and maintained contact with police officer Brian Murray’s widow Kathleen for a number of years afterwards.  Julienne also wrote a bestselling account of the plane hijacking and political activism for Croatian independence at the time in her book “LOVERS AND MADMEN: A TRUE STORY OF PASSION, POLITICS, AND AIR PIRACY

Finally, after serving 32 years of prison of his life sentence in USA Zvonko Busic was released on parole in 2008 and, with is wife Julienne, made his way back to his beloved Croatia – the Croatia – the free and democratic Croatia – he dreamed about but for which he committed unthinkable and desperate acts of air piracy and planting a bomb with which it’s said there was no intention of hurting anyone.

When in 1977 the US court pronounced his criminal conviction he said to the court: “I did not do this act out of adventuristic or terroristic impulses, it was simply the scream of a disenfranchised and persecuted man.”

Last Sunday, 1st September 2013, Zvonko Busic was found dead by his wife Julienne. He had taken his own life with a gun. He was 67 years old and evidently crushed by the current caustic political state of the very beloved independent Croatia he fought so hard for.
According to Croatian news Zvonko left two farewell letters. To his wife Julienne, to his family and friends as well as to Croatians in which he asks for forgiveness for taking his own life, but he could endure no more.  He beseeches Croats to continue fighting for Croatianess and for Croatia. In one paragraph of his letter to his wife Julienne he wrote that he could live no longer in Plato’s cave. That’s a picture that tells us how Zvonko may have been experiencing today’s circumstances and how there is a large difference between the picture of Croatia he carried with him, and because of which he faced a tragic life, and the circumstances in which he found himself in.

On Wednesday 4 September 2013, in Zagreb, prominent Croatian politicians joined thousands of others in giving him a hero’s funeral.  For, despite the terrible acts of air piracy and planting a bomb – which cannot easily, if at all, be justified, his selfless sacrifice for Croatian independence, freedom and democracy is the marrow of which heroes are made. Personal, willingly, and beyond any call of duty bar duty to ones own convictions for freedom.

Many in Croatia (including many government agents – whose political predecessors by the way were the communists Zvonko Busic acted against) only see the acts of terrorism he had committed, viz. hijacking a plane and leaving a bomb.  And when writing about Zvonko Busic this matter cannot be ignored. I dare say, even if I did not know Zvonko Busic personally, he too would not want it ignored for it had seized most of his life on this earth.

Those who only see these acts of terrorism in the full context they arose from they also do not bother to understand them. One does not need to condone while understanding, but understanding certainly brings things into perspective (especially in case of Croatia when we know that in 1990 the overwhelming majority voted to secede from communist Yugoslavia).

And so, whether or not certain acts are terrorism is, I believe, very much dependent on the observer’s political/moral bias. However, while expounding no moral judgment whatsoever, let’s remind ourselves here of some instances where (by definition) terrorism was used and brought about a greater good for the society.
• The American Revolution – prior and during the War the colonists used terrorist tactics to incite fear into British tax collectors, British loyalists, and those who weren’t on the side of their revolution.
• The struggles of the Maoists in Tibet; using tactics that the West have labelled “terrorism” against an oppressive monarch.
• The French Revolution has often been cited as being plagued with terrorism yet brought about the end to absolute monarchy in France (until Napoleon).
• Examples throughout history where individuals who acted against an oppressive government and were then, even if only for a while, labelled terrorists – and are heroes of today – Nelson Mandela comes to mind and there are many…
Were the individuals who participated in these events “terrorists?” This is a highly debatable issue, for the apparent success rate of these movements is apparent in history today.

Zvonko Busic was buried in Zagreb’s Mirogoj cemetery; his grave is next to Bruno Busic’s – the Croatian political dissident, fighter for freedom from communist Yugoslavia who was slain in Paris in 1978 by agents of Yugoslav secret police UDBA. Bruno Busic’s mission in life was to “fight for freedom, equality and the formation of a free Croatia based on democratic principles”. Same as Zvonko Busic’s. On the other side of Zvonko Busic’s grave is the grave of Gojko Susak. Gojko Susak returned to Croatia from Canada to join Franjo Tudjman’s political initiative in late 1980’s for a free, independent and democratic Croatia; he was Croatia’s wartime minister of defence and died in 1998.

These three graves in Croatia’s capital Zagreb are a proud reminder of the Croatian diaspora, that second Croatia which, I freely say, will never rest until the last breaths of communism and oppression are extinguished in Croatia. Ina Vukic, Prof. (Zgb); B.A., M.A.Ps. (Syd)

Zvonko Busic laid to eternal rest at Mirogoj, Zagreb, Croatia 4 September 2013  Photo: Dnevno,hr

Zvonko Busic laid to eternal rest at Mirogoj, Zagreb, Croatia
4 September 2013 Photo: Dnevno,hr

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