For more than twenty years, a small group of scholars has pursued an audacious idea, that the Ithaca of Homer's Odyssey, the homeland Odysseus spent ten years fighting to reach, is not the modern Greek island that bears its name.
My uncle Simo Jovicic was a bon vivant. A man that left Yugo in the 50's. Walked around the continent following the shoreline. 9 months and 20 pairs of shoes is how he described it, and along that journey he learned Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese..
By the time he passed he spoke 9 languages, including English and Greek.
At the very end of his life, he packed his belongings in Roselare Belgium, and headed for Ithaki, Greece.
When I asked him why he was going there..
The response was "I am going home, like Odysseus"
Well.. he got kicked out of Ithaki because he caused so much shit at his local taverna.
He ended up in Lixouri in Paliki penninsula.
Buried in the small graveyard in that town.. the locals have since resold his grave and scattered his bones in the spirit of the traveler that he was..
But as it turns out..
Lixouri is most likely the place where the ancient hero returned to after all..
The irony is almost too perfect. Your uncle announced he was going home like Odysseus, got himself banished from the official Ithaca, and ended up in Lixouri, on the Paliki peninsula that scholars now argue was the real one all along. It took researchers geological surveys and decades of debate to reach the conclusion Simo arrived at via one rowdy taverna.
A man with nine languages, twenty worn-out pairs of shoes, and bones scattered by the sea he walked beside. Honestly, that's a more Homeric ending than Homer wrote. Thank you for giving this article its best possible footnote.
Indeed.. Simo was very much a Homerian figure. His exploits would fill pages upon pages.. and people would think it is pure hyperbole..
At some point.. when my work load abates, I will dedicate time to put down some of the fantastical stories of my uncles and great uncles and their travels from a small rural setting of Gučevo, Rogatica- BiH - SFRJ.
The place of my birth which was filled with wonderment and awe: Roman sites, Illyrian sites, Ottoman sites, WWI and WWII artifacts falling out of barns.. and evenings so dark that my brother and I would get on all fours and crawl for fear of walking off the dirt path..
This article hits home in a very strange way.
My uncle Simo Jovicic was a bon vivant. A man that left Yugo in the 50's. Walked around the continent following the shoreline. 9 months and 20 pairs of shoes is how he described it, and along that journey he learned Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese..
By the time he passed he spoke 9 languages, including English and Greek.
At the very end of his life, he packed his belongings in Roselare Belgium, and headed for Ithaki, Greece.
When I asked him why he was going there..
The response was "I am going home, like Odysseus"
Well.. he got kicked out of Ithaki because he caused so much shit at his local taverna.
He ended up in Lixouri in Paliki penninsula.
Buried in the small graveyard in that town.. the locals have since resold his grave and scattered his bones in the spirit of the traveler that he was..
But as it turns out..
Lixouri is most likely the place where the ancient hero returned to after all..
Thank you for this. I've read it three times now.
The irony is almost too perfect. Your uncle announced he was going home like Odysseus, got himself banished from the official Ithaca, and ended up in Lixouri, on the Paliki peninsula that scholars now argue was the real one all along. It took researchers geological surveys and decades of debate to reach the conclusion Simo arrived at via one rowdy taverna.
A man with nine languages, twenty worn-out pairs of shoes, and bones scattered by the sea he walked beside. Honestly, that's a more Homeric ending than Homer wrote. Thank you for giving this article its best possible footnote.
Thank you for the fantastic write up.
Indeed.. Simo was very much a Homerian figure. His exploits would fill pages upon pages.. and people would think it is pure hyperbole..
At some point.. when my work load abates, I will dedicate time to put down some of the fantastical stories of my uncles and great uncles and their travels from a small rural setting of Gučevo, Rogatica- BiH - SFRJ.
The place of my birth which was filled with wonderment and awe: Roman sites, Illyrian sites, Ottoman sites, WWI and WWII artifacts falling out of barns.. and evenings so dark that my brother and I would get on all fours and crawl for fear of walking off the dirt path..
It is a story guys, not an historical account.