Sunday, February 22, 2004

posted by: copernicus on 2/22/2004 06:16:00 AM
Ok, let's see here:
I was born, a poor black child........naw, just a little Steve Martin reference there to get things going. I'm a European mutt, and it definitely shows in my features. My mom's side of the family is 1/2 Irish and 1/2 English, which makes me 1/4 each. Dad's side is a bit more mysterious. His father's side is from somewhere in Russia, but I don't know if that's the current country of Russia, or if it's the Russia of the Soviet Union era, when all of the U.S.S.R. was referred to as Russia. There's really no one left from that part of the family to ask, so it may remain a mystery. His mother's side we can trace all the way back to 16th Century Moravia.

What is Moravia, you may ask? Don't feel bad for sleeping through that day of Geography class, no one knows what Moravia is when I mention it because it's not even a country anymore. Moravia used to be a sovereign kingdom in the Carpathian Mountains of Central Europe (the family name back then was Morvay, and was tied to the throne in some way or another). I am actually a distant cousin of Archduke Francis Ferdinand, whose assassination by the Serbian Black Hand organization sparked the beginning of what would become World War I.

I had a point here, oh... Moravia isn't a kingdom anymore because it was small and didn't really have an army. Every time there was a war in Central Europe, Moravia was always caught between the aggressors and would get annexed and assimilated by one country or another. It has been part of Germany (as has most of Central Europe at one point or another), Austria, Hungary and many other empires over the centuries. Moravia is currently relegated to the nostalgically respectable but harmless status of "province" which encompasses the eastern half of The Czech Republic. The western half of Czech Republic is referred to as Bohemia, and is a large plateau. Moravia is surrounded by such cities as Prague, Vienna & Budapest, and ranges in elevation from plateau to foothills to Carpathian Mountains as you go east.

By the way, if you follow the Carpathian Mountains east you'll end up in Transylvania. Someday I want to travel across Transylvania in the dark, gloomy, rainy, spooky season. Oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!