Almost, but Not Quite Bored in Pula: An Anthropological Study of the Tapija Phenomenon in Northwest Croatia

By Andrea Matošević

Based on interviews and fieldwork conducted among residents of Pula, a coastal city in Northwestern Croatia, this study explores various aspects of a local feeling of boredom. This is mirrored in the term tapija, a word of Turkish origin describing a property deed, and in Pula’s urban slang it has morphed from its original sense describing a set of affective states into one of lameness, loneliness, unwillingness, and irony. Combining lively conversations with a significant bibliography of the topic, the result is a compelling local anthropological study of boredom in a wider historical and global context.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Berghahn Books
• Release date: Jul 16, 2021
• ISBN: 9781800731363

Andrea Matošević

Andrea Matošević is an associate professor at the Faculty of Humanities and one of the founders and researchers at the Centre for Culturological and Historical Research of Socialism, Juraj Dobrila University of Pula (Croatia).

Book preview

Almost, but Not Quite Bored in Pula

European Anthropology in Translation

Published in Association with the Society for the Anthropology of Europe (SAE), a Section of the American Anthropological Association (AAA)

General Editor: Nicolette Makovicky, University of Oxford

This series introduces English-language versions of significant works on the Anthropology of Europe that were originally published in other languages. These include books produced recently by a new generation of scholars as well as older works that have not previously appeared in English.

Volume 10

Almost, but Not Quite Bored in Pula: An Anthropological Study of the Tapija Phenomenon in Northwest Croatia

Andrea Matošević

Volume 9

To See a Moose: The History of Polish Sex Education

Agnieszka Kościańska

Volume 8

Heirs of the Bamboo: Identity and Ambivalence among the Eurasian Macanese

Marisa C. Gaspar

Volume 7

Raccomandazione: Clientelism and Connections in Italy

Dorothy Louise Zinn

Volume 6

Hunters, Gatherers, and Practitioners of Powerlessness: An Ethnography of the Degraded in Postsocialist Poland

Tomasz Rakowski

Volume 5

Two Sides of One River: Nationalism and Ethnography in Galicia and Portugal

António Medeiros

Volume 4

The Colours of Empire: Racialized Representations during Portuguese Colonialism

Patrícia Ferraz de Matos

Volume 3

Developing Skill, Developing Vision: Practices of Locality at the Foot of the Alps

Cristina Grasseni

Volume 2

Strangers Either Way: The Lives of Croatian Refugees in Their New Home

Jasna Čapo Žmegač

Volume 1

Disenchantment with Market Economics: East Germans and Western Capitalism

Birgit Müller

Almost, but Not Quite Bored in Pula

An Anthropological Study of the Tapija Phenomenon in Northwest Croatia

Andrea Matošević

Translated by Andrew Hodges

Published in 2021 by

Berghahn Books

www.berghahnbooks.com

English-language edition

© 2021 Berghahn Books

This book was originally published in Croatian by Durieux and Institut za etnologiju i folkloristiku under the title Doći u Pulu, Dospjeti u tapiju: Etno-filozofska studija lokalnog fenomena. © 2019 Andrea Matošević.

Knjiga je prevedena uz financijsku potporu Ministarstva kulture i medija Republike Hrvatske.

The book was translated with the financial support of the Ministry of Culture and Media of the Republic of Croatia.

All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purposes of criticism and review, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any informationw storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without written permission of the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Names: Matošević, Andrea, 1979- author. | Hodges, Andrew, (Social anthropologist), translator.

Title: Almost, but not quite bored in Pula : an anthropological study of the tapija phenomenon in Northwest Croatia / Andrea Matošević ; translated by Andrew Hodges.

Other titles: Doći u Pulu, dospjeti u tapiju. English | Anthropological study of the tapija phenomenon in Northwest Croatia

Description: New York : Berghahn Books, [2021] | Series: European anthropology in translation ; 10 | Originally published: Matošević, Andrea. Doći u Pulu, dospjeti u tapiju : etno-filozofska studija lokalnog fenomena. Durieux and Institut za etnologiju i folkloristiku, 2019. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2021005180 (print) | LCCN 2021005181 (ebook) | ISBN 9781800731356 (hardback) | ISBN 9781800731363 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Pula (Croatia)—Social life and customs. | Boredom—Croatia—Pula. | Sociology, Urban—Croatia—Pula.

Classification: LCC DR1645.P85 M38613 2021 (print) | LCC DR1645.P85 (ebook) | DDC 949.72—dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021005180

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021005181

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978-1-80073-135-6 hardback

ISBN 978-1-80073-136-3 ebook

To cite one possible, but entirely non-binding occasion which has perhaps already been encountered by one or other of us, without our having explicitly noticed the emergence of this boredom and without our explicitly being annoyed of our own accord: ‘it is boring for one’ to walk through the streets of a large city on a Sunday afternoon.

—Martin Heidegger, The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics

Contents

List of Figures

Preface to the English Translation

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Chapter 1. On Tapija: An Ethnography of the City’s Imponderables

Chapter 2. Boredom, or the City Yawns

Chapter 3. On Dominant Articulations and Reaches of Tapija

Conclusion

References

Index

Figures

Figure 0.1. Graffiti near the centre of Pula, the title of the book’s Croatian version, 2019. © Marko Vojnić.

Figure 1.1. Announcement in Il Giornaletto di Pola, 31 October 1904. Website screen capture by Andrea Matošević.

Figure 1.2. One of Pula’s main city centre streets, an afternoon in late February 2018. © Andrea Matošević.

Figure 3.1. Postcard – Tapija Is Like Lame in Pula. Website screen capture by Andrea Matošević.

Figure 3.2. Tapija Badge, Capital of Culture candidacy merchandise. 2018 © Andrea Matošević.

Preface to the English Translation

The Croatian version of the book you have in your hands was published in early 2019, after a period of intensive research and writing during 2017 and the first half of 2018. Its English title is Almost, but Not Quite Bored in Pula: An Anthropological Study of the Tapija Phenomenon in Northwest Croatia. In this book I have tried to analyse and interpret a term and concept named tapija (pronounced tahpeeya)¹ as linking closely with the specific environment of the Croatian city of Pula. The entire text is dedicated to understanding this primarily oral and informal phenomenon and state of being. However, phenomena are not generated ex nihilo – their existence and intensity are drawn from a certain heritage, life conditions and situation. In this introduction, I will therefore attempt to briefly outline at least some of the contours of Pula’s urban fabric, i.e. the formal features of the city, in which tapija is generated as a specific state of being among some of Pula’s residents. The reason for this is that while I assume a large part of the cultural, historical and geographical context about which I write is clear to readers of this book’s Croatian version, readers of the English translation would likely welcome a few details and clarifications regarding the details of this text.

Pula is a coastal city located on the southern tip of the Istrian peninsula in a bay of the same name, where just under 60,000 inhabitants live today. It is the largest city in the Istrian county, located in northwest Croatia near the border with Slovenia and Italy. While it has been inhabited since antiquity, under the name Pietas Iulia, which the Romans established in around 46 BC, its modern history is inseparable from the Uljanik shipyard established in 1856 as the K.u.K. See-Arsenal on a little island named Olivieninsel or Scoglio Olivi. This shipyard was active from then on almost continuously, up until 2019 when it was declared bankrupt. The city’s demographic, cultural, sport and infrastructural development is closely tied to this shipyard, which in its final days employed 2,000 people and worked with another 1,000 subcontracted workers (kooperanti). In its heyday, there were three times as many employees. Often, entire families were employed by Uljanik, but construction work was almost exclusively reserved for male family members, i.e. grandfathers, fathers and sons – female construction workers were a rarity. Pula has thus been a relevant industrial centre until recently. Besides shipbuilding, it had a developed textile and manufacturing industry, and it was an important military centre during the Austro-Hungarian and Yugoslav periods. Tourism, which historically coexisted alongside these other activities, has now become the dominant economic activity. This transition from the ‘Fordist’ to the ‘Postfordist’ mode of production, to which the tourist sector is especially amenable, has entered into practically all pores of life and provides an important contextual background for the themes with which this book engages.

In addition, Pula has gone through several changes of rule throughout its modern history, as has the wider territory in which it lies. These changes have not infrequently also entailed strong demographic changes. Austro-Hungary was replaced by the Kingdom of Italy, whose dominant regime became fascist from 1922 onwards. After Italy’s fall in September 1943, the city was occupied by German troops as Pula was an important military port. For that reason, the Allied Forces bombed the city with the intention of destroying the port and military facilities. However, they also destroyed residential districts that would later be restored or rebuilt completely during the period of socialist rule, which lasted until 1991. In 1947, an exodus of the Italian population occurred, alongside a trend of in-migrations from other parts of Croatia and Yugoslavia. During the period of socialist rule, industrialization was once again encouraged in the city, with new city neighbourhoods built and old ones reconstructed, as well as the creation of a strong military garrison (Istarska enciklopedija 2005). Pula and Istria were not directly caught up in the 1991–1995 war in Croatia, which was part of the break-up of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. However, they did feel its demographic, cultural and economic consequences.

Furthermore, from 2006, following a merger of higher education institutions, the Juraj Dobrila University of Pula (Sveučilište Jurja Dobrile u Puli) has been operating there, as one of eight public universities in the Republic of Croatia. Pula is bilingual, as are a range of local administrations in the county of Istria, with both the Croatian and Italian language in use. In this book, some interview fragments in Italian are included, as they result from the bilingualism present in the urban fabric. In terms of institutionalized culture, besides the Historical and Maritime Museum of Istria and the Archaeological Museum, the longest-term, largest and probably the most significant film festival is also worth mentioning. The Pula Film Festival takes place during the second half of July in the amphitheatre and nearby locations. This event was established in 1954, first titled the National Film Review, and from 1960 was named the Festival of Yugoslav Film. It is important to note that the city’s institutional cultural activities exist alongside the somewhat less institutional or even entirely non-institutionalized. The latter are in many ways responsible for the biggest shifts that have occurred in the cultural field and the city is well known for them as well. Just some of the (superficially selected and illustrative) historical and more contemporary examples, besides the numerous bands and theatre groups, include: the Interclub and Author Festival of Amateur Film (Međuklupski i autorski festival amaterskog filma, MAFAF), held from 1965 to 1990 just before the above-mentioned film festival, co-organized by the Pula Film Club ‘Jelen’. This collaboration resulted from the importance of the development and networking of amateur culture and film clubs from the 1960s in Yugoslav self-managing socialism (cf. Benčić 2010). In addition, from the early 1990s, Sa(n)jam knjige (Book Fair[y] in Istria) was held in Pula, and was a very important meeting place for authors, books and publishers. The former barracks Karlo Rojc were repurposed as a social centre which has provided a venue for numerous alternative music bands, the civic association Monteparadiso, and a well-attended punk and hardcore festival, held from 1992 onwards. Radio Rojc, one of Croatia’s few community radio stations, is also run from this social centre. This station has played an invaluable role in informing the public and providing analyses of especially difficult situations for the city, for example during the Uljanik shipyard’s closure in 2018–2019. This detail is especially important as the research for this book was completed, and the book published, before the complete collapse of the Uljanik shipyard. The shipyard’s collapse altered the entire town’s state of being and entailed a definitive and complete turn-around in its economic life, as well as in other aspects of city life closely related to the economy. Put differently, had the research for the book been completed at the time of writing this preface (March 2020), the findings would almost certainly be different. The same applies to the COVID-19 pandemic and the lockdown introduced in Croatia and in many other countries across Europe during March 2020. This has altered everyday life and mutated all aspects of sociability to the point that it requires a separate research project of its own. I will therefore not tackle these questions in this book, yet the pandemic has influenced the book in a more subtle way – it was translated under lockdown conditions in Scotland.

From the publication of the Croatian version in February 2019, the book has received a wide variety of reactions. Some of these reactions were expected – especially the academic and social network response – while certain others astonished me. One such surprise was the appearance of graffiti in Pula that referred to the book and its central theme, either through a saying or simple allusion. I have attached a photograph of one example above.

Figure 0.1. Graffiti near the centre of Pula, the title of the book’s Croatian version, 2019. © Marko Vojnić.

At the end of this brief introduction I would finally like to thank my colleague, the social anthropologist and translator Andrew Hodges, for having agreed to translate this book into English. His devoted and keen work on this manuscript is woven into all sections of this new version of the book.

Note

1. Translator’s note: this word will be left unitalicized throughout.

Acknowledgements

Looking back, I note that this manuscript quickly gained its final scope and its contours. For this reason, the process of its creation, from March 2017 to January 2018, was particularly intensive and full of uncertainties that required time, energy and discussions with colleagues to resolve certain dilemmas, at least somewhat successfully. In other words, while this study was not my first independent research project, nor my first published book, before this project I had not got to grips with such a difficult, fluid and ‘elusive’ topic. This made the process of researching, analysing, interpreting and, ultimately, writing the book especially challenging. ‘Hunting’ for the well-known concept of tapija in Pula’s urban fabric – both ethnographically and theoretically – also turned out to be a difficult task. Like the concept itself, that I had to translate from everyday life and speech into written form, this task involved working with fairly slippery material. Writing about one of the aspects or phenomena generated in my home town did not make this task any easier.

Nevertheless, a number of Pula residents directly supported me during the research, and I would like to thank them for their efforts, insights and interest in this subject. Without the help of the versatile and highly engaged Ivana Petrinić, the librarian at the Pula Grammar School, it would have been difficult for me to find pupils for the interviews. Collaborators from the Pula citizen association Gradska radionica, especially Boris Bogunović, who invited me to hold a public lecture on the subject of this book during August 2017, clearly opened doors, enabling me to obtain part of the material, and the recorded debates and polemics that followed the presentation have also been used in the discussion. Parts of the manuscript and some recorded conversations with interlocutors started out in the University Library of the Juraj Dobrila University in Pula. The university librarians were always approachable and willing to listen to my questions and requests. Without my interlocutors, whose first and last initials are cited in the text, this book would not exist. Among them are those who agreed to take part in fairly long and recorded conversations with me – I owe them special thanks.

In addition, I would like to thank my colleague Bruce O’Neill from the University of Saint Louis, Missouri, the co-editor of the thematic section Boredom After the Global Financial Crisis: From Privilege to Precarity in the journal Focaal – Journal of Global and Historical Anthropology 78 (2017). He sent me several articles from the special issue, in