#rijeka

[allthingseurope]

Rijeka, Croatia

[vintageeurope]

Rijeka, Croatia 1890/1900

[easternblocrelics]

Greetings from Rijeka Salutations de Rijeka Grsse aus Rijeka Yugoslavia

[jupiterovprsten]

Rijeka, Hrvatska

[postcard-from-the-past]

Street scene in Fiume, modern-day Rijeka, Croatia

Austrian vintage postcard

[one-time-i-dreamt]

I'm so curious to see what non-Eurovision watchers who know nothing about Let 3 think about this song

[arianeka]

Rijeka, summer 2021.

[rosa-dei-venti]

so i’m fucking around with trying to learn a little Croatian for fun and reasons, right? And i’m already familiar with Slavic languages due to past obsessions/travels and some lateral family ties, so it’s going oddly well and i’m in love with it.

Anyway, in the regions of Istria and Dalmatia, there’s a lot of Italian influence on local dialects. The history is complicated and pisses everyone off depending on how you describe it and never forget that Venice was built on timber from plundered Croatian trees, apparently. That’s not the point.

The point is i just discovered that in Rijeka/Fiume, a local motto (and football chant) translates to more or less “die, but don’t give up.” As in, dying is fine, it happens, but giving up is unforgivable. (Which I already love because awwww look at them they’re my exact same hard-headed Triestine motherfuckers, singing in a slightly different key.)

In the local čakavski language this is “Krepat, ma ne molat.”

As in, “crepare ma non mollare.” As in they literally took Italian verbs and stuck Slavic endings on them and said HEY, THIS WORKS! In “standard” štokavski Croatian every single one of those words is different (more like “Umrijeti, ali ne odustati”).

I have been cackling in sheer joy over this line for days and need to share it with ALL OF YOU Italian-speakers (fucked if i know why i just wrote this whole post in english with my thumbs)