Ed Schreiber
Balkans, the Powder Keg of Europe
The 1990s saw a series of wars in former Yugoslavia that broke this multi-ethnic nation into eight entities generally hostile to one another. "Balkanization" returned to our vocabulary.
For millennia, this rich and beautiful land at the crossroads of the Old World has been coveted by many conquerors who have all left their marks on the land and the peoples. There are 80,000-year old remains of a Neanderthal civilization and many landmarks are preserved from the times of Illyrian, Roman, Byzantine, Ottoman, French and Austrian dominance and the medieval Slavic kingdoms.
Today the Croatian coast is the premier resort area of Europe, welcoming more than twice as many tourists annually as Croatia has citizens. Ed will present a condensed history of this colorful land and its many wars and cultures.
Ed Schreiber was born in the middle of World War Two to an aristocratic fascist Roman Catholic family in Zagreb, Croatia and educated in communist schools of post-war Yugoslavia. He emigrated to the U. S. at thirteen. After high school he served six years in the U. S. Army as a musician. After graduating from University of Colorado he worked in the computer industry for 35 years while involved in many volunteer and civic activities, including a run for Congress in 1980, as a Democrat. Retired since 2001, he now serves as Triple Nine Society's Membership Officer and in several other volunteer endeavors.
Ed was deeply involved with the events in former Yugoslavia during the 1990s wars as a lobbyist, spokesman and a co-founder of a refugee resettlement organization in Colorado for Muslims who survived the Serb concentration camps in Bosnia. In 2006 he led a sightseeing tour of the western Balkans (http://ed.schreiber.org/tour). It exceeded his far-fetched promises and his own expectations.
More at http://ed.schreiber.org
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