80th Birthday Special: Strina Slavica Strbac (HR)
This episode is recorded entirely in Croatian (HR), because that is how Strina Slavica talks, thinks, and has lived her whole life. If you don't speak Croatian, stay with us anyway, you will still feel everything in her voice.
This one is different from anything we have done before.
This is a dedication to Strina Slavica's children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. A testimony. A life well lived. A legacy.
Born in 1946 in a small village in Bosnia, one of twelve children, Strina Slavica has lived a life most of us could not imagine. She married at nineteen. She raised five children. She delivered babies were born at home, healed coughs with onion tea, survived war and displacement, rebuilt her life in Germany, then again in Australia, and never once stopped dancing.
She is my dad's auntie, married to my grandfather's brother Mirko. In our language, a strina. But what she has been to our family goes so far beyond a word. She was there when my baba was dying. She was there at my wedding. She was there when I lost a baby, and she told me something I will never forget.
She is a queen. A matriarch. Truly one of a kind.
In this episode, we sit down together, kitchen table style, and talk about her childhood, meeting Striko Mirko, surviving war, raising a family across three countries, the recipes and remedies passed down through generations, and the wisdom she wants to leave behind.
What started as a small legacy piece for my own children has turned into something so much bigger, reaching listeners across Australia, Europe, the US and Canada. So today, this is for all of you too.
Wherever you are listening from, near or far, help me wish Strina Slavica a very happy 80th birthday.
And if this episode moves you even slightly, call your own grandparents, your aunties, your elders. Ask them questions. Record their stories. Write it all down. Heritage, roots and tradition go so much beyond a flag.
Special thanks to my cousin Antonio for organising the recording, and to Strina Slavica's family for trusting me with her story.
🎙️ Episode recorded in Croatian (HR)🎂 Happy 80th Birthday Strina Slavica🤍 A Balkan Sis legacy episode
@ivanastrbacalfonso | @balkansispodcast
