Marko Polić (Marco Polo) earned his place in world history through his adventures in the Far East and his remarkable success at the court of the Chinese emperor.
In today’s world Croatia is not especially known for its adventurers, yet even much larger nations have no one to match them. Among the best-known Croatian adventurers are Mate Šimunović of Vrgorac, Davor Rostuhar, the brothers Mirko and Stjepan Seljan, Joško Božić and, of course, Stipe Božić.
Let’s begin with the recent past, and indeed the present:
Stipe Božić
Mountaineer and adventurer. After Messner, he is the only European to have stood on top of Mount Everest twice, and the only European ever to reach the summit of Everest from the west. He is the only person to have filmed the world’s three highest peaks, and he has climbed the highest mountain on every continent. He also descended to a world-record depth of 1,395 metres in the Velebit range and skied all the way to the North Pole. Every one of his adventures was documented on film.
Joško Božić, Stipe’s son
On his own, he reached the highest summits of Europe, South America and North America, the youngest mountaineer to do so. He died tragically in a road accident.
Stipe’s daughters, Iva and Neda, are mountaineers of world renown.
Davor Rostuhar
A seasoned explorer and adventurer. In January 2018, alone and on skis, he dragged a 137 kg sled 1,163 km to the South Pole, a 47-day journey he recorded on his mobile phone. He went on to write a successful book about it and to make the documentary “Polar Dream” (“Polarni san”).
Mate Šimunović
In the first half of the last century he spent 19 years on the road, covering 360,000 kilometres and 70 countries. His travels brought him into contact with many leading figures of the day, among them U.S. President Hoover, who signed his travel journal, and Harry Truman, who supported his plans for a documentary film.
On his journeys through the islands of the Indian and Pacific oceans, he met native peoples who had never before come into contact with the outside world.
In India he met the Nobel Prize winner Rabindranath Tagore, who wrote: “You have come to me in India and proved that distance does not exist.”
His adventures made headlines around the globe, including in the New York Times and the Shanghai Times.
Mate, known as “Svjetski” (“the Worldly One”), managed all of this by bicycle, on foot, or aboard a small sailboat that sank in a storm off Sumatra. His loyal dog, Globus, saved the waterproof bag that held all his documents.
He had outfoxed border guards the world over, but on his return home he could not outfox OZNA, the Yugoslav secret police. They arrested him for photographing women queuing outside a ration-coupon (“na točkice”) shop on Ilica Street in Zagreb. He spent time in prison again and again, and the Yugoslav authorities confiscated his passport. Mate later settled back in Vrgorac, where he sold newspapers from a Večernji list kiosk. His dream of a documentary, for which he had gathered so much material and so many photographs, was never realized. He died in his hometown in 1969.
Inspired by his fellow townsman, Stipe Božić organizes an Adventurers’ Festival in Vrgorac every year in honour of Mate Šimunović.
The brothers Mirko and Stjepan Seljan, from Karlovac
In January 1899 the brothers set off for Africa, following the Nile toward Sudan. Back in Cairo, they turned east and eventually arrived in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. They so impressed Emperor Menelik II that he gave them 300 men to explore the region. That expedition ultimately charted the borders between Ethiopia, Sudan and Kenya that still stand today. The emperor rewarded them with titles and many gifts, which are now housed in the Ethnographic Museum in Zagreb.
In 1903 the brothers travelled to Brazil, intending to study an unexplored part of the Amazon. That same year they launched the “Mision Cientifica Croata” (Croatian Scientific Mission). They reached tribes no outsider had met before and mapped the land from Paraguay all the way to the Paraná River in Argentina.
In 1905 they crossed the Andes on foot into Chile, and in Santiago they founded the Croatian Association for the Exploitation of “Mato Grosso.”
Hoping to explore the Amazon from the south, they went to Montevideo, where they joined their friend, the Croatian explorer Franjo Pommer. Frustrated by endless delays over various permits, they returned to Chile. In time, after exploring the deserts of northern Chile, they made their way to Peru. There they organized the Croatian Joint-Stock Company, which was to help the Peruvian government finance roads linking the Andes with the Amazon.
Mirko pressed on into the uncharted Amazon, where he vanished in 1913. Stjepan, after seeking financial support in the U.S., eventually went back to Peru, where he died in 1936.
Crucially, all of their notes and studies are kept in Zagreb. Through all their years of exploring and travelling, the brothers remained in constant contact with Zagreb.
A charming detail: wherever they met fellow Croats, they were happy to put on a concert, with Mirko on the violin and Stjepan on the bagpipes.
B. C.