Gerhard Roth on the Borderline - Grenzland [antikvár]

OBERGREITHThe village of Obergreith lies in the south west of Styria, scattered over hills, about a dozen kilometres from the Yugoslavian border. Even for the inhabitants of the surrounding villages, Obergreith is something apart. Many scarcely know it, as nothing is there which is of any importance in their everyday lives, like a doctor, a warehouse of the Farmers' Cooperative Society, or a dealer in farming machinery, so they rarely come up. The people in the plain are the "ones down there" for the Obergreither, while calling themselves, not without pride, "we up here". Indeed, something like an imaginary border lies between the elevation of the little mountains and the plain. The villages round about in the flat land have followed a different development from those on the hills. They are more adapted to the urban way, more modem, while the Obergreither, though in principle prepared for change, lead their lives rather Uke they did in the past. The landscape has neither the endlessness of the flat land, nor the mightiness of the mountains. In summer, it is looks like a stationary sea of green waves, with houses, like ships, on the crests. Winters are cold, snow usually falling early November and lying in the sheltered hollows till the end of March; it is not uncommon for it to snow as late as April or May. In contrast, the summers can be very hot. But in late autumn, the farms on the hills, the stubble fields, the woods and meadows are covered with heavy-lying fogs, which blanket the stillness: now and again, large swarms of sparrows emerge, or one hears only their chirping. In spring, the meadows are full of blossoming damson and apple trees, as well as cherry, pear, apricot, Spanish chestnut and walnut trees, and, as the soil and climate favour luxuriant floral vegetation, the country is transformed into a garden. Not that the locals have no eye for it, but the business-like relationship to nature is always in the forefront. Has the heat lasted too long for the maize? Are there so many wasps that the fruit harvest will be seriously damaged? Will the dreaded May frost come? Of course the hills are beautiful. But the first concern for the locals is how difficult they are to cultivate, because many slopes are so steep that they can only be worked by hand. And a big walnut tree, which bears nothing, is "of no use". The people in Obergreith speak a guttural dialect, alternating between sing-song and monotone, which already is barely, or with difficulty, understood in the provincial capital only fifty kilometres away. While the young people go in for city clothes, during the week, the older people wear mainly blue dungarees, old wom-out clothes, black rabbet boots, wooden clogs, hats or head-squares. The usual Sunday best, however, is still the Styrian suit for the men, and a traditional costume for the women.From the hills one sees far and wide, to the Yugoslavian border district in the south, to the Schöckel in the north, to the Koralpen in Carinthia to the west and to the Demmerkogel in the east. The eye glances over fenced gardens with flowers and lettuce, cabbages, peas, beans, tomatoes, onions and poppies, over long low white cow-houses, wooden threshing-floors, machine sheds and silos of the farms, with their red, tile roofs, white stone foundations and walls of dark-stained logs. In these old houses, which are more and more making way for new ones, the windows are small, a walnut or pear tree often grows near the house like a natural lightning conductor. Two streams, which in summer are narrow brooks, but after rain can swell to raging torrents, the Sülm and the Saggau, flow through the district. Before they were regulated, they often burst their banks and flooded the farm buildings and fields "down there".Obergreith cannot be seen from the plain. It lies hidden behind mixed woods, reached only by narrow roads, which are not surfaced all they way. It is inaccessible by public transport. One travels from Graz on the ROTER BLITZ (Red Lightning) which, in contrast to its name, makes its slow, tortous way through the dis-trirt to the single-storeyed station in Pölfing-Brunn, a deserted station building, where only one or two uniformed officials can be found. On the way, it stops at every hamlet, where mainly school children get out, but farmers too, who have been shopping or doing official business in Graz, or visiting someone lying in the University Clinic. If you are not collected, then there is an hour's walk from Pölfing-Brunn to the Lesky Shop in Obergreith. Incidentally, the shop is the only one in the village. It is a long, single-storeyed concrete building. Inside, there is a little refreshment room, which is called Jausenstation (snack-bar). There, after 5 p. m., on ordinary wooden chairs and plastic-topped tables, the daily commuters returning home from their work in the neighbourhood, sit and drink their bottles of beer, or a mixture of white wine and mineral water. Wild vines were pulled, up till the Second World War, and there are still plenty of wine-growers, and cider is the general house and daily drink, further, damson brandy is distilled nearly everywhere, the people are thus used to alcohol. One could say, it is a "wet" district from this point of view. In the shop itself, a bare room, one finds