Tomb Evaders

Thursday, Oct. 10, 2001
When I told my friend Ivana, who works as a political analyst in Belgrade, that I wanted to visit Josip Broz Tito's grave, she scrunched up her face as if I'd opened a bottle of sour milk under her nose. "Why would you want to go there?" Ivana sniffed. I told her that I'd imagined the grave of Yugoslavia's leader from 1945 to his death in 1980 to be a Balkan Graceland of sorts. She strongly disputed the comparison of Tito to Elvis.

Other friends had similar reactions. In fact,...