Slovenian finds 1907 letter to 'posterity' in house rebuild
Engineer Iztok Blazevic stumbled across the sealed letter dated May 7, 1907
LJUBLJANA (AFP) - It was less a message in a bottle, more a message in the masonry when a Slovenian man found a letter and photographs more than a century after they were built into the walls of the house he was renovating.
Engineer Iztok Blazevic stumbled across the sealed letter dated May 7, 1907, at a house in the Adriatic port of Koper, about 100 kilometres (62 miles) from the capital Ljubljana, the Primorske Novice daily reported Saturday.
"Before workers end the construction of the house, I want to build into its walls a little memento that will bear witness for posterity to our spiritual and physical struggle to ensure a better future for our successors," 40-year-old bank worker Josip Ahtik wrote in 1907.
The letter, accompanied by photographs of Ahtik and his family describes the political and economic situation in Koper.
The area has come under the authority of four different powers -- the Austrian-Hungarian empire, Italy, Yugoslavia, and, since 1991, Slovenia -- since Ahtik put pen to paper.
Back in 1907, the town of 9,000 people had an orchestra, a public reading room and "electrical light" but "no newspaper that would enable us to develop our thoughts and ideas," according to Athik.
"I can just imagine all the things you will have after so much time!" he wrote in the four-page missive, which was published on Primorske novice s website, and which ends with the author s hope that "a real brotherhood of love among all of the world s peoples will rule by the time this letter is found."
