Post by Astrit Zhupan on Feb 6, 2018 6:32:41 GMT
The Župan family is an extremely old one; even their unusual name -- a native Slavic word for a concept that Serbs have preferred to express in Greek for many centuries now -- hints as much. They are extremely proud of this history, and in particular of their resilience in the face of things that they probably shouldn't even have survived.
It is difficult to confirm this now, considering all that has happened since then, but they believe they were first ennobled back when "župan" was still a noble title, which would have to mean in or before the twelfth century. Family lore has it that it became their name because one of their ancestors was very upset by the title being abolished in favor of the unfamiliar Greek-derived term "kefalija," though two surviving versions of the story disagree on whether he insisted on continuing to go by the older title, or was merely dubbed "Kefalija Župan" by other nobles who found the whole debacle amusing.
Despite repeated efforts on the parts of various family members, no one person has ever been able to compile a full account of how they managed to stay both alive and fairly powerful through so many intervening centuries in which official rulership changed hands many times over, though all accounts and records that have been found have certain common threads: they usually tried to surround themselves with people who truly respected them, and although they were often willing to lay low for a while in order to avoid being wiped out, a persistent ambition always brought them back to the places where power was to be found.
They are an old family, but despite how many unrecognized distant relatives probably exist in various locations, the recognized portion of the family at this point is actually quite small, as they are still recovering from a disaster in the early twentieth century that greatly reduced their numbers (while doing no damage to their pride or their collective ambition). The only known surviving branch of the family consists of Đorđe Župan (b. 1924) and his descendants. Đorđe's son Nebojša (b. 1960) is the most actively involved in politics, having previously served in a number of positions within the Wizarding governments of Yugoslavia and Serbia and currently running for Serbian Minister of Magic. Other members of the family also have high standing within the magical world: for example, Đorđe himself is known as a patron of the arts, encouraging both the preservation of traditional forms and the development of new ones among Serbian wizards, while his daughter Jasna (b. 1955) is a magical historian who started with the history of her own family and has since written the definitive work on the Wizarding history of Eastern Europe, and his grandson Želimir (b. 1995) is an up-and-coming activist campaigning for greater understanding between magical and non-magical people. It is probably worth noting that Želimir is moderately unusual among the family; while very few of them are actively hostile to Muggles, most of them take more of a live-and-let-live approach, preferring to simply stay away from them unless required to interact in some way.
It is difficult to confirm this now, considering all that has happened since then, but they believe they were first ennobled back when "župan" was still a noble title, which would have to mean in or before the twelfth century. Family lore has it that it became their name because one of their ancestors was very upset by the title being abolished in favor of the unfamiliar Greek-derived term "kefalija," though two surviving versions of the story disagree on whether he insisted on continuing to go by the older title, or was merely dubbed "Kefalija Župan" by other nobles who found the whole debacle amusing.
Despite repeated efforts on the parts of various family members, no one person has ever been able to compile a full account of how they managed to stay both alive and fairly powerful through so many intervening centuries in which official rulership changed hands many times over, though all accounts and records that have been found have certain common threads: they usually tried to surround themselves with people who truly respected them, and although they were often willing to lay low for a while in order to avoid being wiped out, a persistent ambition always brought them back to the places where power was to be found.
They are an old family, but despite how many unrecognized distant relatives probably exist in various locations, the recognized portion of the family at this point is actually quite small, as they are still recovering from a disaster in the early twentieth century that greatly reduced their numbers (while doing no damage to their pride or their collective ambition). The only known surviving branch of the family consists of Đorđe Župan (b. 1924) and his descendants. Đorđe's son Nebojša (b. 1960) is the most actively involved in politics, having previously served in a number of positions within the Wizarding governments of Yugoslavia and Serbia and currently running for Serbian Minister of Magic. Other members of the family also have high standing within the magical world: for example, Đorđe himself is known as a patron of the arts, encouraging both the preservation of traditional forms and the development of new ones among Serbian wizards, while his daughter Jasna (b. 1955) is a magical historian who started with the history of her own family and has since written the definitive work on the Wizarding history of Eastern Europe, and his grandson Želimir (b. 1995) is an up-and-coming activist campaigning for greater understanding between magical and non-magical people. It is probably worth noting that Želimir is moderately unusual among the family; while very few of them are actively hostile to Muggles, most of them take more of a live-and-let-live approach, preferring to simply stay away from them unless required to interact in some way.