Mikulec died in 1933, in Genoa, penniless. The Depression had made itinerancy an unfortunate commonplace, no cause for celebration. Then—in Eastern Europe, at any rate—came Communism. “In Yugoslavia, it was really hard to travel,” Viktor Šimunić, a Croatian politician, said the other day, as a way of explaining Mikulec’s slide into obscurity. “And they maybe didn’t want to show the people it was possible to travel all over the world.” Šimunić is the mayor of Oroslavje, Mikulec’s home town, population six thousand, which erected a statue in the forgotten pilgrim’s honor last October. Dressed in a royal-blue suit, the mayor was in Manhattan for the first time, as part of an ongoing campaign to restore Mikulec’s celebrity. He was accompanied by three of his town’s councilmen, two of whom grimaced while lugging a square suitcase with a combination lock down the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, around the corner, and into Central Park.journey-inline-newsletterinline-newsletter