The Balkans: A Short History (27 page)

23. E. Stillman, The Balkans (New York, 1966), p. 146; W. H. McNeill,
The Metamorphosis of Greece since World War II
(Oxford, 1978), p. 247.

24. N. V. Giannaris, Geopolitical and Economic Changes in the Balkan Coun
tries
(London, 1996); Fischer, “Politics, Nationalism and Development,” p. 157; C. Deltuere de Brycher, “Quelques images de la systematisation,” in N. Pelisser et al., eds.,
La Roumanie contemporaine
(Paris, 1996), pp. 13–49.

25. F. Fejto,
A History of the People’s Democracies
(Harmondsworth, Eng., 1974), pp. 376–77.

26. J. Lampe, “Belated Modernization in Comparison: Development in Yugoslavia and Bulgaria to 1948,” in Augustinos,
Diverse Paths to
Modernity, pp. 32–45.

27. Cited in King,
Minorities under Communism,
p. 21.

28. G. Stokes,
From Stalinism to Pluralism: A Documentary History of Eastern
Europe since 1945
(New York, 1991), pp. 232–33; H. Poulton,
The
Balkans: Minorities and States in Conflict
(London, 1991), pp. 112–13, 126, 131, 153–65.

EPILOGUE

1. An Ottoman official cited in J. Mislin,
Les Saints Lieux: Pelerinage à
Jerusalem
(Paris, 1876), vol. 1, p. 72.

2. Both quotes are from M. Levene, “Introduction,” in M. Levene and P. Roberts, eds., The Massacre in History (New York, 1999).

3. A. J. Toynbee,
The Western Question in Greece and Turkey
(London, 1922), pp. 17–18.

4. “Verdict against SS-Untersturmführer Max Taeubner, 24 May 1943,” in E. Klee, W. Dressen and V. Riess, eds., “Those Were the Days”:
The Holocaust as Seen by the Perpetrators and By-standers
(London, 1991), pp. 196–207; on rules of war, see G. Best,
Humanity in Warfare
(Oxford, 1980); on the civilizing process, the classic work is N. Elias,
The Civilising Process
(Oxford, 1978).

5. Montaigne, translated by John Florio, “Of Crueltie” in
The Essays of
Michael Lord of Montaigne
(Oxford, 1906), vol. 2, p. 134.

6. Gatrell,
Hanging Tree: Execution and the English People, 1770–1868
(Oxford, 1994)
,
p. 598; also T. Haskell, “Capitalism and the Origins of the Humanitarian Sensibility,”
American Historical Review
90, no. 2–3 (April/June 1985), pp. 339–61 and 547–66. My thanks to Liz Lunbeck for this reference.

7. J. Gardner Wilkinson,
Dalmatia and Montenegro
(London, 1848), pp. 80–82.

8. P. P. Njegos, The Mountain Wreath, trans. V. Mihailovich (Irvine, Calif., 1986), and also M. Sells,
The Bridge Betrayed: Religion and Geno cide in Bosnia
(Los Angeles, 1996), pp. 40–42. The Vladika’s brother and cousins had been decapitated by Turks in 1836 before being suitably avenged four years later: M. Aubin,
Visions historiques et politiques dans l’oeuvre poetique de P. P. Njegos
(Paris, 1972), pp. 175–78; on Turkish attitudes to dissections, see the memoirs of an American surgeon in Ottoman service, J. O. Noyes,
Romania: The Borderland of the Christian and the Turk
(New York, 1857), p. 263.

9. Z. Milch,
A Stranger’s Supper: An Oral History of Centenarian Women in Montenegro
(New York, 1995), p. 47; G. Stokes,
Politics as Development:
The Emergence of Political Parties in Nineteenth-Century Serbia
(Durham, N.C., 1990), p. 147.

10. See also C. Boehm,
Blood Revenge: The Anthropology of Feuding in Montenegro and Other Tribal Societies
(Lawrence, Kans., 1984).

11.
Daily Mirror,
November 10, 1947; correspondence in Public Records Office, FO 371/67011, R 15110, Norton to London, November 12, 1947. I am greatly indebted to Polymeris Voglis for this information. J. Axtell and W. C. Sturtevant, “The Unkindest Cut, or Who Invented Scalping?”
William and Mary Quarterly
37, no. 3 (July 1980), pp. 451–72.

12. Figures from United Nations (G. Newman, ed.),
Global Report on
Crime and Justice
(New York, 1999); R. Hood,
The Death Penalty: A
World-Wide Perspective
(Oxford, 1996), p. 74.

13. On Njegos, see Aubin,
Visions historiques,
pp. 232–35.

14. My thanks to Polymeris Voglis for this point. See also M. Ignatieff,
Virtual War
(London, 2000); on the Second World War as a civil war and forms of violence, see C. Pavone, Una guerra civilie:
Saggio sulla moralita nella resistenza
(Turin, 1991).

GUIDE TO FURTHER READING

The outstanding textbook on the history of the Balkans is L. S. Stavrianos, The Balkans since 1453 (1958; reprint, New York, 1965), a book that has now been reissued (London, 2000). Also valuable on the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries is G. Castellan,
History of the Balkans
(New York, 1992), and on the first half of the twentieth century, R. L. Wolff, The
Balkans in Our Time
(New York, 1956; rev. ed. 1978). B. Jelavich,
History of the Balkans,
2 vols. (Cambridge, 1983), is solid on political and diplomatic developments. C. and B. Jelavich, eds.,
The Balkans in Transition: Essays on the Development of Balkan Life and Politics since the Eighteenth Century
(Berkeley, 1963) is an important collection of essays. Their The Establishment of the Balkan National States, 1804–1920 (Seattle, 1977) is also useful. T. Stoianovich,
Balkan Worlds: The First
and Last Europe
(New York, 1994), offers many useful insights by an eminent social historian.

On geography, there is F. W. Carter, An Historical Geography
of the Balkans
(London, 1977); and J. Cvijic,
La Peninsule balkanique: Géographie humaine
(Paris, 1918). M. Todorova,
Imagining
the Balkans
(New York, 1997) covers Western stereotypes of the region. On economic history: J. Lampe and M. Jackson, Balkan Economic History, 1550–1950 (Bloomington, Ind., 1982); M. Palairet, The Balkan Economies, c. 1800–1914: Evolution with
out Development
(Cambridge, 1997); T. Stoianovich,
Between
East and West: The Balkan and Mediterranean Worlds,
4 vols. (New Rochelle, N.Y., 1992–1995); and N. Todorov, The Balkan City, 1400–1900 (Seattle, 1983).

For earlier periods, consult J. Fine,
The Late Medieval
Balkans: A Critical Survey from the Late Twelfth Century to the
Ottoman Conquest (Ann Arbor, Mich., 1987); P. Kitromilides,
Enlightenment, Nationalism, Orthodoxy: Studies in the Culture and
Political Thought of Southeastern Europe
(Aldershot, Eng., 1994) and his
The Enlightenment as Social Criticism: Iosipos Moisiodax
and Greek Culture in the Eighteenth Century
(Princeton, N.J., 1992); R. Clogg, ed.,
Balkan Society in the Age of Greek Independence
(London, 1981); and D. Warriner, ed.,
Contrasts in Emerging Societies: Readings in the Social and Economic History of
South-Eastern Europe in the Nineteenth Century
(London, 1965).

On the Ottoman Balkans, there are P. Sugar, Southeastern Europe under Ottoman Rule, 1354–1804 (Seattle, 1977); Odysseus (C. Eliot), Turkey in Europe (London, 1900); H. Inalcik, The Ottoman Empire: The Classical Age, 1300–1600 (London, 1973); H. Inalcik and D. Quataert, eds.),
An Economic and Social History
of the Ottoman Empire, 1300–1914 (Cambridge, 1994); F. Adanir, “Tradition and Rural Change in Southeastern Europe during Ottoman Rule,” in D. Chirot, ed., The Origins of Backwardness in Eastern Europe (Berkeley, 1989); and W. Miller, The Ottoman
Empire and Its Successors, 1801–1927
(Cambridge, 1936) is still valuable. One must also mention the gripping account by C. Bracewell, The Uskoks of Senj: Piracy, Banditry and Holy War in the Sixteenth Century Adriatic (Ithaca, N.Y., 1992).

On Serbia: M. Petrovich,
A History of Modern Serbia,
1804–1918 (New York, 1976); on Yugoslavia, J. Lampe,
Yugoslavia as History: Twice There Was a Country
(Cambridge, 1996), and the outstanding monograph by Ivo Banac,
The
National Question in Yugoslavia (Ithaca, N.Y., 1984). Noel Malcolm has written two very useful books,
Bosnia: A Short History
(London, 1994) and
Kosovo: A Short History
(London, 1998). For Bulgaria, R. Crampton, A Short History of Bulgaria (Cambridge, 1987), his
Bulgaria, 1878–1918
(New York, 1983), and Mercia Macdermott,
A History of Bulgaria, 1393–1885
(New York, 1962); on Macedonia, H. N. Brailsford,
Macedonia: Its Races and
Their Future
(London, 1906). For Greece, R. Clogg,
A Concise
History of Greece (Cambridge, 1992); J. Campbell and P. Sherrard,
Modern Greece
(London, 1968) is still very useful. On Romania, see H. Roberts,
Rumania: Political Problems of an
Agrarian State (New York, 1951); K. Hitchins, Rumania, 1866–1947 (Oxford, 1994). On Albania, see S. Skendi, ed.,
Albania
(New York, 1956) and his monograph,
The Albanian
National Awakening, 1878–1912 (Princeton, N.J., 1967).

Among travel accounts and other pleasures, see S. Hyman, ed.,
Edward Lear in the Levant: Travels in Albania, Greece and
Turkey in Europe, 1848–1849
(London, 1988); the Turkish letters of Mary Wortley Montagu, and Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq; as well as the writings of the great Victorian travelers, among whom may be mentioned Edith Durham, the Misses Mackenzie and Irby, Colonel W. M. Leake and the Reverend Henry Tozer. More recent memoirs include M. Djilas,
Land
without Justice: An Autobiography of His Youth
(New York, 1958) and his
Wartime: With Tito and the Partisans
(New York, 1977) and R. G. Waldeck,
Athene Palace
(New York, 1942).

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

What’s in a name? Why is this region called the Balkans?

What are some of the classic Western stereotypes about the Balkans and how did they form?

What is the traditional European view of the Ottoman Empire’s legacy on the Continent and what are that view’s shortcomings?

How did different religious and ethnic groups coexist under Ottoman rule?

How did the Balkan peasant class compare with peasants elsewhere in Europe?

Why was brigandage romanticized?

What impact did the coming of Western capitalism have on the Ottoman Empire? How did it drive nationalism?

What were some of the reasons Christians converted to Islam under Ottoman rule?

How were lines blurred between the monotheistic faiths during the Ottoman Empire and to what effect? What were the tensions between Catholicism and Orthodox Christianity?

What explains the Ottoman Empire’s decline and fall?

What was Russia’s interest in the Balkans in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries? What was Germany’s? Austria’s?

Why did representative democracy have such a short, unhappy life in the Balkans between the two world wars?

What was the immediate and long-term impact of Nazi occupation of the Balkans?

How did the “free world” and “Soviet communism” compete in the region after World War II?

What was communism’s legacy in the region?

Was the breakup of Yugoslavia inevitable? Why or why not? How might it have been prevented?

Is it useful to think of the Balkans as a single, discrete region today? What larger meaning does it have?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

MARK MAZOWER is a professor of history at Birkbeck College, London, and a former professor of history at Princeton University. He is the author of several books, most recently
Dark Continent: Europe’s
Twentieth Century.

ALSO BY MARK MAZOWER

Inside Hitler’s Greece: The Experience of Occupation, 1941–1944
Dark Continent: Europe’s Twentieth Century
After the War Was Over
(editor)
The Policing of Politics in the Twentieth Century
(editor)