[ALST-L] Fwd: More on Glenny's Book

[Besnik Pula]

--- begin forwarded text


Date: Sat, 18 Dec 1999 18:41:05 -0800 (PST)
From: Agron Alibali <aalibali at yahoo.com>
Subject: ALBSA: More on Glenny's Book
To: albsa at Web-Depot.COM


          THE DAILY TELEGRAPH(LONDON)

 December 18, 1999, Saturday
Pg. 03

Books: A land that is made of myths Mark Urban argues
that an epic
work reinforces the bloody stereotype it sets out to
demolish

By Mark Urban

The Balkans

   1804-1999: Nationalism, War and the Great Powers by
Misha Glenny

   Granta, pounds 25 pounds 21 (free p&p) 0541 557222

   IN EMBARKING on The Balkans 1804-1999, Misha Glenny
set himself a monumental
task: to catalogue the history of an ill-defined
region during two turbulent
centuries. The difficulties of plotting such a
historical journey are legion -
not least that accounts of events are written in so
many languages and from such
deeply hostile, opposing points of view.

   When the express of Glenny's narrative (and even
662 pages is a race through
such complexity) builds up full steam, it is
magnificent. His account of King
Zog's ruthless rise to power in  Albania  is
captivating, horrific and funny:

   On those rare occasions when he could not avoid
venturing on to the open
street, his mother would act as his chaperone.
According to the strict code of
the gjakmarrje, the blood feud, a marked man could not
be killed if accompanied
in public by a woman.

   His description of life in Vienna at the beginning
of this century is a tour
de force. The rotting Hapsburg system was so
preoccupied with its inner crisis
that publicly it permitted only discussion of
trivialities such as the latest
opera. Glenny notes that the political elite sought
"to divert the attention of
the people from politics by keeping them constantly
'amused'. Thus it became a
loyal duty to be 'merry'. "

   Glenny tries to give the narrative shape and
coherence by demolishing the
concept of "this imagined Balkans - a world where
people are motivated not by
rational considerations but by a mysterious congenital
bloodthirstiness". But
barely a page goes by without evidence that confirms
this image.

   A propaganda poster of the Second Balkan War of
1913 was described by the
Carnegie Commission as showing "a Greek evzone holding
a living Bulgarian
soldier with both hands, while he gnaws the face of
his victim with his teeth".
Glenny uses endless doom-laden section headings and
his account of the massacres
carried out by Turkish troops in 1922 serves as an
example of his Grand Guignol
style: "Smyrna sank in the blood of Armenians and
Greeks, and the crazed people
begged any non-Turk for refuge."

   Glenny's attempts to tell us that these people are
not at all brutal or
volatile seem like some curious throwback to Balkan
communism - every time you
see something undesirable through the windows of the
train, he bursts in to pull
the blinds down.

   Take his description of the holocaust in Bulgaria,
which, he says, "confounds
the Balkans stereotype". A few pages later Glenny
reveals that Tsar Boris halted
the Jewish deportations in 1943 because "he could no
longer be confident of a
German victory". This fuels the belief that Balkan
leaders make the Borgias look
principled.

   Glenny's main aim in these outbursts is to convince
us that there have been
many occasions when the outside world shared
responsibility for triggering
Balkan conflicts. This is obviously true, and any
intelligent reader would
deduce it from a less ideological historical account.
But it is the locals alone
who must bear responsibility for the eye-gouging,
baby-beheading and pillage
carried out with their own hands and described here at
such length.

   My own experiences convince me that there is a
post-Ottoman syndrome, not
only in the Balkans but in the Middle East and
Caucasus too. Its hallmarks are
an intense sense of cultural identity (resulting from
the petty restrictions on
non-Muslims imposed by the Ottomans) coupled with
volatility arising from the
geography of the inter-communal patchwork.

   In times of crisis, the indefensibility of many
settlements produces first
hysteria, then a desire to "get your retaliation in
first", and finally a belief
that peace requires the permanent eviction of one's
neighbours.

   Glenny's book provides vital understanding. Had he
succeeded fully, this
would have been a masterpiece. Even if he does not,
the journey is worth taking.
He may fail, but it is a heroic failure and - to
employ a stereotype - just the
kind they admire in the Balkans.


--- end forwarded text