Most Romanian Farmers Have Experienced 'Intense Pauperization' for Lack of Logistic and Information Assistance, While a Prosperous Group of Middlemen Have Emerged" (P

resulted in a situation where "... most Romanian farmers have experienced 'intense pauperization' for lack of logistic and information assistance, while a prosperous group of middlemen have emerged" (p. 229). In Bulgaria, where one-third of the population lives in rural areas, breaking up of vineyards into small cooperative units has had an adverse effect on wine production through a loss of economies of scale. A number of success stories in rural development are reported in the book, especially with respect to non-agricultural uses of rural land. In the Czech Republic rural areas have become more important for recreation and new rural employment. The search for new functions for rural areas has meant a return to some traditional activi- ties that were curtailed under socialist planning. This is seen especially in the conver- sion of second homes in rural areas into private residences. In Poland, efforts by the government, the EU and the World Bank have made some significant improvements in rural services and overall quality of life. The telephone network in rural Poland, for example, increased by 90 percent from 1989 to 1994. Some interesting and, perhaps to some outsiders, even surprising niches have been developed in rural areas in Eastern Europe. The FAO, for example, reported that Slo- vakia produced high quality organic food and private farmers in Slovenia are begin- ning to have some success in specializing in viticulture and livestock rearing. Re- search on the development of niches within which East European agriculture can compete in global food markets is treated at length in a separate chapter at the end of the book. Included in this discussion are organic farming, large-scale food processing (often with cooperative agreements from multinational Western-based companies), farm-based processing (e.g., distilling) and rural tourism. David J. O'Brien University of Missouri-Columbia Branimir Anzulovic. Heavenly Serbia: From Myth to Genocide. New York: New York University Press, 1999. xiv, 233 pp. $24.95. One of the most chilling scenes in all of Balkan literature is found in Ismail Ka- dare's novel Broken April. The overseer and tax collector at an isolated Albanian cas- tle is reflecting on the relationship between fallow fields, cultivated ones, and the blood tax, a due collected from feuding families. He recalls his travels through the desolate countryside and concludes that agriculture is a waste of time and that good harvests signify a meager year for the region's blood feuds. He muses that "Each man chose between corn and vengeance. Some, to their shame, chose corn...." Readers are thus confronted with some of the most notorious social and cultural characteristics commonly ascribed to Balkan peoples: violence and stubbornness. Traits similar to these, which Branimir Anzulovic (who does not use Kadare in his work) discusses under the rubrics "patriarchal-heroic" or "pagan-tribal" culture, are seen by many ob- servers today as one of the triggers or intensifiers of the recent wars of.Yugoslav succession. Speculating about a people's national character is always a risky business. In Heavenly Serbia, Anzulovic charges into a number of historical minefields with the aim of explaining how Serbian nationalism contributed both to the outbreak of the wars of Yugoslav succession and to the viciousness of those wars. He has assembled and synthesized - into a clear and gripping but erudite volume - a great deal of historical, literary, and religious material. He also, properly indicates his awareness of the limitations of this type of work when he writes that "tribalistic cataloguing of nations into good and evil, heavenly and demonic is dangerous" and that "nations ... are too complex to fit any black-and-mltite schemes." (p. 180) With these issues of frame- work established, it should still be noted that this book will certainly find both ardent supporters and determined detractors on the question of whether it presents the Ser- bian experience fairly and completely and whether it succeeds in achieving its goals. Anzulovic's book makes for exciting reading. Covering Serbian history from St. Sava's day - through the Turkish occupation, the Enlightenment, national revival, and Tito's Jugoslavia right up to to the disastrous conflicts of the 1990s, Anzulovic fo- cuses on culture in its national (unique) and eventually nationalist (exclusivist and ex- pansionist) aspects. The author is at his best in his analysis of the work of important Serbian cultural figures such as Njegos and Vuk Karadzic. His analysis of Serbia under Ottoman Turkish rule is also excellent, and Western readers without access to recent Serbian literature will also benefit from his study of "poisonous best-sellers" which lays bare the shocking preoccupation with intercommunal violence in some of the works of Vuk Draskovic, Vojislav Lubarda, and others. Anzulovic's argument is essentially one of "historia est magister vitae." The Serbs are seen as having a predisposition to violence that has been conditioned by the tradi- tionally "high level of endemic violence" in the region; the ideas and leaders of the nation-bound Orthodox Church; recent and traditional literature in both the high and folk modes; Western acceptance and propagation of stereotypes of Serbs as freedom- loving (instead of lawless) and courageous (instead of reckless) defenders of Christi- anity; and the condoning of genocide by modern utopian movements of political gnos- ticism. Even more essential than all these characteristics, however, is the Serbs' medieval loss of statehood and the subjugation to the Ottoman Empire. This trauma has become incorporated in the myths surrounding the Battle of Kosovo (1389), which Anzulovic analyzes in detail. The author asserts that the nature of Emperor Dusan's state has been "embel- lished" in Serbian tradition, as has the process by which Serbia came under Turkish rule. The drive to vanquish Serbia's enemies and resurrect this medieval empire, called "heavenly" to reflect its moral purity and extreme yet elusive desirability, has become "the dominant Serbian national myth." Cultivated by intellectuals and politi- cians, this myth is the "psychological mechanism that makes it possible for large numbers of basically normal citizens to engage in collective crimes or to accept them without protest." (p. 3) The myth then - together with the cultural characteristics de- scribed above - did not cause the violent break-up of Yugoslavia, but it would be "er- . , roneous to deny a connection between the two." (p. 2) . The book wisely avoids simplistic explanations of cause and effect. Anzulovic de- nies that any one element of this nationalist passion necessarily causes war. In the case of literary works, for instance, he asserts more that the literature and today's violence might have a common cultural ancestor, one that helps provide for the "bellicos- .

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