Mands During the Split Was a Surprise for the Serbs. the Sense Of

mands during the split was a surprise for the Serbs. The sense of responsibility to keep its own people free, dictated by the "myth of Kosovo," awakened a violent reaction. No one should justify the violent reaction of the Serbs, but neither should one justify the dishon- esty and stupidity of the West in ignoring the legitimate concerns of the Serbs. John V. A. Fine's "Heretical Thoughts about the Postmodernist Transition" is the most enlightening and, truly, the most damning article about Westem journalists and politicians who have allowed themselves to be "sucked into" the vortex of supporting the se- cessionists who inunediately before and during the war publicly lauded and venerated the Nazi coitaborators of the 1940s and, in the process, have debunked and belittled every- thing the Partisans had done during the war to create a unitary state and promote unity and brotherhood after 1945. The rewriting of Yugoslav history by the intellectuals in Croatia, Bosnia and elsewhere was ignored. The JNA was conveniently used as a scape- goat for all the ills of the war. Fine is one of very few scholars who correctly argues that Yugoslavia was not an artificial country, and that as a nation state it represented the best and most practical solution to the ethnic problems in the Balkans. Yugoslavia did not have to fall apart. We should note here that hardly anyone in the West cared much about the Yugoslavs, that is, those who identified themselves as such and who wanted to see Yugoslavia preserved. No one raised a voice about the genocide against the Yugoslavs. Given the realities of the brutalities of the Yugoslavian civil war and its aftermath, Gale Stokes, whose article concludes the book, offers the most effective and restorative solution but one which the partisans and the politicians of the West are not willing to im- plement. He argues that the most effective way to prevent future conflicts is to redraw the borders between the successor states according to ethnic lines and, if necessary, to under- take the exchange of population. Such a step would certainly cost less in lives and property. Wendy Bracewell points out that the notion of an idealized hajduk (bandit), who alone could recognize oppression and injustice, instilled among the local population a sense of right to challenge the moral legitimacy of the state. Those who want to explore the Ve- netian influence on the region should see Larry Wolff's discussion of morlacchismo in Dalmatia. Barisa Krekic believes that modern states in the Balkans could learn much from the statesmanship of old Ragusa. The article by Charles Jelavich, "South Slav Edu- cation," is based on his life-Iong research. The question is: Was there Yugoslavism in Serbian, Croatian and Slovenian textbooks before 1918? For those who are not familiar with Jelavich's work, this is a good synopsis. Arnold Suppan's "Yugoslavism versus Ser- bian, Croatian, and Slovene Nationalism" offers a short history of the role the three na- tionalisms played during the break-up of the Yugoslav state and the destruction of Yugo- slavism. Andrew Rossos addresses the so-called Macedonian Question and its impact on Balkan politics.

John Jovan Markovic Andrews University

Katherine Verdery. The Vanishing Hectare: Property and Value in Post Socialist Tran- sylvania. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2003. xx, 426 pp. $57.95 (cloth); $26.00 (paper).

This is a must-read book for anyone interested in the transformation of agriculture and rural life in post-socialist Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. The specific focus of the book is the "de-collectivization" process in the Transylvania region of Romania following the collapse of the Communist regime. The author is an anthropologist and as might be expected includes in her book very extensive descriptions of how various indi- viduals perceived the de-collectivization process. These vignettes from conversations with real people provide a much welcome addition to the oftentimes emotionally de- tached descriptions of privatization and market efficiencies that are so typical in discussion of property rights issues in transitional economies. We are very fortunate that Verd- ery conducted extensive field-work in Romania during the socialist period and then again in the post-socialist period as well. Thus, we have some very rich pre- and post-socialist observations. In addition, Verdery's descriptions of the main characters in her book, and there are many, reflect the complexity of the way human beings approach life's challenges. There are descriptions of conflicts between family members over claims to property and details of survival strategies that frequently meant changing course in mid-stream. What is per- haps most striking about these descriptions, which will resonate with those of us who have actually talked to people in post-socialist villages, is the sense that these "peasants" are not simply acted upon by outside forces but really do use oftentimes clever ways to try to deal with very difficult exigencies. Moreover, the author provides us with detailed descriptions of how various actors, with different interests - e.g., elites and non-elites, Roma, and local owners versus land claimants in the city viewed and created strategies to deal with de-collectivization The outstanding quality of this book, however, is the comprehensiveness of the author's theoretical framework and the precise way in which she connects it to her ethno- graphic descriptions. She says: "... I suggest that contrary to those who see decollectivi- zation as a process of (re)creating private property, it is better understood as a process of transforming socialist property. Socialism was not a property void; it had its own structure of property rights, a structure that had a long afterlife in the course of dismantling socialism and was little appreciated by those charged with that task. Their disregard con- tributed much to the difficulties that de-collectivization brought about" (p. xiv). Thus, the main lesson to be learned from the de-collectivization process in Transylva- nia is the naivete of neo-liberal economists who assume that the creation of secure property rights would resolve the main problems associated with market inefficiencies and faimess. Verdery's research illustrates how failing to anticipate the consequences of re- structuring property rights on social relationships and power arrangements can worsen , the condition of small land holders. Following de-collectivization, for example, success in commercial agriculture depended as much or more so on the ability to gain financing outside of the country and access to expensive inputs (fertilizers and pesticides), and labor as it did on owning land. Persons with strong entrepreneurial skills, oftentimes gained from contacts and experiences in businesses outside of agriculture, had considerable competitive advantages over ordinary rural residents in this regard. This illustrates the author's main theme that there is no inherent value in land, but rather that its value stems from the complex set of institutional, power and social relationships within which it is embedded. In the socialist period property relations were embedded in a bureaucratic management system. In the post-socialist period the value of property was transformed but not in the way that the neo-liberals had proposed, because "Property is not just about bundles [i.e., bundles of rights] but about the entire process of bringing a good into use" (p. 355, my emphasis). Changing the value of property, in the post-socialist period, the author argues, is not merely a case of giving persons "rights" to cultivate land, but also involves access to fer- tilizer, labor and other requisites that may require "connections" with persons outside of