Montenegro in Rebecca West's Black Lamb and Grey
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MONTENEGRO IN REBECCA WEST’S BLACK LAMB AND GREY FALCON: THE LITERATURE OF TRAVELLERS AS A SOURCE FOR POLITICAL GEOGRAPHY CRNA GORA U DJELU REBECCE WEST BLACK LAMB AND GREY FALCON: PUTOPISI KAO IZVOR PODATAKA U POLITIČKOJ GEOGRAFIJI ANDRÉ-LOUIS SANGUIN1 1Sveučilište Paris-Sorbonne / University of Paris-Sorbonne UDK: 911.3:32:82-992](497.16)=111 Primljeno / Received: 2011-06-30 Pregledni rad Review The literature of travellers represents a key foundation upon which geography was built as a social construct. It depicts the territorial reality on a personal level. The literature of travellers has been at the origin of popular geographical knowledge. In 1941 the great British novelist Rebecca West (1892-1983) published a chronicle of her travels through Yugoslavia from 1936 to 1938: Black Lamb and Grey Falcon. Her book is a good example and a relevant test of the literature of travellers as a source of political geography. Actually, Black Lamb and Grey Falcon is West’s political response to the Balkans rather than an account of her journey through Yugoslavia. Through her writing, West has contributed to the shape of a different public opinion about Yugoslavia and its peoples which continues to live on. Moreover, her book strongly influenced the Anglo-Saxon policy makers on their comprehension of Yugoslavia. West significantly depicted Montenegro in its history, people, traditions and politics by means of pictures regarding Boka Kotorska, Budva, Cetinje, Kolasin, Mount Lovcen, Plav, and Skadar Lake. On the basis of the chapter devoted to Montenegro in West’s book, the paper will focus on its features of political geography through an analysis of significant geosymbols. Key words: Political Geography, National Identity, Geography of Representations, Spatial Perception, Geosymbols, Travel Literature, Montenegro, Yugoslavia, the Balkans, Rebecca West Putopisna literatura ključni je temelj na kojem je geografija nastala kao društvena pojava. Ona opisuje prostornu realnost iz perspektive pojedinca. Putopisna literatura je izvor popularnoga geografskog znanja. Godine 1941. poznata britanska spisateljica Rebecca West (1892.-1983.) objavila je kroniku svojih putovanja kroz Jugoslaviju u razdoblju od 1936. do 1938. pod naslovom Black Lamb and Grey Falcon. Njezina knjiga je odličan primjer putopisne literature kao izvora podataka u političkoj geografiji. U stvari, Black Lamb and Grey Falcon je politički odgovor Rebecce West na Balkan, a ne prikaz njezina putovanja kroz Jugoslaviju. Svojim zapažanjima West je pridonijela oblikovanju javnog mišljenja o Jugoslaviji i narodima koji u njoj žive, a koje je i danas prisutno. Nadalje, njezina knjiga imala je snažan utjecaj na razmišljanja anglo- saksonskih političara o Jugoslaviji. West je izuzetno opisala Crnu Goru, njezinu povijest, ljude, tradiciju i politiku kroz opise Boke kotorske, Budve, Cetinja, Kolašina, Lovćena, Plava i Skadarskog jezera. Analizirajući odlomak iz knjige vezan uz Crnu Goru, ovaj rad se fokusira na obilježja političke geografije kroz analizu značajnih geosimbola. Ključne riječi: politička geografija, nacionalni identitet, geografija prikaza, prostorna percepcija, geosimboli, putopisna literatura, Crna Gora, Jugoslavija, Balkan, Rebecca West 253 A. Sanguin Geoadria 16/2 (2011) 253-260 Travel Literature and Geography: an ethnography, while the private travel account Some Theoretical Issues takes the shape of a travelogue (Bianchi, 1985; Della Dora, 2009). Black Lamb and Grey Falcon Halfway between higher culture and talk made a contribution in the development of the litterature, the travel book is a literary genre which Anglo-Saxon public opinion about Yugoslavia and is considered a popular work today. For centuries its peoples. This process of forming opinion is a it was one of the key bases upon which geography complex one, and it acts at different levels. West’s was built as a social construct (Scaramellini, book shoulders a very strong political dimension. 1996). Discovery travel can be considered a She even explained that within the travel literature typical experience of modern Europe (Stafford, the study of interactions of political and religious 1984; Charmasson, 2010). Consequently, the ideas was the matter (West, 1958). travel book in a way represents the heart of the One can read Black Lamb and Grey Falcon relationship between the travel experience and the as a sustained meditation upon the theme of geographical knowledge. Travel literature depicts power. This meditation is present throughout the the territorial reality. Nevertheless, it is done on book. The depth of West’s political committment a personal level which has the effect of distorting underlines the author’s bitterness when Yugoslavia the images and selecting the memories. Travel became Communist in 1945. Commander of the literature is a true archive of cognitive practices. Order of the British Empire, West (1892-1983) was The account of journeys realized in 1936-1937- an active feminist who took part in the suffragette 1938 by Rebecca West through Yugoslavia was movement before WW1. She was a radical socialist titled Black Lamb and Grey Falcon. It is truly an at the beginning of her writer’s career, but she exemplary text. Why? It offers many significant became a passionate anti-Communist at the end historical data which are accompanied by the of her life. She wrote papers for The New Yorker, author’s comments about a not well-known country The New Republic, The Sunday Telegraph, and by the Westerners at that time, and a part of what The New York Herald Tribune. She attended was still the Ottoman Empire in 1912. From the the Nuremberg Trial. If Black Lamb and Grey strict viewpoint of political geography, West’s book Falcon is a standard of the travel literature, this represents an outstandingly important document book, widely favourable to the Serbs, represents insofar as one can consider it an intelligence report a noteworthy review of history and ethnography which had a role in shaping the perception of of the Balkans, but also an advanced and clear Yugoslavia among the political establishment in thought regarding Nazism. Great Britain and in the US. Black Lamb and Grey Falcon is a woman’s testimony based on personal experience of Rebecca West and Yugoslavia Yugoslavia, in which one finds specific forms of feminine sensitivity and expression. Consequently, It is very clear that the unchanging character of it is not always easy for a masculine observer to a country’s history means that its territory and its decipher the subtlety and sensitivity of West’s people cannot be reinterpreted without the traveller Yugoslav experiences, notably the significances being overwhelmed by the absolute weight of the which are attached to those experiences and the past legacies (Barnes, Duncan, 1992). Black Lamb ways in which she articulates them (Berdoulay, and Grey Falcon was published in two volumes in 1988). Rebecca West’s analysis often follows 1941 just when Great Britain fought alone for its more from an anthropological commitment survival against the Nazi barbarity. In 1936, 1937 than from any sense of adventure. Within such a and 1938, Rebecca West did not visit a Yugoslavia special context, it is necessary to establish a clear at war when she and her husband, the banker distinction between travel and tourism. West Henry Maxwell Andrews (married in 1930), never considered herself a tourist, but a traveller. ventured into a country which the West did not Historically speaking, tourists were those who know well and which took the name of Yugoslavia followed in travellers’ footsteps. The key feature only in 1929. Of course, there was no civil war of tourism is the travel realized as leisure. In in Yugoslavia but one must say that Yugoslavia contrast, the traveller is involved with serious was an artificial creation of the victorious Allied work. The travel is an acceptation, a legitimate Powers for the benefit of Serbia which had paid purpose in itself. The public travel account takes the price of blood at their side between 1914 and the exceptional, abstract and generalized feature of 1918. At the moment of Rebecca West’s journeys, 254 A. Sanguin Geoadria 16/2 (2011) 253-260 the country was suffering from Serb centralism. emphasized with strenght her hate for Nazism which The Ustashe separatism in Croatia was a minor was present in Germany since 1933. This is also and irrelevant community of several hundred the reason why she has nothing but contempt for members, most of whom were in Italy. In the the autonomist process which led to the founding 1930s, the most important political party was the of the Ustashe Croatian State (1941-1945). Let us conciliatory Croatian Peasant Party led by Vladko speak clearly: on one hand, West did not like the Maček. That party frequently won the elections Croats very much because she compared them to on the present-day Croatia’s territory, and it used Irish Catholics, sometimes unfairly. On the other democratic methods for improving the position hand, she identified herself very strongly with of the Croatian people within the Kingdom of the Serbs. She took her choice within the context Yugoslavia. From 1933, Nazi Germany used of that time: Yugoslavia was a constitutional ethnic cleansing (Jews and Gypsies), and political monarchy under the regency of Prince Paul. It murder became common: Stjepan Radić (1871- was not so much a nation as a federation of Serbs, 1928), leader of the Croatian Peasant Party, had Croats and Slovenes, plus Bosnians, Macedonians, been slaughtered on the floor of the National Montenegrins and a scatter of diverse minorities. Assembly in Belgrade, whereas King Alexander I When backing up one of the Yugoslav wings, West had been murdered in Marseilles in 1934. During did not state only a personal preference because her Yugoslav tours, West quickly discovered an she also placed herself in a particular political and underlying stream of violence which was trapped historical context: Yugoslavia had been invaded, in the collective memory and which was linked to within 10 days, in April 1941 by the Wehrmacht the stormy past of that Balkan area.