TLS

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n his earlier work. The Death of Yugoslavia ministry's "White Book", published in 1998, where (1992). Misha Glenny expertly chronicled the movement is seen as purely terroristic, and its I the end of the second Yugoslavia. The Serbocentric views community-defence clement ignored. Although the British commander of UNPROFOR, General Sir failure at Dayton to deal with Kosovo is well set Michael Rose, referred to Glenny (a BBC out, there is nothing about the political origins of correspondent) as his main guide to the history of JAMES PETTIFER Bulgaria Nevertheless, in Bismarck's eyes, at the KLA in the Kosovo People's Movement and the region in his recently published memoirs other underground organizations least, Serbia had full recognition as a Balkan In The Balkans 1804-1999. Glenny seeks to player. By contrast, the fateful decision was taken Neither of the two seminal English-language find the historical causes of the conflict, set out in histories of Kosovo, published last year by Noel Misha Glenny there that the Albanians did not constitute a a single-volume account of Balkan history over proper nationality, they were merely inhabitants Malcolm and Miranda Vickers, appears in the the past 200 years. He has an explicit thesis, bibliography, nor do important books on Serbia, by THE BALKANS 1804-1999 Nationalism, of a geographical area. This decision founded the based in the old "non-aligned" Titoist tradition, Albanian national question that has haunted the Tim Judah (1997) or Croatia by Marcus Tanner that the troubles of the Balkans are inextricably war and the great powers 276pp Crania (I997) or Branka Magas's 1993 work on Books. £25. 1163070904 region ever since. linked to great-power meddling in the region, Glenny's account of early twentieth-century Yugoslavia in the late 1980s There are serious today as in the time of Venizelos or Bismarck. It history also contains what many will see as errors in the account of recent Albanian history: is an appealing thesis, but given the demise of we are told, for instance, that "in 1947. the ency about religion leads to difficulties with the special pleading on behalf of Serbia, the bloody Titoism. the result is a book that is in some ways Albanian leaders, Koci Xoxe and Enver Hoxha, main argument, for as Hugh Poulton and others Serb takeover in 1912 of what is now the Former curiously dated. This is a pity, as Glenny is a agreed that their country would be absorbed as a have shown conclusively, it is the faultlines of Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia in particular. good journalist and he has judiciously selected the seventh republic into Yugoslavia". In fact, the religion that usually determine Balkan identity in Although Glenny acknowledges that the sieges of topics that illustrate his argument, of which the exact opposite was the case, with Hoxha only the end. Titoism did nothing to change this, how- Kumanovo and Skopje "unleashed the full force Greek Civil War is the most plausible recent winning control of the party for his nationalist ever unpalatable that may be to modernizing sec- of nationalist hatred against defenceless villages", example policies after Xoxe's arrest for collaboration with ular liberals in Washington, or Brussels. which involved "massacres" of Muslim Turks and But as Barbara Jelavic showed in her multi- the Yugoslavs, the Tito-Stalin split and Xoxe's This book is essentially Serbocentric. Glenny Albanians, it was nevertheless "an astute volume series on Balkan history, to cover even subsequent execution docs not chronicle the fall of the Ottoman Empire campaign which greatly impressed foreign the main events in a region famous for its over- In his account of late 1998 and early 1999, in the Balkans so much as the rise of Serbia, and observers". The prominence of the terrorist Black production of history requires much space, and in Glenny makes no direct reference at all to the then Yugoslavia, as the favoured protege of Hand organization in Serbian politics is also a single volume, even if a very large one, there are appalling sufferings of the Kosovar Albanians Britain, France and the United States. Other underplayed, whereas similar military offshoots bound to be difficulties. There are numerous caused by Serb paramilitary terror and, either nations exist largely in relation to Serbia. Their in other countries' national movements against judgments that will enrage intellectuals of the dif- intentionally or not, lends credence to the claims of struggle against the Porte in the early nineteenth oppressors - from IMRO to the Kosovo ferent nationalities, and may deprive the book of critics of the NATO war that the bombing itself century is thus the foundation stone of the Liberation Army (KLA)-are harshly judged. serious consideration in their universities. It is caused the refugee movements. There is also an narrative. This leads to odd distortions in The best and the worst parts of the book are difficult to know who is likely to be most attack on NATO's alleged lack of responsibility interpretations of the various liberation struggles. those covering the past ten years. As can be offended, the Greeks or the Albanians, although towards the Former Yugoslav Macedonia, with a The Greek War of Independence is played down. expected from the author of The Death of Yugo- Croats and Turks also have some very bad suitably rosy-tinted picture painted of this small, The struggles of the eighteenth-century Greeks slavia, the machinations in the dying federation moments in the book. For Glenny, Serbia is the nomenclatura-dominated country. Again, it is against the Ottomans are absent, the London are well explored, but Slobodan Milosevic's centre of the Balkan universe, Bulgaria, Bosnia tempting to feel that the exact opposite of Misha Greek Committee is subjected to a hatchet job, as regime comes off lightly. The centrality of Greece and Romania have satellite status, and Glenny's view is likely to be true, in that, with is philhellenism; the fact that Greece, unlike Kosovo to the rise of Milosevic's power is not Slovenia and Albania are small, unimportant NATO installed there. FYROM at last has an Serbia, had a middle-class intelligentsia with emphasized enough, and Glenny contends that planets on the edge of the galaxy effective guarantor of its borders. wealth and good international connections is "Milosevic's real aim was not to end Kosovo's A major problem in Glenny's thesis is its secu- It is instructive, perhaps, to think about who the ignored. autonomy". No evidence is produced to support larism. Islam is neglected, and the role of the ideal reader of this book might be. In the case of This leads to other highly partisan conclusions: this. It will seem an extraordinary viewpoint to Serbian Orthodox Church is greatly minimized. Misha Glenny's earlier hooks, it could have been Glenny writes of the Congress of Berlin, "the the tens of thousands of Kosovars who went into The Vatican is not discussed as a political power Sir Michael Rose, but with this book it would be Congress reserved its shabbiest treatment for the prison or exile in the late 1980s and early 90s to in the region, which is a considerable omission. more likely to be someone in the Hotel Moscow Serbs". Perhaps the Serbs did not get what they escape Yugoslav state terror. Glenny gives an outstanding account of the cafe in Belgrade. wanted, but then neither did most other Balkan Serious difficulties also arise with the most Balkan Holocaust, and is good on the Jewish peoples, with the exception of recent war. Much of the language used to describe world of Thessaloniki, but the overall inconsist- the KLA resembles Milosevic's propaganda