Customer Reviews

The Balkan Wars: Conquest, Revolution, and Retribution from the Ottoman Era to the Twentieth Century and Beyond

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is a fascinating and well-researched historical account of the Balkan region and how its legends and myths have fueled the historic and ongoing barbarity. Because of this focus, the author has chosen to organize the book thematically rather than chronologically, and I think the results are compelling. By examining each of the different cultural, religious, and political aspects and organizing the historical events and personages as evidence/illustration of what he's talking about, the author gives the reader a chance to more fully understand the complexity of the hatreds that have plagued these peoples for hundreds of years.

The Balkan Wars: Conquest, Revolution, And Retributions From The Ottoman Era To The Twentieth Century And Beyond by Andre Gerolymatos (Chair of Hellenic Studies, Simon Fraser University, British Columbia, Canada) is an intensely detailed chronology of bloodshed and territorial strife in the Balkans, ranging from the excesses and outrages of Ottoman era to the genocides of the twentieth century including the recent brutalities of "ethnic cleansing". Focusing primarily on the clashes between different ethnic groups over land (sea battles, according to the author, deserve separate and more detailed treatment), The Balkan Wars strives not only to present a straightforward account of a history free from exaggeration or myth making, and also answers core questions about the roots of the wars and ethnic violence that have habitually plagued the people of this land. The Balkan Wars is very highly recommended reading and an impressive contribution to European History Studies.

Certain populations seem destined for greatness. Others seemed forever cursed by their very existence. Unfortunately for residents of Southeast Europe, the latter is much more the case than the former. In his important work The Balkan Wars, Andre Gerolymatos illustrates how war and brutality have made life for Balkan residents as bleak as their geographical landscape.

Gerolymatos randomly moves between the recent past and distant history to show how little has changed in the psyche of Balkan soldiers. Brutal murder and rape are not new concepts to the region. Ethnic cleansing is not a new concept, and has been around since Christian and Muslim first fought over disputed territory. Political upheaval through assassination, and suppression of nationalism through dehumanizing acts of violence, span the centuries in this war-torn region. The Great Powers are in part responsible as their only interests in this part of Europe seem to be when geopolitics suits their needs.

Gerolymatos covers his subject well, though he may give too much credit to Austria-Hungary as a true world power, and he rarely fails to mention the role sex played in the material he covers. He offers solid evidence of the role the Eastern Orthodox Church played in its unique position of dominance within a Muslim imperial capitol city. Maps would have made the book more easily understood, but careful reading reveals the deep knowledge the author has of the subject.

This book is ready to take a prominent role in works on this subject, and offers some of the better details of the 1912-3 Balkan Wars that set the stage for World War One.

I learned more about the history of the Balkans in this book than I had learned in all the years of reading and TV watching before now. However, I really had to work at it.
I found myself reading and re-reading the same sentences over and over trying to figure out what the author was trying to say. Sometimes the problem was his skipping a few hundred years in narrating events, without telling you that was what he was doing. It was not infrequent to find a series of events told in a non-serial manner.
Another problem can be demonstrated with this sentence from page 86: "At dawn, two more shots shattered the evening air as the last hostages, Frederick Vyner and Count Alberto de Boyl, were each executed with a bullet to the back of the head." If you found yourself rereading that sentence wondering why you were not able to grasp its meaning immediately, you have company. There are a great many sentences and paragraphs with this kind of internal consistencey problem in this book.
The early chapters seem to have been written with some care to communicate the human aspect of the Balkan situation. However, by mid-book, the author seems to have tired of his subject, and tends to list events in catalog form. The absence of context in these situations (often even to the extent of leaving the historical timing uncertain), leaves much to be desired.
Yes, I am glad I read it. I did learn important background material from it. However, it was not the pleasure reading history usually is for me.

The violence in this book is so appalling that it becomes almost amusing after a while.There is far more emphasis on violence than on culture. Some of the anecdotes are interesting, and nearly mythical in their dimensions, particularly the ones occurring in the 14th century--but also the stories surrounding at least two 20th Century political assassinations, stories surrounding the figure of Ali Pasha(and of the legendary Albanians who would not submit to his rule), the incredible brutality of the Turks against the Greek Orthodox Church in Constantinople during the Greek Independence Rebellion,and also against the Armenians, the story of the occupation of Constantinople during the 4th Crusade, and the like. One regularly encounters decapitations, genocide, highway banditry, and irregular armies in this book. There is also some extensive discussion of the role of Europe (and Russia) in diplomatically resolving the conflicts in the region.

I'm ambivalent about this book: on one hand I found it very useful; on the other, I suspect that objectively speaking it is not very good.

In reading history I often find I'm frustrated at being unable, even after digesting whatever facts are on offer, to enter very deeply into the worldviews of those I'm reading about. Thucydides has been criticized for interspersing his narrative with unhistorical speeches, but I find these enormously helpful as conveying something of the self-interpretations of the actors.

What Gerolymatos gives us here is something like Thucydides' speeches: he wants to show what the Balkan peoples themselves have made of their wars, that is, how they remember them, and how this memory shapes the ongoing conflicts. So there are certain archetypes, like the Noble Assassin, that have been inherited from the Middle Ages, and continue to be applied; there are certain unchanging sociological facts that have shaped Balkan wars for centuries, like the habit of fluid and frequent transitions back and forth between simple brigandage and guerrilla warfare and the celebration of both in popular lore.

Memory of past wars affects present ones also as wrongs to be righted and atrocities to be avenged. Gerolymatos points out, without really explaining why, that Balkan wars are not just Clausewitzian political struggles "by other means", but existential trials involving pointless-seeming cruelties and humiliations, which are then cultivated in long memories. These memories play such an important role because the Balkan peoples come so new to nationalism and national identities: for 2000 years, more or less, they had belonged to empires which came to identify subject peoples according to religion, not nationality. So the sense of common wrongs to avenge seems to have filled in for absent national traditions in the creation of modern identities.

This kind of thing was just what I had been looking for, and am grateful for finding it here. But the book is under-conceptualized, under-theorized--it isn't very clear about what exactly it is doing or why. It is inconsistent in its memory-focus, and sometimes, especially in dealing with late 19th and early 20th century wars, it just gives potted accounts of the battles themselves. It doesn't seem to contain much original historiography, so the fact that it is so hazy conceptually is a serious flaw.

What an exasperating book! It is so poorly organized that I hesitate to even invoke the concept of organization (it reminds me of a Jackson Pollack painting). From paragraph to paragraph and page to page, the story jumps back and forth in time. Some points are repeated multiple times for no discernable reason (most likely the author forgot that he had already made the point). Digressions are frequent; transitions are non-existent. Actually, the last three chapters are somewhat better than the first four; perhaps the author is more familiar with Balkan history post 1821.

Although individual sentences are, for the most part, written well enough, there still is too much trite and/or florid writing (and too many peculiar word choices), such as: "The Balkan mountain ranges have acted as a place of refuge for some and a remote graveyard for others. * * * These defiant hills have provided the backdrop for centuries of human turmoil. On Thursday, April 21, 1870, * * * death stalked among the craggy footpaths and thorny bushes of lower Mount Pentilicus."

There appear to be at least a few worthwhile and even astute observations and I detect no patently obvious biases (although I am not particularly knowledgeable in the area), but the book is such a mishmash that it is difficult to feel comfortable relying on any of its content. I understand that Balkan history is an extremely complicated affair, but I had hoped that this 250-page overview would provide some clarity. Alas. I suppose I now have a slightly better idea of where the river banks and the main channel are, but otherwise everything remains as clear as mud.

Not very well structured and, as a result, the sort of book that tends to go in one ear and out the other. Altogether a depressing treatment of a historically volatile and brutal region.

After reading several books on the Balkans, I believe the confusing history becomes clear after reading these books (in this order): The Balkan Wars by Gerolymatos, The Balkans: A Short History by Mazower, and The Balkans: Nationalism, War, & the Great Powers by Glenny.

You won't be disappointed with this book. This is the complete story, not just a recap of events in modern history. Most recent history books attempt to justify one group or another by presenting a one sided story. This book shows that all the tribal groups celebrate both victories and defeats with equal enthusiasm. Every defeat is to be avenged.

P.4 "Most Western political analysts had initially almost refused to consider the role of history in the Balkan crises, and they underestimated the forces of nationalism and religion after the collapse of the Communist system. After all, shouldn't half a century of Communist rule have toned down national consciousness and extinguished any vestiges of religious fervor?"

P.5 "The Balkan past is littered with the tribalism, ethnic nationalism, warmongering, myth-making, and self-serving symbolism of oppression that scar most societies in transition, in the past as well as the present."

P.14 "The Balkan states stand at the crossroads of Asia, Europe, Russia, and Africa. Accordingly, the region has been the highway for armies large and small. The memory of great defeats and great massacres has shaped at least part of the identity and commonality of each nation, tribe, or group in the Balkans." What made no sense to you during the 1990s or even the 20th century will be very clear after you read the book.

P.30 "The Kosovo legend in its final form includes an assassin, a martyr, and a traitor." The author goes on to tell you all the details he has uncovered and it is quite a story of intrigue and surprise.

During the 2 decades leading up to WWI, Serb radicals employed assassination as an instrument to free all Serbs. Archduke Ferdinand was the last for many years. The history of the region and especially the geography of the land (very detailed in the book) created pockets of "bandits" which materially affected the everyday life of the inhabitants.

Forced population resettlement has been going on for a long time. The resistance to the Nazis had its roots centuries before in the bandits living in the mountains. All these subjects set this book apart as a valuable resource.

How the Ottomans governed Catholics, Greek Orthodox, Jews, and their own Muslims is detailed and will probably surprise you. The long rule of the Ottoman Empire actually resulted in less violence against the populace than what happened after the major powers created separate nations. The groups that we think of as enemies have a long history of divided loyalties and fighting as allies. Recent historians have missed this and thus misled their readers.

I can always judge how good a book is by how fast I read it. So, it gets four stars. I read it pretty fast, but not 5-star fast... I don't agree with the people that commented that the book was disjointed. Though at times the author digresses to future time periods, these digressions are always relevant to the time periods discussed.

I learned a lot from this book about the Balkan/Ottoman history. It's not extremely extremely detailed, which was good for an introductory Balkan reader.

What I was disappointed in was, for the description of the 1912-1913 Balkan wars, the author really needed to provide maps. He went into some detail in the army troop movements, naming cities and areas that I have no idea where they were.