Customer Reviews

Seasons in Hell: Understanding Bosnia's War

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4 star:		(1)
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I am surprised no one else has written on this book. I only say "don't let this be the first book you read on the Balkans" because it really seems to scare you, especially what the Serbians did. Thus, I wonder is it "anti-Serb?" I don't think so, I think it reflects the truth. Although, there are many passages I remember, that of the migration out of Bosnia and seeing body parts such as a hand sticks out in my mind, so does forcing innocent parties to walk through minefields. If this is all true, this book seems to be the most damning in support of Nato involvement. I have read now, many books on the Balkans, this is a must read. I am sorry I have not seen others comment on this.

This is a reporter's personal account of what he experienced, "a first draft of history" as the expression goes. I give it five stars, not for its scholarship or its comprehensiveness--it is neither scholarly nor complete--but for its captivating sheer vividness and passion.

Vulliamy was one of a small cadre of Western jounalists who tried to make sense of the Bosnian catastrophe for the outside world. Others also went on to write fine books: Chuck Sudetic, Misha Glenny, and Tim Judah among them. While Vietnam evoked a kind of bored cynicism in the press, Bosnia seems to have evoked deep and passionate engagement.

Vulliamy first became renowned when he exposed the Serbs' infamous Omarska concentration camp near Banja Luka, and promulgated the memorable photo of the frail Muslim prisoner with the bony arms and protruding ribs that was one of the first incitements of western interest in the war. Although the narrative is mostly limited to Vulliamy's own experience, that experience was broad, taking him to many of the key sites at key times--Vinkovci in Eastern Croatia, where the Serb-Croation war began; Bijelijna in Northeastern Bosnia, where the Serb-Bosnian war began; Prozor in Herzegovinia, where the Croat--Muslim war began; Sarajevo trying to hang on during the seige; Tuzla in East-Central Bosnia, which remained in Bosnian Army control throughout, and where waves of refugees from the ethnic cleansing in the East retreated; and Travnik in Central Bosnia, "the crossroads of the war". Metaphors from prior wars pervade the depictions of refugees and destruction: "Beirut" and "the Ho Chi Minh Trail."

Like others steeped in the place, Vulliamy notes that Bosnia before the war was ethnically thoroughly mixed ("ethnically" is a misnomer; in Bosnia it means nothing more than "religiously"). Today, each region is largely "cleansed". Banja Luka was always mainly Orthodox and Sarajevo mainly Muslim, but only by slim majorities. Today, each is almost 100% "pure", if that is an acceptable word for it. The terror and forced-resettlement that occasioned this are the central themes of the book. Vulliamy recounts with stop-frame drama the sudden turnound of the Croats from allies of the Bosnians to enemies, overnight in the town of Prozor.

The book was published in 1994, before the Srebrenica massacre, before the NATO bombing, and before the Dayton Accords. Little is lost by that timing. There are lots of appraisals of that miserable war. This book puts you there.

This short review is from "Books on Bosnia" published by The Bosnian Institute. Powerful account of the nature of the war in Bosnia (especially central Bosnia) during 1992-3, by a leading correspondent. Of particular interest for its coverage of the Croat-Muslim conflict, though it is less reliable on the background to Yugoslavia's break-up and descent into war