Kaplan, an American journalist who lived in Greece for seven years, is a gifted writer with a marvelous feel for the exotic, woolly, mountainous Balkan peninsula. This vividly impressionistic travelogue splices a long trip in 1990 with sojourns in the '80s and forays into history, resulting in an unpredictable adventure that illuminates the Balkan nations' ethnic clashes and near-anarchic politics. Kaplan dwells on Greece's modern political culture, which, he shows, has much closer ties to the multiethnic Balkans than is generally acknowledged. He views Romania's history as a long, desperate compromise with a succession of invaders, marred by decades of Turkish rule, Nazism and Communism. He talks with Gypsies, scales steep Baroque cities, tours Transylvania, Bulgaria and Albania and visits the remnant Jewish community of Salonika, which was decimated by the Nazis. Kaplan ( Soldiers of God: With the Mujahidin in Afghanistan ) sheds light on the Serb-Croat dispute, which he traces in part back to Croatia's fascists of WW II and to the Vatican's perceived stirring up of anti-Semitic feelings among Croats. He finds seeds of civil war germinating in Yugoslavia, where he confronts "the principal illness of the Balkans: conflicting dreams of lost imperial glory." Photos.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Though travelogs from the world's troubled spots are now legion, seldom if ever do they possess the historical insight and literary style of Balkan Ghosts. The product of over a decade of travel and research, this is one of precious few works that allows a Western reader a look into the tortured soul of the Balkan peoples. Focusing on the former Yugoslavia and on Rumania, Bulgaria, and Greece, Kaplan takes the reader on a marvelous tour through the peninsula, using as his own guides the writings of John Reed, C.L. Sulzberger, and Rebecca West. In each nation he encounters characters who are both fascinating and frightening and accompanies each adventure with a concise and powerful historical sketch that makes for a superior narrative. Thoroughly captivating, the sections on Serbia, Rumania, and Greece are of special interest, particularly in light of recent developments in the region. Kaplan is a master of this genre, having written extensively for several major magazines as well as producing the acclaimed Soldiers of God: With the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan ( LJ 12/89). A fine work recommended by all interested in the development of nationalism in the Balkans.
- Joseph W. Constance Jr., St. Anselm Coll. Lib., Manchester, N.H.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Kirkus Reviews
Timely and vivid view of the Balkans, by Kaplan (Soldiers of God, 1989). Kaplan lived in Athens for seven years and has traveled frequently in Croatia, Bosnia, Albania, Moldavia, and Bulgaria. Although he's most familiar with Romania and Greece, he provides deep and literate insight into events throughout the region. Moreover, he's read a good deal of what historians, writers, and journalists of previous eras have written, and he uses to good effect the observations of travelers like Rebecca West, John Reed, Lawrence Durrell, and Oliver Manning. Kaplan's text--part history, part travelogue, part political analysis--conveys both his insights and theirs with a useful sense of the history of the area: of the influence of Turkey, which, West observed, had ``ruined the Balkans, with a ruin so great that it has not yet been repaired''; of the deep ethnic and religious rifts that prevail in lands like Bosnia, ``rural, isolated, and full of suspicions and hatreds to a degree that the sophisticated Croats of Zagreb could barely imagine''; of the conflicting dreams of lost imperial glory, with each nation demanding that its borders revert to where they were ``at the exact time when its own empire had reached its zenith''; and of the pattern of Romanian history, ``long periods of docility interrupted by brief but spectacular eruptions of violence.'' This violence was mirrored in Yugoslavia, which, Kaplan notes, ``did not deteriorate suddenly, but...step by step, throughout the 1980s.'' The author's descriptions of Greek politics are equally astute, as is his discussion of the implications of the exodus of ethnic Germans throughout the area back to Germany. Meanwhile, over the whole of the Balkans broods the ghost of Communism, which will ``exit the world stage revealed for what it truly was: fascism, without fascism's ability to make the trains run on time.'' A memorable portrait of an increasingly important region. (Photographs--not seen.) -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
