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The Serbs: History, Myth and the Destruction of Yugoslavia, Second Edition (Yale Nota Bene)
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Product Description
This wide-ranging, scholarly, and highly readable account opens with the windswept fortresses of medieval kings and a battle lost more than six centuries ago that still profoundly influences the Serbs. Judah describes the idea of "Serbdom" that sustained them during centuries of Ottoman rule, the days of glory during the First World War, and the genocide against them during the Second. He examines the tenuous ethnic balance fashioned by Tito and its unraveling after his death. And he reveals how Slobodan Milosevic, later to become president, used a version of history to drive his people to nationalist euphoria. Judah details the way Milosevic prepared for war and provides gripping eyewitness accounts of wartime horrors: the burning villages and "ethnic cleansing," the ignominy of the siege of Sarajevo, and the columns of bedraggled Serb refugees, cynically manipulated and then abandoned once the dream of a Greater Serbia was lost.
This first in-depth account of life behind Serbian lines is not an apologia but a scrupulous explanation of how the people of a modernizing European state could become among the most reviled of the century. Rejecting the stereotypical image of a bloodthirsty nation, Judah makes the Serbs comprehensible by placing them within the context of their history and their hopes.
Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #524019 in Books
- Published on: 2000-08-11
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Binding: Paperback
- 400 pages
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
The recent war in Bosnia re-ignited ancient hatreds and led to acts of brutality that echoed World War II atrocities: large-scale massacres and "ethnic cleansing". Bosnian Serbs, aided by Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic, systematically murdered, raped, and terrorized Bosnian Muslims as they strove to create a Greater Serbia. Now, journalist Tim Judah provides some perspective on the horrors of the Bosnian conflict with The Serbs. Make no mistake, Judah is not an apologist for Serbian excesses; rather, he aims to explicate the Balkans' long and violent history leading to this latest tragic conflict.
The Serbs begins with the establishment of a Serbian state in the Middle Ages, then follows Serb fortunes through ensuing centuries of conquest, conflict, and oppression. Ethnic cleansing in the Balkans is hardly unique to the Bosnian war; it has been a horrific element of all Balkan conflicts, and Judah convincingly argues that Serbian nationalism is an outgrowth of the Serbs' own sufferings as victims of ethnic cleansing in past conflicts. Anyone interested in current affairs--particularly in the Balkans--will find Tim Judah's The Serbs an engrossing and important exploration of the Bosnian conflict.
From Library Journal
Judah, a correspondent for the LondonTimes and the Economist, satisfies a critical need in the burgeoning literature of the former Yugoslavia by focusing on a single nation. Yugoslavia's destruction emerges less as an event of malicious volition than as the consequence of the "lie" of South Slav unity after World War I. This perspective combines a broad interpretation of nationalism in Serbia proper with the involvement of outside actors and the Serb diaspora. Judah is at his best in depicting the Serbs' powerful myths about their history, their post-World War II repression, and their exploitation by Slobodan Milo sevi'c. For all its detail, this is not a history of Serbia but a work of interpretation whose judgment on recent events is controversial. Neither minimizing the region's historical violence nor exculpating those responsible, the author shuns the simplistic platitudes of religous atavism for a more complex "cycle of vengeance" throughout the area. The book's scope and quality recommend it a place alongside such durable works as Ivo Banac's The National Question in Yugoslavia (1984). For all academic and larger public libraries.?Zachary T. Irwin, Pennsylvania State Univ., Erie
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Kirkus Reviews
Stressing the Serbs' misuse and mythologizing of history, Judah offers an insightful, informed, and trenchant consideration of their history and their collective outlook. The Serbs is a stylish and highly readable account by an experienced journalist who has written for the London Times and the Economist. Its strength as a primer for a general readership lies in Judah's ability--unprecedented among recent journalistic accounts of the current Balkan wars--to make the behavior of individual Serbs and their leaders comprehensible by placing them in the context of Serbian and Balkan history. His presentation is nuanced, focused, and rich with motifs that he follows from the Middle Ages to the present: massive migrations, banditry and widespread violence, militias, ethnic cleansing, and enduring myths of religious and national identity (most importantly, those surrounding the Battle of Kosovo), among others. Significantly, Judah understands the deep and important nature of ties between Serbia and the Serbs outside the country proper, and explains the similarities and differences between the contemporary situation and the past. Especially effective are his citations from texts by eyewitnesses to events in Serbian history (the Balkan wars, rebellions against the Ottomans, WW II) that sound as if they were written yesterday. Judah's study will, of course, offend Serbs mightily. About the anti-Muslim sentiments in Njego's The Mountain Wreath (Serbia's most revered literary classic) he sensibly offers this view: ``Literature that elsewhere would have long been banned from schools is still, subconsciously or not, shaping the worldview of Serbian children.'' He also asserts that, when faced with the Bosnian question, ``many national and sane Serbs simply cease to function as such. They prefer their own long-held convictions to facts which would force them to rethink everything they hold dear.'' Judah's excellent book stands out in a cluttered field, offering the key to Serbia's behavior over the past decade. In Serbia, Judah observes, ``It is what people believe rather than what is true that matters.'' -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Customer Reviews
Serbs love to rewrite history
This is actually a pretty good book. Basic facts:
Since Serbs (aka as Servs) came from Russia in the 7th century they have only caused trouble. Their main problem is arrogance and underestimating others, namely the natives, the Albanians. Serbs will probably not like the book as it tells the truth about their xenophobic Orthodox Church and how it has supported genocide and Serbian concentration camps, but the truth is the truth.
Serbs have started: The First Balkan War (to get Albanian lands and Macedonia), The Second Balkan War (Turkey was their ally and they fought against Bulgaria), WWI, WWII (indirectly by starting WWI,) War against Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo. Other than the battles when Russia backed them, they have them all.
Their pride is the 1389 surrender to the Turks. To make peace they gave their Saint's daughter to the Sultan's harem, and they fought against Christians in Nicolisa, the Second Kosovo War and sent 1500 knights to help the Turks take Constantinople.
A good book
This is a book which presents a history of Serbs in objective manner. Some says it is anti-Serb, but this is not true. It only mentions good as well as dark spots in Serbian history. All periods in Serbian history are covered sufficiently enough, although the emphasis (about half of the book) is on violent dissolution of Yugoslavia. This imbalanced coverage would be a shortcoming if this was a general history of Serbs, yet as its name tells this is not only a book on Serbs but also on destruction of Yugoslavia. When he deals with this period, some events (for example, economy in Serbia, details on atrocities) are given perhaps too great coverage and it would be better if this space were devoted to earlier periods in Serbian history.
Nevertheless, it is a book well worth money for buying and time for reading it.
Miserable propaganda
Throwing usnuported by the facts claims about Serbs and intentionally distorting the truth - are the only marks of this book. Good for garbage bin, as somebody already mentioned here.
