Calic , Marie-Janine The Great Cauldron: A History of Southeastern Europe by Elizabeth Janik (review)

Abstract

SEER, 99, 3, JULY 2021 566 decade in the twentieth century, that of national awakening, followed by a declaration of independence in 1991 and two decades of searching, which led to the Republic of Moldova becoming the poorest country in Europe. Finally, we fully agree with her conclusion: ‘Moldova is likely to remain for the foreseeable future as contested a cultural and political space as it has always been’ (p. 183). Faculty of History Laurențiu Rădvan Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iași Calic, Marie-Janine. The Great Cauldron: A History of Southeastern Europe. Translated by Elizabeth Janik. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA and London, 2019. x + 724 pp. Maps. Illustrations. Chronology. Glossary. Notes. Works cited. Index. $39.95: £28.95: €36.00. The Great Cauldron is a remarkable book that avoids the common preoccupation of treatments of Southeast European history, which is that edgy competitiveness, the assigning of blame for the various ills that have beset the region and its peoples, which is often the result when an author uses nations and their histories as their entrée. Marie-Janine Calic’s vision is laid out clearly from the beginning — ‘This book reinterprets the evolution of southeastern Europe from the perspective of transcultural relations and global history’ (p. 1). She fulfils her vision and has written a beautiful, comprehensive history of Southeast Europe that will last. Calic deftly balances detail and synthesis, which is critical in any study that professes to treat its subject matter transculturally and globally. Her mastery of a vast literature is impressive — she easily moves from Ottoman to Russian to Habsburg to Venetian to US/Soviet contexts and works with the histories of a dozen or so cultures and peoples, weaving stories and historical processes together quite effectively. In this, she helps herself by choosing good examples for breakout analysis — she explicitly addresses various cities at particular points: Belgrade in 1813, Dubrovnik in 1776, Sarajevo in 1984, for instance, but also focuses on personalities that contribute to her overall vision (like Mehmed Pasha Sokollu, Alexander Stamboliyski and George Castriot Skanderbeg, none of whom are necessarily obscure, but all serve her and the reader well here). The author’s transnational/global positioning opens the door to regular opportunities for slight reorientations for readers. One example: Calic suggests that Ottoman expansion into Europe may not have been motivated by the religious zeal that we are so used to crediting — rather, ‘purely imperial logic’ may have been the motivator (p. 75). This sort of adjustment, which snaps our REVIEWS 567 understanding of the Ottomans from the slightly inscrutable and even mystical to the more expected norm set by their neighbours, happens here often. Reorientations that render the Balkans less a constant producer of metaphors for the strange and more a part of straightforward European processes can also be seen in her discussions of the Ralli family of Greek merchants with a global read (p. 177), her discussion of the origins of government in Serbia (p. 265), in which she highlights the words of Leopold von Ranke, who was bemused by the (mainstream European) choices the Serbs had made, and the brief but telling story of Kosta Dimić, the Serb who served in the Congo in the service of King Leopold and wrote of the exotic nature of the place’s inhabitants (p. 375), among numerous examples. Calic’s conclusion includes the suggestion that ‘the Balkan countries are in no way fated to remain in the poorhouse of Europe but […] they themselves have the resources to change their difficult situations’ (p. 561). She thus distances herself and her subjects from earlier, often quite popular treatments, which argued that the peoples of the Balkans have been captives of impenetrable hatreds, manipulative European powers, and/or other external or inexplicable forces. Others have written dispassionate and reliable histories of the Balkans, but not with the same extraordinary care and above all attention to the ways the people and processes of the region’s history are parts of a larger and comprehensible whole. I have two reservations about the book, neither of which detracts from its brilliance. The more substantive one is a matter of preference: I would like to...