Battle Of Kosovo Research Articles

A comparative review of the development of Serbian and Albanian folk epic poetry

The paper discusses the continuity of Serbian folk epic poetry since the Early Middle Ages in relation to the discontinuity of Albanian folk epic poetry, in both cases determined by the historical and cultural setting. The research foregrounds the songs of Kosovo Albanians about the Battle of Kosovo, and a cycle of songs about borderland warriors (krajisniks) as well. In terms of motifs and ideological orientation, the former remained on the crossroads between the Serbian-Christian and Moslem-Turkish conceptions, whereas the latter conformed to the Moslem conception. The greatest similarities to the Serbian ?non-historical? epic poetry were demonstrated by the so-called Italo-Albanian songs, brought from Albania to Italy by the Albanian refugees fleeing the Turks. The paper is also an attempt at using scholarly arguments to refute the non-scholarly interpretations of epic techniques, characters and motifs, constructed for the purposes of political pretensions to the territory of the Serbian province as an exclusively Albanian land.

Vampire Nation: Violence as Cultural Imaginary (review)

Anastasia Karakasidou, Wellesley CollegeThe recent violence in the Balkans has perplexed foreign analysts. The mainstream interpretation conjured images of the violent Balkan man and blamed atrocities on inherent national maladies. A few historical constructivist voices contextualized the violent events in world politics and emphasized how the peoples of the Balkans lived within or on the margins of empires. They consumed the images of aggression and brutality assigned to them by the West. Struggles to create a sense of collective identity outside of that domineering framework have been futile. Vampire Nation joins these constructivist voices, but offers a unique deconstruction of nationalism through a detailed textual analysis of the metaphor. Longinovic tells us how in 2007, a year after Slobodan Milosevic's death, a man visited his grave and planted a stake in the ground, a metaphorical second killing of sorts, making certain that the will never come back to haunt the living again. The culture and its connection to bloody Balkan history has indeed begged for an interpretation.Tomislav Longinovic grew up in Yugoslav Belgrade and has a unique perspective on society: not quite a detached ethnographer, nor a fully national participant, he critiques his own upbringing and writes an insightful analysis of the character of the nation. He chooses his informants from a wide range of fields and from throughout Balkan history, and analyzes a myriad of texts, films, plays, and orations. Although the work is reflexive, it is free from the insufferable self-reflections of the Western observer seeking local acceptance. The author is well-known from his previous writings on the metaphorical image of the vampire, but Vampire Nation is the first of his works that takes the leap into nationalism and stands as a critique of violence. The is a mythical creature with origins in the 17th century Balkans, and was well embedded in the magic and mysticism of daily life along with witches and werewolves. The was the worst demonic being of all, however, with an unsurpassed lust and thirst for blood. The stories circulated widely in western Europe as well, as did the images of the Slavs as the European other. On the far edges of civilized lands, these fearful people were perceived to be as violent as the magical creatures they themselves feared. The image of the Serbian vampire is rooted in these early European cosmologies: the Serbs are a backward, ancient people that feast on blood and fear the light of civilization. The Serbs, as Longinovic argues, had little choice but to conform to this assigned identity. They embraced it, but the Serbian vampire for internal consumption is quite different: he is a heroic figure, an individual who spills blood for the nation.Once with their own empire, the Serbs coexisted with the Byzantine Empire, but fell to Ottoman hands in the 14th century. Destabilized and without a territorial permanent base, the Serbs did not fully unite as a national collectivity until the rebellions against Ottoman rule in the early 19th century. The memory of the 1389 Battle of Kosovo united the Serbs and it was transformed into a mythical bloody battle between the invading Ottoman army and the Principality. The battle set up an ethnic memory of Orthodoxy against Islamic invaders and the defeat was considered to be a great loss for national and pride.Serbia became a republic within socialist Yugoslavia after World War II, but the cultural strength of the Serbs put them in an advantageous position within the Federation. Serbia was accused of having controlling interest in Yugoslavia, especially when leader Slobodan Milosevic became president of the ailing Federation. In 1991 Yugoslavia ceased to exist and the Yugoslav wars erupted, giving way to ethno-religious conflicts involving genocide, ethnic cleansing, rape, internment camps, mass graves, and torture. …

The Uses of the Middle Ages in modern European states: history, nationhood and the search for origins

List of Contributors Introduction G.Marchal PART I: CELTS AND SCANDINAVIA Transmission and Translation of Medieval Irish Sources in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries B.Cunningham The 'Decline of Norway': Grief and Fascination in Norwegian Historiography on the Middle Ages J.E.Myhre 'Braves Step out of the Night of the Barrows': Regenerating the Heritage of Early Medieval Finland D.Fewster Interpreting the Nordic Past: Icelandic Medieval Manuscripts and the Construction of a Modern Nation G.Halfdanarson PART II: BENELUX A Serious Case of Amnesia: The Dutch and their Middle Ages P.Raedts Medieval Myths and the Building of National Identity: the Example of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg M.Margue & P.Peporte An Era of Grandeur: The Middle Ages in Belgian National Historiography, 1830-1914 J.Tollebeek PART III: BALKANS To Whom Does Byzantium Belong? Greeks, Turks and the Present of the Medieval Balkans J.Niehoff-Panagiotidis The Image of the Kosovo Battle (1389) Today: A Historic Event, a Moral Pattern, or the Tool of Political Manipulation M.Suica PART IV: CENTRAL EUROPE Italy's Various Middle Ages M.Moretti & I.Porciani Medievalism and Swiss National Identity G.Marchal The Public Instrumentalization of the Middle Ages in Austria since 1945 H.Wolfram 'Old Czechs were Hefty Heroes': The Construction and Reconstruction of Czech National History in its Relationship to the 'Great' Medieval Past F.Smahel Conclusion R.J.W.Evans Bibliography Index

Rereading the Kosovo Epic: Origins of the "Heavenly Serbia" in the Oral Tradition

Rereading the Kosovo Epic:Origins of the "Heavenly Serbia" in the Oral Tradition Aleksandar Pavlović The relation between history and poetry in Serbian culture is nowhere as strongly and persistently present as in the case of the 1389 Kosovo battle.1 Over the centuries, this medieval event acquired a mythical aura in the historiography, literary discourse, and oral tradition of the South Slavs, evolving into one of the central national symbols in Serbian culture and a burning political question. This article traces the origin of one of the central elements of the Kosovo myth, the idea of Prince Lazar's choice between the kingdom on earth and the kingdom of heaven on the eve of the Kosovo battle. Among hundreds of oral epic songs collected by Vuk Stefanović Karadžić in the early nineteenth century, the Kosovo cycle forms a distinct and separate section, traditionally seen by Karadžić and other scholars as central to the entire Serbian oral tradition.2 In these songs, the battle of Kosovo that took place on St. Vitus-day (Vidovdan) in 1389 is perceived as the decisive battle that the Serbs fought to preserve their independence. The Serbian leader Prince Lazar and other great heroes, we are told, were defeated and killed in the battle, and [End Page 83] the Turks became the rulers and masters of the Serbs for centuries to come.3 In the literary tradition centering on Kosovo, as well as in Serbian epic songs, there are two explanations of this defeat. Some stories have it that Lazar's brother-in-law, Vuk Branković, committed treason and abandoned his liege and relative on the battlefield. According to the second interpretation, Prince Lazar made a deliberate choice between the kingdom on earth and the kingdom of heaven. Although the Serbs were vastly outnumbered, Lazar and his soldiers decided to die heroically in the battle rather than to subject themselves to the Turkish rule. In other words, Lazar and his army fought to deserve a place in the heavenly kingdom, not to preserve and enlarge their earthly dominions. This notion of Lazar's deliberate choice of the heavenly kingdom was often taken as the crown of the Kosovo myth and as the driving force behind the entire Serbian national movement. Miodrag Popović, for instance, in his study Vidovdan i časni krst (Vitus-day and the Cross of Honor), examined the formation of the Kosovo myth and its establishment as a national symbol during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.4 The symbolism of Kosovo and of Lazar's commitment to the heavenly kingdom have been frequently used, and more often misused, in recent political discourse.5 This applies equally to the glorification of the Kosovo myth by Serbian nationalists,6 who saw it as the confirmation of the idea of the "Heavenly Serbia," that is, the entire nation's commitment to metaphysical values and heroic death, and to Western authors who referred to it as the source and explanation of much [End Page 84] of the troubles and atrocities in the Balkans.7 For both parties, Kosovo songs celebrating Lazar's commitment to the heavenly kingdom were widely popular among the Serbian masses for centuries. Commitment to the Heavenly Kingdom in Medieval Literature and Oral Tradition Returning to a more scholarly context, I will focus on several key contributions central to my discussion of the origins of Prince Lazar's choice of the heavenly kingdom in the oral tradition. Meticulous research by Serbian medievalist Đorđe Trifunović showed that ten works about Lazar and the Kosovo Battle were written by church writers in a short period of only thirty years after the event.8 By the standards of Serbian medieval literature, this was an enormous output in a short span of time. Only Saint Sava and Saint Simeon, the founders of the Nemanjić dynasty that ruled Serbia for over two centuries, had such an extensive body of religious texts written to celebrate their cult, but these works were created over a much longer period. Thus, the production of texts about Prince Lazar is almost without precedent in Serbian medieval literature. Inspired by the gospels and by Byzantine hagiography, several of these monastic...

Calling on the Edge of Time: History in Serbian Prose And Oral Tradition

Calling on the Edge of Time:History in Serbian Prose And Oral Tradition* Vladimir Zorić The three texts gathered in this issue of Serbian Studies were initially presented at the ASEEES Convention in Los Angeles, November 2010, at the panel entitled "The Muse of History in Serbian Prose." No proposition is more evident than the one that Clio, the muse of history, has been in the center of vivid interest and, at the same time, indefatigable poetic experimentation of many Serbian writers. However, by a conspicuous subterfuge, Clio's countenance has been emerging in different guises, depending on the mood and the chosen instrument of her siblings, the literary muses beholding her. The same holds true of the texts presented here: not only are they concerned with different facets of the past, but they also seem to dwell in different discursive worlds. In particular, Adrijana Marcetic, in her insightful essay on Pavić's The Dictionary of the Khazars, explores the rectangular avenues of narratological inquiry1. In a probing analysis of the legend of Prince Lazar's choice, Aleksandar Pavlović traces the formulaic routes of oral tradition2. In his acclaimed novel Tesla, a Portrait Among the Masks, Vladimir Pištalo follows the forking paths of narrative fiction3. Precisely because these texts open such wide and diverse vistas, they are best introduced in their intersection points. [End Page 51] The first of these crossroads is an underlying yet unsaid premise of all three texts and is, therefore, worth being phrased explicitly. In their attempt to grasp what is irretrievable, the works under consideration stand like a Colossus of Rhodes: one foot in history, the other in fiction. Their historical foothold means that they project imaginative worlds which are, just like the world we live in, marked by intrinsic instability and changeability. This change, the sense of which escapes us, is brought by the ongoing interaction between human designs and deeds. One may agree with, or for that matter dispute the thesis that the world changed less from Plato to Tesla than from Tesla to the present day. Nevertheless, we know that a momentous and irreversible change occurred and the same applies to the disappearance of the Khazars from the world's political map as well as to the Battle of Kosovo. In other words, we cannot reach a consensus on the historical impact of these events; yet, we can hardly doubt their historical quality. Nonetheless, despite this historical focus, one could hardly deny that there is something insidiously apocalyptic in the design of each of the three works. To live and act in a world of change—be it a factual or fictional world—means being exposed to a never-ending challenge. The heroes of The Dictionary of the Khazars, The Downfall of the Serbian Empire, and Tesla, a Portrait Among the Masks try to put an end to history and bring the human world to a blissful point of resolution where no change will be needed or desired. The legend of Prince Lazar's choice is about an all-out abandonment of the historical world and instantaneous migration to a heavenly kingdom. The legend of the Khazar Kagan's dream problem, painstakingly addressed by Christian, Islamic, and Judaic sages, is essentially about the quest for salvation through a major and institutionalized monotheistic religion. His bid for conversion is not about a pragmatic orientation in the historical world; quite the contrary, it is about discovering the right, redemptive meaning. The son of an Orthodox priest from Lika, Nikola Tesla, never relinquished the apocalyptic yearnings of his youth and remained an avid reader of the Book of Revelation until his most productive period in North America. However, his apocalyptic enterprise required no involvement of God: it was all about human self-redemption through the faculty of invention. In this way, the three narratives neatly illustrate the range of the apocalyptic thought: from the direct implication of divine agency, to salvation through an institutional religion and its interpretative grid, to the rising power of the man of the future who can do it all by himself. In this order of consideration, the apocalyptic thought appears to be emptied from any specifically...

Milovan Vojicic's epic songs about the Kosovo battle 1389 in the Milman Parry collection of oral literature

In "The Milman Parry Collection of Oral Literature" on Harvard University out of 131 epic songs recorded from Milovan Vojicic, several are dedicated to the popular theme of the Serbian and Balkan epic - the Kosovo Battle 1389 (Prince Lazar and Milos Obilic, The Defeat of Kosovo, ?he Kosovo Tragedy, The Kosovo Field after the Battle, The Death of Mother Jugovici, The Death of Pavle Orlovic at Kosovo, noted in 1933-34 in Nevesinje). The paper examines Vojicic?s Kosovo songs from the perspective of textual, stylistic and rhetoric criticism, poetics, and memory studies. An analysis of Milovan Vojicic?s Kosovo epic poetry leaves an impression of an active singer who has internalised tradition, and on this foundation composes new works in the traditional manner and "in the folk style". Vojicic is a literate singer who was familiar with the collections of Vuk Karadzic, Bogoljub Petranovic, the Matica Hrvatska, and the songbooks of the time. He did not hesitate to remake or rewrite songs from printed collections or periodicals, which means that his understanding of authorship was in the traditional spirit. Vojicic?s compilations lie on that delicate line between oral traditional and modern literary poetry; he is, naturally, not alone in this double role - the majority of the gusle-players who were his contemporaries could be similarly described. In the body of Kosovo epic poetry Vojicic?s songs stand out (The Death of Pavle Orlovic at Kosovo, The Kosovo Tragedy), where he abandons the printed model and achieves the kind of originality which is in fact part of tradition itself. Vojicic highly valued oral tradition and the opportunity to perform it, as part of the process of creating an image of himself as a folk gusle-player in modern terms. For this reason, his repertoire includes both old and new themes. They are sung according to the epic standard, but also in accordance with the modern standard of epic semi-literary works. In Vojicic?s world, oral tradition is an important component in viewing the historical past, and in perceiving reality and the singer?s place in it. The epic is a form of oral memory and the guardian of remembrance of past events; however it also provides a space for surveying and commenting on modern historical situations in a popularly accepted manner, at times in an ideological key, as seen in songs which gather together major historical events. This perception of the epic tradition and history is mirrored in the heterogeneity of the corpus and in the repertoire of songs, and is all a consequence of vastly changed conditions of origin, existence and acceptance, i.e. the consumption of oral works in the first half of the 20th century, in a process of interaction between literature and folklore.

Realm of the Black Mountain: a history of Montenegro

When Slobodan Milosevic, the son of Montenegrin parents, spoke of Montenegro and Serbia as 'two eyes in the same head', he encapsulated a view of the symbiosis of Serbia and Montenegro that has deep roots in both nations. But many Montenegrins disagree profoundly and reflect bitterly on the baleful experience of being politically lumped together with Serbia since shortly after the First World War. While much has been written on Serbia, little is known of its junior partner in an increasingly loose and fractious federation: the small, craggy republic of Montenegro. This book traces its history from pre-Slavic times, including its part in the battle of Kosovo, and its unique role in resisting the Ottomans. It recounts Montenegro's development under its Prince Bishops towards the independence achieved at the Congress of Berlin (with the public support of Gladstone and the poet Tennyson) and lost after the Versailles Conference when the Montenegrin Assembly voted, under the shadow of Serb bayonets, to join what was to become Yugoslavia. Elizabeth Roberts also analyses Montenegro's largely unsung role in Yugoslavia's demise, during which it made the perilous transition from being Milosevic's staunchest ally to becoming a major thorn in his side, and the prospect - aspired to by perhaps a majority in the republic - of its becoming the first newly independent state this century.

Vuk Brankovic and the meeting of vassals at Serres

After the Kosovo battle in the year of 1389 and the new Ottomans' breach into the Serbian lands, the positions of the Serbian provinces founded on the territory of the disintegrated Serbian empire underwent certain geopolitical changes. Unlike prince Lazar's direct successors, the Serbian regional landlord Vuk Brankovic, Lazar's son-in-law, continued to resist the Ottomans strongly opposing resuming the vassal deployment towards sultan Bayezid I. Only after his town of Skopje's fall late in the 1391, or early in 1392 did Vuk start losing his strategic control over the territory being in that way exposed to an even greater Ottoman pressure. Such Balkans' situation denouement forced Vuk Brankovic until the November 1392 to recognize the Ottoman sovereignty that was justified in one charter for monastery Hilandar. By the end of that year, sultan Bayezid I moved from the empire's Anatolian to the European part in order to consolidate his authority and firm the rule. The Byzantine historian Laonikos Chalcocondyles testifies on the measures taken by the sultan regarding subordinating the new Christian vassals and the conquered territories' colonization. These measures might refer to Vuk Brankovic and his province. There is no direct news considering Vuk Brankovic's political steps during the period from the end of 1392 to the spring of 1394. A dramatic meeting of sultan Bayezid I with his Christian vassals in the town of Serres in the fall-winter of 1393/1394 remained noted in the Byzantine sources. The remnant sources unequivocally of the Serbian meeting members mention only Stefan Lazarevic, the later Byzantine despot and Constantin Dragas, the Byzantine emperor Manuel II Palaeologus' father-in-law, though by being imprecise they leave an open space for the probable participation of some other renowned persons from Serbian side. The hitherto Serbian historiography predominant opinion was that Vuk Brankovic did not respond to the invitation addressed to the vassals concerning the Serres meeting. Apart from Vuk, the sources do not name as the meeting participants neither king Marko, nor his brothers Andreas and Dmitar, who may have been present as well. The sultans' resolution to execute the Christian vassals in Serres, withdrawn at the last moment, caused the split of the vassal relations of some Christian aristocracy to Bayezid I. Vuk's activity from the year 1394, and 1395 connected with gaining Venetian citizenship and moving the treasury in Dubrovnik in accordance with the politics of those Christian vassals who denied their obedience to the sultan after the meeting at Serres. Because of Vuks' conduct from the year of 1394 and the provenance of the preserved Byzantine sources asserting the events at Serres, a possibility of Vuk Brankovic's presence a the Ottomans's vassal by the side of the king Vukasin's sons, remains in spite of silence evident in relevant sources.

ESKİ BULGAR YAZARI KONSTANTİN KOSTENEÇKİ VE İLK SLAV GRAMERİ

The knowledge about the mysterious charactered and reformer of creationary Bulgarian writer Konstantin Kostenechki is so limited, we can only estimate this knowledge with assumptions by examining his original compositions named “Annotated Narration About Letters” and “The Agiography of Stefan Lazarevich”. Today, we almost know that, Kostenechki was born in Kostenets between the years 1373–1378, after he educated at Bachkovo Monastery, he escaped to Serbia in early 15th century and to took shelter in despot Stefan Lazarevich, and then he was sent to Serbian patriarch for education and to Jerusalem for sightseeing, he was a teacher, writer and translator during his life and he disappeared after 1431. Kostenechki hadn’t got a spiritual fame, but he was one of the educated, well informed and selected creatives in his age. He has lived in late 14th and early 15th century, which was a historical surging period for Balkan Peninsula or the South-Eastern Europe, he was a witness of some universal historical events such as Ottoman Turks’ emplacement to Balkans, Pitched Battle of Kosovo, Ankara Battle, Timur, The Ottoman Interregnum, Jan Hus reform, and he tried to image them in his composition “The Agiography of Stefan Lazarevich”. By his other original work “Annotated Narration About Letters”, Kostenechki hasn’t tried to set an orthographic guide or a practical language ordinance, he aimed to point and criticize the absences and failures of Serbian orthography at that age. Definitely, the historical and literary importance of this modernist composition comes from Kostenechki’s life and his grammatical knowledge at that age, and also it has got unique informations about the Serbian social life of Stefan Lazarevich’s period and the cultural interests of intellectuals.

The Kosovo Battle: Media's Recontextualization of the Serbian Nationalistic Discourses

In 2006, the international community started to finalize the political status of Kosovo, the Serbian province, inhabited mostly by the Muslim Albanian majority. At the end of October 2006, a referendum was held in Serbia, where a new constitution was passed that claims Kosovo as an integral part of Serbia. What has taken place in the so-called “last media battle for Kosovo”? This article investigates discourses of the two most popular Serbian newspapers and their coverage of the October 2006 events. The analysis of recontextualization shows that the newspapers continuously reproduce the dominant Serbian nationalism that focuses on a myth of a Greater Serbia. With an appropriation of different discourses, the dominant Serbian nationalism becomes legitimized and justified. In particular, the newspapers reproduce distinctive religious discourses from the political past, and furthermore, they borrow so-called European, “war on terrorism” and “crime” discourses from the international mainstream public spheres and appropriate them to the contemporary Serbian political context. Generally, the newspapers reappropriate different discourses by framing the Serbs as the victims of their own local “perpetrators,” the Kosovo Albanians.

WHEN I SAY “THE HOLOCAUST,” I MEAN “JASENOVAC”

Recent years have witnessed a growth in the interdisciplinary study of collective memory, especially in relation to the Holocaust and the Second World War. Within the scholarly exploration of Holoc...

The Serbian state in the work of Byzantine historian Doucas

The Serbian state in the work of Byzantine historian Doucas

Gracanica and the cult of the Saintly Prince Lazar

The article explores a virtually unknown episode in the history of Gracanica Monastery, a late nineteenth-century restoration of the monastery church. The results of this undertaking were still visible during the conservation of the church conducted in the 1960s and early 1970s. At that time the nineteenth-century interventions were only partially recorded before some of them were removed and permanently lost. The nineteenth- century refurbishing of the frescoes in the main dome was signed by one Mihail Iourokosk Debrel and is dated 1898. More significant, now lost and hitherto unpublished, was the refurbishing probably by the same Mihail, of an arcosolium in the south wall of the church. This arcosolium, whose original function is unknown, was painted and inscribed with a lengthy inscription indicating that the remains of Prince Lazar (who died in the Battle of Kosovo, on June 15, 1389) was temporarily deposited in this tomb before being moved to the monastery of Vrdnik - Ravanica on Fruska Gora. While the content of the inscription is a total fabrication, its implications are nonetheless interesting in several ways. The mastermind behind the project was probably the Metropolitan of Ra{ka - Prizren, Dionisije, who died on Dec. 5, 1900. In accordance with his own wishes, he was buried in the very arcosolium identified as the ?temporary burial place? of Prince Lazar. The rising importance of the cult of the Saintly Prince Lazar around 1900 provides the background for this historical fabrication whose construction was actually made up of several disparate elements, each marked by a degree of historical accuracy in its own right thus collectively contributing to its general relevance.

Juan Goytisolo's Cuaderno de Sarajevo: The Dilemmas of a Committed War Journalist

Juan Goytisolo's Cuaderno de Sarajevo: The Dilemmas of a Committed War Journalist

The cult of St. Vitus among the Serbs in the middle ages

Vitus, a native of Sicily, who was martyred during the emperor Diocletian's persecutions, is not well known among Orthodox Christians. However, his feast day, which is celebrated on June 15th, occupies an extremely important place in the minds of the Serbian people, as Vidovdan. At the end of the 19th century, Jovan Vuckovic, a learned priest, concluded that, for the Serbs, the significance of the feast of St. Vitus does not lie in any particular reverence for St. Vitus himself, but in the fact that the Battle of Kosovo took place on his feast day. Nevertheless, there are reliable testimonies that the Serbs did revere this martyr from Sicily, in the Middle Ages. The earliest is to be found in the menologion in the Miroslav Gospel, and St. Vitus is also recorded in hagiographic sources that appeared after the establishment of the autocephalous Serbian Church. We find the most frequent mention of him in the manuscript synaxaria of the so-called First recession of the Menologue of Basil II (from 13th and 14th centuries), and several 14th century menaions contain an akolouthia dedicated to St. Vitus.

Armenian People from Ancient to Modern Times. Vol. 1: The Dynastic Periods: From Antiquity to the Fourteenth Century by Richard G. s> Hovannisian Modern Armenia: People, Nation, State by Gerard J. s> Libaridian (review)

REVIEWS I47 Hovannisian, Richard G. Armenian People fromAncient toModernTimes.Vol.s. TheDynastic Periods. From Antiquity totheFourteenth Centugy. Second edition. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke and New York, 2004. xii + 372 pp. Notes. Maps. Dynastic Tables.Bibliography.Index. (i 7.99 (paperback). Libaridian, Gerard J. ModernArmenia.People,Nation, State. Transaction Publishers,New Brunswick,NJ and London, 2004. xi + 327 pp. Notes. Bibliography.Index. ?30.50. THESE two books stand in a distinctive counterpart to one another, the key connecting thread being the precarious issue of political and human geography . Formuch of Armenia's history its relationshipto the East Anatolian plateau -below the Caucasus,above the Mesopotamian plain -provided it with, if not advantage as a crossroadsbetween civilizations,at the very least a protected position fromwhich to ride out the stormof invasion and conquest. Even when the classical era of dynastic rule was long gone, geography supported a default position which, for centuries into the medieval period, enabled the great, albeit competing aristocraticfamilies of the tablelands to play off imperial hegemons, whether Western or Eastern, and to reassert,in the tenth century AD, a series of small kingdoms and principalitiescovering over a million square miles. Does size matter?Clearly, yes, if regarded from today's entirely rump 29,0000 square miles of state, which independent as it may be is otherwise weak, landlocked but, equally importantly, an almost strategicirrelevance. While, thus, Hovannisian's volume is arguablythe stuff of nationalist celebration, Libaridian'stone is altogether more sombre. It is hardly surprising given the backdrop of Armenia's modern experience: its westernOttoman populationto allintentsandpurposesdestroyedordispersed in the Aghet of I915- I6, its independent post-tsaristexistence on the Russian side of the border extinguished almost at birth by the Soviets, yet with postSoviet Russia almost the only place to which the current Armenian regime can turn as it seeks to hold on to the contested Azeri territoryof NagornoKarabakh . Hovannisian's edited collection is certainly testimony to the longue dure'e of survival.Yet as an essentiallynarrative-basedand hence ratherold-fashioned political history it is, despite the word 'people' in its title, primarily about Armenian people at the top. With swordsand sceptresin theirhands and the dispensing of patronage and ecclesiastical power, the Armenian centuries certainlyread as one of bewilderingcomplexity in the intersticesof the greater struggles between Persians, Romans, Arabs, Seljuks, Mongols, Byzantines, Ottomans, Safavidsand Crusaders.As for the 'people':well, there is certainly some interesting discussion on the origins and ethnology of HayastanPhrygian , post-Urartean, or most likely a composite of these, plus more indigenous as well as other Indo-European speaking peoples, but it is clear thatthe criticalgel inArmenianidentity-formationwasnot simplyChristianization but, rather, the creation of a specifically Armenian national church which, as Nina Garsoianpoints out in one of her many chaptersin this book, 'provideda focus for the allegiance of the entirepopulation [.. .] independent of the politicalframeworkand consequentlyfromthe fate of the realm'(p. 84). 148 SEER, 84, I, 2006 It is a pity there is not more development of this theme. Culture, the emergence of distinct ecclesiastical texts and histories, the literary and theological interplay between the Greek and Persian worlds are neatly, indeed, lovingly developed by Robert Thomson and Peter Cowe, but a sense of the demotic, at any time or place, is very limited, almost to the point where the only role for Armenian men(women, of course, except again for very powerful ones, are not present here!)is as cannon-fodder in Armenia's many catastrophic medieval battles. Paradoxically, it was exactly such sacrifices which were the very stuffof a romantic nineteenth-century salvation-history and, hence, a crucialadjunctto the 'national'revivalof the Zartonk. The battle of Avarayr, in 450, in which the great majority of the Armenian nobility perished in the face of the Persianhost, thus served the idea of national antiOttoman struggleas if it were a 'Surb Gords', a holy task, mirroringclosely, thereby, Serbianfantasiesassociatedwith the I389 'fieldof blackbirds'(Battle of Kosovo). Fostered by young, middle-class, increasingly Westernized Armenians, whether educated in Tiflis, Constantinople, or indeed Rome or Paris, it was nevertheless the peasant communities of the east who bore the brunt of Dashnak and Hnchak ardour, revolutionary taxation, not to say insurgencies,as they so fatallybackfiredin the mid-I8gos. What is excellent about...

Between Past and Future: Civil-Military Relations in the Post-Communist Balkans by Biljana s> Vankovska Håkan Wiberg (review)

REVIEWS I65 The argumentis clear,well groundedempirically,and a usefulcontribution to the civil-militaryrelations literature,as far as it goes. Which brings me to the problem: Forster, Edmunds and Cottey have talked to and received contributions from most, if not all, of the top local experts, plus the leading Western analysts; they have important things to say but what they have learnedisrationedout in the introductionsand conclusionsoffourseparate and ratherexpensive volumes. If the editors had written a single work on the transformationof post-Communist civil-militaryrelationsin comparative perspective the topic of theiroverall study incorporatingall that they had learned, it would merittop billingon the requiredreadinglist of any graduate course on civil-military relations or post-Soviet security issues. At ?5O.OO apiece times four volumes, however, I would be surprised if many cashstrappeduniversitylibraries ,let alone graduatestudentswho would find these books useful,would be preparedto contemplate the outlay for the entiretyof the series.Pity. Department of WarStudies DAVID BETZ King'sCollege London Vankovska,Biljana and Wiberg, H'akan.Between PastandFuture: Civil-Military Relationsin the Post-Communist Balkans.The Library of International Relations, I7. I. B. Tauris, London and New York 2003. xi + 355 pp. Notes. Bibliography.Index. ?45.??. BETWEEN PAST AND PRESENT successfullyexamines the state of civil-military relations in post-Communist South East Europe whilst acknowledging the disparityand heterogeneityof the Balkannationsand theirmilitarytraditions. It is a brave endeavour since the internal political situation of some of these countries makes a more definitive and complete account almost impossible. The studyfocuses on Albania, Bulgariaand Romania as well as the Yugoslav successor states (Slovenia, Croatia, Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and FormerYugoslavRepublic of Macedonia), but with the notable exception of Bosnia-Herzegovina. It seeksto drawthe reader'sattentionto the importance of the militarytraditionin assessingthe stateof civil-militaryrelations,in both a historical and contemporary context, set specifically against the drive towards democratic control over the armed forces. By looking at the nonYugoslav states the authors have compiled essentiallytwo books which they successfully bring together in the final chapter. The introduction offers a concise but interestingoverviewof thefieldof civil-militaryrelations,although the rather overlong consideration of the problems of democratic civilian controlby NATO is somewhatout of place. An opening chapteron the history of the first and second Yugoslavia also serves to overcome the disparity between the Yugoslav and non-Yugoslav case studies presented later in the book. Of particularinterest is the commentary on the militarytraditionsof each state which enables the reader to understand the differentpast paths of the Balkannations and demonstratesthat theyhave farlessin common than most commentatorsclaim. The militarytradition,whetherbased on historicalfacts i66 SEER, 83, I, 2005 or, as is more often the case, on legends such as the Battle of Kosovo for the Serbs, plays a central part in the creation of a military ethos in most of the Balkan states, but more so in those that have just achieved or regained their full statehood. Nevertheless, the book's emphasis on militarytraditionmeans that at times the authorsfail to show how they measuredthe true extent of its importance. The chapter on the FederalRepublic of Yugoslaviacontains an extended account of the Battle of Kosovo, although its relevance to today's militaryethos remainsunclear. This is particularlyunfortunatefor the reader since the link between Milosevic and the Yugoslav Army (VJ) top brass is identifiedin the commentary as being due to theirjoint responsibilityfor the commission of war crimes. The authors do not go far enough in explaining the central role war crimes played in Milosevic's strategy during the I99os, however, and hence the importance of dealing with such a legacy in democratizingcivil-militaryrelationsin Serbiaand Montenegro. It is a pity that this otherwiseexcellent overview is undermined by such limitations of analysis. This is partly due to the number of case studies the authorsincorporateinto the book, studieswhich could alsohave been brought togethermore successfullyto reinforcethe finalchapter'sarguments.Significantly , too, the exclusion of Bosnia-Herzegovina leaves quite a gap. The justificationforthisis providedin a footnote, in which they statethat Bosniais simply too complicated to consider, but a more complete and credible explanation is needed. Although Bosnia's civil-military relations are more complicated due to the existence (untilrecently)of three separateforces, and the unique role played by the international community through SFOR and the OfficeoftheHigh Representative,itisneverthelessimportantto setitin the same context...

Regions and Powers: The Structure of International Security by Barry s> Buzan Ole Wæver (review)

i66 SEER, 83, I, 2005 or, as is more often the case, on legends such as the Battle of Kosovo for the Serbs, plays a central part in the creation of a military ethos in most of the Balkan states, but more so in those that have just achieved or regained their full statehood. Nevertheless, the book's emphasis on militarytraditionmeans that at times the authorsfail to show how they measuredthe true extent of its importance. The chapter on the FederalRepublic of Yugoslaviacontains an extended account of the Battle of Kosovo, although its relevance to today's militaryethos remainsunclear. This is particularlyunfortunatefor the reader since the link between Milosevic and the Yugoslav Army (VJ) top brass is identifiedin the commentary as being due to theirjoint responsibilityfor the commission of war crimes. The authors do not go far enough in explaining the central role war crimes played in Milosevic's strategy during the I99os, however, and hence the importance of dealing with such a legacy in democratizingcivil-militaryrelationsin Serbiaand Montenegro. It is a pity that this otherwiseexcellent overview is undermined by such limitations of analysis. This is partly due to the number of case studies the authorsincorporateinto the book, studieswhich could alsohave been brought togethermore successfullyto reinforcethe finalchapter'sarguments.Significantly , too, the exclusion of Bosnia-Herzegovina leaves quite a gap. The justificationforthisis providedin a footnote, in which they statethat Bosniais simply too complicated to consider, but a more complete and credible explanation is needed. Although Bosnia's civil-military relations are more complicated due to the existence (untilrecently)of three separateforces, and the unique role played by the international community through SFOR and the OfficeoftheHigh Representative,itisneverthelessimportantto setitin the same context as otherYugoslavsuccessorstatesand to explore the role played by the contested nature of its polity in the transformationof civil-military relations. Overall, the book is a useful introduction to the state of civil-military relationsin the Balkans.It providesa valuable commentaryon the conditions which initiated the transformation of civil-military relations in the region along with some of its early achievements, and a glimpse of its potential obstacles. Department of WarStudies IVAN ZVERZHANOVSKI King's College London Buzan, Barryand Waever,Ole. Regions andPowers.TheStructure ofInternational Security. Cambridge Studies in International Relations, 9I. Cambridge UniversityPress,Cambridge,2003. xxvi + 564 pp. Glossary.References. News media. Index of names. Generalindex. [21 .95: $33.00. SECURITIZATION theory and the sectoral approach developed by the Copenhagen School in the past decade-and-a-halfhave become establishedfeatures of securityanalysis.'Sectoral'thinkingtranspiresfromthe securitydocuments of all European security organizations, for example, and can be read in the security doctrines of states and internationalorganizations alike. Buzan and Waever'smost recent cooperative endeavour is intended as a complement to REVIEWS I67 their I998 volume, Security, aFrameworkforAnalysis (Boulder,CO, I998), which offers the most comprehensive treatment of securitization and the sectoral approachto security.The argumentof thisbookpicksup whereSecurity ended. Central to the argument of Regionsand Powersis the assertion that the transformationof global structurefrom bipolarity (or '2 + 3') to unipolarity (or 'I +4') has had a different impact in different regions where distinctive securitydynamicscan be seen at work.This is reflectedin the structureof the volume, which in itsfirstpartdevelops'aregionalapproachto globalsecurity', while parts two to five are dedicated to the analysisof four regions:Asia, the Middle Eastand Africa,the Americas,and 'the Europes'. Conceptually,thevolume'sfocuson theregionallevel of analysisisintended as a responseto global-systemicaccountsof security,which the authorsdivide rather artificiallyinto 'neorealist' and 'globalist'. Buzan and Waver use the concept of securitycomplex (developedby Buzan in his earlierwork),with the aim of formulating a theory of regional security. This theory makes an ambitious attempt to straddle neorealism whose structuraland systemic take on security is closely mirrored and constructivism, present in the concept of securitizationand in the conceptualizationof regions and regional security complexes (RSCs). In order to demonstrate the relevance of the regional level, the authorsuse a taxonomy of 'powers' superpowers,great powers and regional powers which allows both reading the current internationalsystem as a 'I + 4' structure,and identifyingthe specificityof a RSC. Regional security complexes 'are regions as seen though the lens of security'(pp. 43-44), and are defined by two elements:a) patternsof amity/ enmity, and b) power relations, which are themselves derived 'from the...

Nationalist Mobilization and Stories of Serb Suffering: The Kosovo myth from 600th anniversary to the present

This article focuses on how the myth of the Kosovo battle of 1389 was resurrected as part of the nationalist revival in Serbia in the later 1980s, and the different ends to which it was put during the violent struggles of the 1990s. Cultivated through centuries of Ottoman rule, the myth decreased in importance during the communist period but re-emerged in Serbia in the 1980s as a powerful mobilizing tool, often juxtaposed with the supposed 'genocide' of Serbs at the hands of Albanians in the autonomous province. The wide ranging sexcentenary celebrations in 1989 were a display of the newly found (and short-lived) unity between church, state and different nationalist traditions in Serbia, marked by a well-known speech by Slobodan Milosevićon the site of the medieval battle. Ten years later,Serbian troops withdrew from Kosovo, effectively ending the decade-long domination of the Milosevićregime over the province; but even with the end of Serb rule, the Kosovo myth remained relevant in Serbian political discourse. This article explores the different interpretations given to the historical battle since the 1980s, the manipulability of historical facts, and how historical myths are put to use for political ends. It highlights the circular conception of time put forward by nationalist ideology with the implied repetitions of the medieval battle in contemporary and recent events experienced by Serbs; this strategy aims to tie individual and collective memories together in a unity to insure the individual's loyalty to the nation.

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

War after war has ravaged this part of the world with frightening regularity - will the region ever achieve stability or is each Balkan state doomed to repeat a history characterized by the unending cycle of butchery, bloodlust and retribution? The author gives the characters in this historical drama a human face, and in doing so, brings the events of long ago into the sharp focus of current events. The book shows that violence and terror have had plenty of precedence in the region The reader is introduced to key figures who have played a hand in the shaping of the cultural and ethnic landscape of the Balkans, beginning with Sultan Murad I, Prince Lazar and Milos Obolic, the legendary trinity of the Battle of Kosovo that inspired countless generations of Serbian resistance and vengeance. Covered are the ruthless mountain bandits who became romantic symbols of freedom and patriotism during the 19th century. Also covered is the chilling account of the assassination of Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914, the 525th anniversary of the Battle of Kosovo, the details of the Archduke's fateful visit and the conspirators who awaited him.