368 SEER, 87, 2, APRIL 200g of considerablesuspicionfor the Main Staffin St Petersburg. Strategy and operational artfortheBalkancampaignof 1828-29emergedout ofa discourse betweenthesetwoalternate strategic schools. Therearemanyother joysand insights tobe gainedfrom Bitis'swork, too manyinpractice tobe coveredindepthinthisshort review. Readerswillfind withinthesepages a masterly re-examination of the debate thatraged in 1826-27betweenErmolovand Paskevichin thesouthCaucasus,each man therepresentative, incontemporary eyes,of'Russian'and 'German'doctrinal traditions inRussianstrategic thought. A fascinating study isalsomadeinone chapter ofstatepropagandaandpublicopinionduring theperiodinquestion, as wellas oftheuse madebytheRussianarmyofBalkanirregulars as auxiliaryforces in 1828-29.The raising and employment ofsuchirregulars was a deeplysensitive and difficult political questionfora government thatdistrusted all movements ofa populistnature;howevertheemployment ofmilitias during theactualcampaignitself came to be seenas essential to filling what would otherwise be a local governmental vacuum,a factorthatagain has powerful contemporary echoes.Thus,in a striking twist, local militias came to be seenas essential byTsar NicholasI in ordertoprevent popularrevolts. Therefore waronceagain,touseClausewitz's dictum, provedtohaveitsown grammar, even as the logic of politicaldiscoursecontinuedattempting to assertitself. This, and manyotherinsights, can be foundin thismasterful work, whichbelongson theshelf ofall seriousscholars ofnineteenth-century Europeanmilitary and political thought. Department ofHistory Alex Marshall Glasgow University Divanovic,Stane.Baltazar Bogisic 1834- igo8: Lifeand Work. Translatedby Ivan Gotthardi Skiljan.Institute forHistorical SciencesoftheYugoslav Academyof Sciencesand Artsin Dubrovnikin associationwiththe Baltazar Bogisic Collectionin Cavtat, Cavtat, 1985. 8 pp. Notes. Bibliography. Index.Priceunknown. In 1872,BaltazarBogisicwas commissioned by Tsar AlexanderII to write thecivillaw ofMontenegro whichhad hitherto largely existedonlyin oral customary arrangements and in a highly deficient textpromulgated by the vladika in 1798.At thetimeofhisappointment, Bogisicwas professor ofthe comparative history ofSlavoniclaw at theuniversity ofOdessa. Previously, as a nativeofDalmatia and hencean Austrian citizen, he had takena law degreein Vienna and had studiedat a successionof Germanuniversities, laterworking as a librarian in theHofbibliothek (wherehe helpedestablish thefamousSlavonicLibrary in 1865)and as a schoolinspector on behalfof theHofkriegsrat intheHabsburgMilitary Frontier. In thetaskofcodification, whichoccupiedBogisicmore or less continuously forsixteenyears(interrupted in 1877bya secondRussiancommission toestablish a system ofjustice in Bulgaria), Bogisicwas led bytwoconcerns. Havingbeen influenced as a student bytheGermanHistorical Law school,he was anxiousto codify the law as it reallywas and notto imposea grandschemeresting eitherupon natural-law principles oruponideasborrowed from Romanlaw.Secondly, he REVIEWS 369 was motivated bya conviction thattherewas sucha thingas 'Slavoniclaw' and thatthisdiffered initsessentials from other legaltraditions. His investigationsofMontenegrin and Slavoniclaw led himtowardsthezadruga which, alongwithotherinstitutions ofcommunalownership, Bogisicmade thecornerstone ofhis studyofproperty-relations in South-Eastern Europe.In this way,Bogisicimposeda largely academicconstruct notonlyupon Montenegrinlaw but also upon our largerunderstanding of Slavoniclegal customs. Forthezadruga wasonlyone ofa largenumber offorms ofownership existing among the Montenegrins and South Slavs as well as being an institution thatwas by no means confinedto Slavonic traditions (comparethusthe Hungarianaviticitas). Moreover,in attempting to put Montenegrin customs intowritten formBogisicwas obligedto resort to civilianterms - he thus termed as a peculium theland outsidethezadruga thatwas acquiredbygift or succession, and had toacknowledge theenormous influence ofRomanlawon theterms ofleaseholds and tenures. ButBogisic'sgreatworkremained incomplete .Certainly, his code, whichcame intoeffect on 1July1888,occupied morethana thousand articles. Nevertheless, itbarelytreats uponfamily and inheritance law,beingconcerned forthemostpartwithalienations, minority, leasesand repossessions. Forwhatwas leftout,Bogisicsuggested that judges shouldapplywhatwascustomary. To aid their understanding, he addedsome maximsderiving fromthecivilianregulae iuris as wellas somepopularsaws. One of these,'What is borncrookedcan neverbe made straight; whatis illegalin itsorigincan neverbecomelegalbythelapse oftimeonly',would appearto giveunlimited opportunity forvexatious litigation. Bogisic'scode was rapidlytranslated into French,Russian,Italian and Spanish.Thiswas not,however, on accountofitsmerits as a workofcodification .The code's claimthatit represented the authentic traditions of the Montenegrin people gave it the sortof ethnographic curiosity thatwould laterattachto the(dubious)Albaniankanuns.For somecommentators also, Montenegrin practices lentsolutions topractical difficulties ofa legalkindthat afflicted otherbackward partsoftheworld- itwas inthisveinthata British colonialcivilservantrecommended to the readership of the Law Quarterly Review thepartialadoptionofMontenegrin law in Bengal(H. A. D. Phillips in LQR, 13, 1897,pp. 70-84). For all its faults,however,Bogisic'scode remained thebasisofMontenegrin civillaw untilitsabrogation in 1946. Intendedto accompanya permanent exhibition in Bogisic'shometownof Cavtat,thisslimworkis theonlybiographical accountofBogisicavailablein a languagepurporting tobe English, although an unnecessarily compendious 'lifeand work'has long been availablein German(W. G. Zimmermann, Valtazar Bogisic i8j4-igo8. Ein Beitragzur südslavischen Geistesgeschichte und Rechtsgeschichte im ig. Jahrhundert, Wiesbaden, 1962, 530 pp.). Given the occasion,itis inevitable thattheauthor'sdiscussion shouldtendtowards the uncritical, althoughthe shorttextprovidessome valuable bibliographical information. Publishedin 1985,the presentworkhad onlylastyearbeen delivered to theSEER office. In thetimesinceitsprinting, the'Yugoslav'in thenameofthesponsoring institution has beenscratched off thecover.Such amplysumsup thefateoftheonceunifying field ofcomparative Slavoniclaw and...