| The
reviewed books can be obtained via following on-line bookstores:
http://www.amazon.com/
Amazon_com--Earth's Biggest Selection
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/
Barnes & Noble_com - Gateway
 Noel
Malcolm: Bosnia: A Short History
Rating: 3.5
Malcolm's "Bosnia:
A Short History" has a few virtues and, alas, numerous faults.
Yet- those faults lie mainly in that shadowy region of unspoken
word: Malcolm is vociferously silent on those facts that would erode
the book's central thesis (and which is buried deeply enough for
an uninformed reader (some 99% of the general reading public) to
diagnose the author's partisanship): this is a book on and about
Bosnian Muslims, with Croats and Serbs appearing on the scene only
because they are unavoidable (well, one cannot easily write a chronicle
of a region ignoring two thirds of its populace) or as betes noires
whose stale nationalist mythologies ("hands off Bosnia!")
are Malcolm's special concern. So, since this is a book full of
blanks and unwritten sentences, I'll just throw in my $ 0.02 re
a few historical facts, avoiding the heated topic of recent (years
following the 1992.-1995. war) tumultuous events.
Which are the merits of Bosnia: A Short History?
1. Very concise & informative survey on the "Bosnian Church"
controversy, based on John Fine’s groundbreaking works on Bosnian
“Kristians”. This is Malcolm's finest hour.
2. Scattered throughout the book, one can find a wealth of information
on many variables defining the societal condition in Bosnia at the
particular moment of time (demographic statistics, travellers' observations
and picturesque “Orientalist” tales on the ways of these exotic
Balkan peoples, evaluation of essential historiographic references)
3. This work is a tombstone to megaserb expansionist lunacy based
on Serbian outright falsifications and distortions of Bosnia’s history
(ethnic composition of medieval Bosnia, misappropriation of much
of Bosnia and Herzegovina multicentenary literary and artistic cultural
heritage) that has, combined with loudspeaker propaganda, in past
century or so permeated the academia throughout the world-and, in
addition, general uninformed Western perception of Yugoslavia and
its central region.
Which are Malcolm's blind spots and failures?
Since his (hidden) focus is the growth of Bosnian Muslim ethnicity
to national self-awareness & any form of statehood (the more,
the better), he must of necessity exclude or disregard a multitude
of facts that would refute his multiculturalist dogma (Trojan Horse
of Bosnian Muslim drive for domination, and very hip at that). So:
1. He has (cautiously, I'd say) avoided inclusion of maps that would
show the territorial compass of the medieval Bosnia, especially
if a succession of maps from the 10th to the 15th centuries had
been juxtaposed on the current "sovereign" Bosnia and
Herzegovina state boundaries map. An imaginary innocent reader would
have been greatly surprised had he been shown that the medieval,
pre-1379, Bosnia covered somewhere between 20 and 40% of the contemporary
republic and that more than 50% of the contemporary "Bosnia"
has historically been part of the Croatian state in one form or
another. Current boundaries are a legacy of the Ottoman expansion
and nothing sacrosanct per se-a product of balance of powers and
something intrinsically contestable. This doesn't mean that we can
nonchalantly brush off last 5 centuries; but it equally shows that
"hands off Bosnia" slogan is just politicos's claptrap.
Which Bosnia? What boundaries?
2. Malcolm has done a heavy cultural/historical misrepresentation
in a few cases (again, a vocal silence):
a) the vast majority of extant pre-Ottoman Bosnian written works
of art (illuminated manuscripts decorated mainly in Romanesque style
-the best examples being the Hval miscellany and Duke Hrvoje missal)
are written in Croatian Glagolitic and Western Cyrillic (bosančica)
script & are a part of Croatian cultural heritage, as are the
oldest monuments of literacy on the Bosnian soil, for instance the
Humac tablet and Gršković’s fragments (one can see examples at the
address http://www.croatianhistory.net/etf/et04.html
.) So much for pre-Ottoman Bosnian "Slavic" diffused/confused
identity that is neither Croat nor Serb.
b) author's survey of cultural development from 1600s to 1800s is
"monumentally" myopic. He has enumerated almost exclusively
Bosnian Muslim writers (mainly in Oriental languages) and has neglected
(not entirely, but nearly) Bosnian Croat Franciscan writers who,
writing both in Croatian and Latin, had dwarfed their Muslim contemporaries
beyond dispute. Of course- measured by European best writing standards
of these times (Milton, Defoe, Johnson, Racine, Prevost, Lessing,..)-
these are provincial and dated works. But, they are the best literature
that has come from Bosnia during these times. And are ignored only
to give boost to author's implicit thesis: it's Bosnian Muslims
who center, one way or another, the region portrayed in the myopic
narrative.
To conclude: the author's partiality in service of giving credence
to Bosnian Muslim political agenda is glaringly evident. But not
to the average perplexed reader.
 Ivo
Goldstein: Croatia: A History
Rating:
2.5
This book is
a fine example of prejudiced and politically correct diatribe against
Croat "nationalism" (the central stigma for "liberal"
kowtowing historical revisionists thinly disguised as professionals
in the field). One thing cannot be dissected in full measure, because
it lies beyond the scope of the review. And this is that Ivo Goldstein
is a PC historian (PhD and all that jazz notwithstanding), a product
of socialist revisionism that sought to curb all "nationalisms"
by falsifying many facets of national histories. Goldstein is a
product of this Marxist reductionism that coalesced with newer political
correctness (after the collapse of Communism) in joint diatribes
against that “malign nationalists” who prevent the materialization
(a la Sai Baba, I guess) of liberal conflict-free paradise on earth.
Also, it is completely in line both with Goldstein's previous work
on medieval Croatian history (a book and numerous articles), where
he expounded his own "shrinking" and minimalist version
of Croatian medievalistics (hopelessly wandering in the desert left
by his former mentor, a self-appointed iconoclastic historian Nada
Klaić (although he has gone far beyond her; in a perverse irony
of historiography’s meanders, Goldstein transmuted her quirky iconoclasm
into a dogma reminiscent of Stalin’s revisionist scribes’s canon
of falsification)).
Goldstein's previous work consists of a book (Hrvatska povijest
ranog srednjeg vijeka/Croatian history in the early Middle Ages)
and numerous articles. They all show similar traits:
a) reductionism (Goldstein’s misuse of early historical chronicles
(Byzantine, Venetian, Frankish) is legendary). His mentor's (Nada
Klaić) works had blundered this way, but not so radically. More-
his pseudoscholium is based on free distortions of historical sources
("hey- this passage fits. I'll take it. Hmm. And-*this* must
be wrong, some kind of mistake since it gives a mental fodder to
nasty nationalists. Hence- I'll ignore this manuscript (Byzantine,
Arabic, Venetian) altogether") without a clear argumentation-
just pompous pronouncements). For instance, much more qualified
historians like Stanko Guldescu, Ivo Perić, Miroslav Brandt etc.
are in direct collision with his "findings". He hilariously
chopped Croatia's territory in 9th/10th century by more than 30-40%,
with no argument whatsoever save a few dismissive remarks.
b) he consciously ignored some "unpleasant" facts about
early Croat architecture (complexities with Stonehengean astronomic
resonances) and minimized the worth of Croatian Renaissance and
Baroque literature (which is the best literary output of any Slavic
nation in that period, although it lags behind masterworks of Renaissance
Italy, France or England.)
c) even as a medievalist Goldstein flunked. As a national history
surveyor, his short book is a case of heavy misreading serving,
as has been said, the new revisionism which tries to rewrite last
10 (or so) years of ex-Yu history as a sort of mixture of nationalist
hysterics heyday and redistribution of "guilt" (not entirely-
he knows some things are too transparent). His "treatment"
of president Tudjman and his political manoeuvres whereby Croatia
acquired her independence virtually against the majority of "international
players" is instigated by his vitriolic hatred of all things
Croatian that have even an angstromsize connection with the fallen
Independent State of Croatia (NDH). Hell- Goldstein always preferred
Yu integrations and Tito’s velvet dictatorship- a pet of Western
leftist/liberal dogmatists. Under the guise of impartiality the
author sells his own agenda: good (but misinformed) internatonales,
bad provincial Balkan chauvinists, ineradicable Croat fascist leanings,
“progressive” ideology of “Yugoslavism” as a sort of John the Baptist
before the EU Christ,.......
Virtually the only merit of Croatia: A History
illustrates La Rochefoucauld’s apothegm:”Our virtues are mostly
vices in disguise”. Goldstein has, thanks to his version of “historical
minimalism”, avoided the fabrications and fictions of national grandomanias
which plague the official historiographies of neighboring nations,
especially Serbs and Bosnian Muslims. Other than that- for more
reliable Croatian histories in English one should consult works
of Ivo Perić, Stjepan Antoljak’s "A Survey of Croatian History",
Stanko Guldescu, Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts history series,
Marcus Tanner, Mikulic’s “Opened seals” and Eterovich’s guide to
Croatian genealogy. In Goldstein’s case- professional credentials
(recently heavily questioned) are just a smokescreen.
 Laura
Silber, Alan Little: Yugoslavia: Death of a Nation
Rating:
1.5
I suppose the
reason why this book usually gets unbelievably good ratings is its
simplicity: essentially, the title should read “Complete idiot’s
guide to Western stereotypes on hows and whys of Yugoslavia’s collapse”.
Virtually the only virtue of Yugoslavia: Death of a Nation (the
title is deceptive- in non-US terminology, Yugoslavia was never
a nation; only a country consisting of several nations) is that
you’ll get acquainted (very stereotypically) with key players of
the 1991-1995 war and be told a banality that the Greater Serbia
ideology was the root cause of the rampage and bloodshed (other
nuances aside). The authors are journalists (the book is based on
a BBC series), and this is, I suppose, the best output media professionals
with superficial knowledge of history, culture, national and ideological
programs can come up with. So, for complete ignorants interested
in ex-Yugoslavia wars, this is probably both the beginning and the
end of the story. Others- forget it.
 Vladimir
Dedijer: The Yugoslav Auschwitz and the Vatican
Rating:
1.5
This book is
a kind of disappointment. I am having Dedijer, the author of a few
worthy and intriguing history books on my mind- not this trashy
propaganda consisting of chunks of unverified and sloppily pasted
lists, black-and-white generalizations and dubious analyses based
mainly on hearsay. Anyone who considers this baggy monster of pamphleteering
anything but a sign of the author's mental and moral decrepitude,
should have their head examined. Nay, the weakness lies elsewhere.
For all his controversial (and exhibitionist) stance, Dedijer was
not a proponent of Serbian "hysteriography" and chauvinist
grandomania, culminating in the planned ex-Yu genocides. His masterwork,
"War Diary", plus a few other biographical hilariously
scandalous & entertaining rants (Tito, Djilas), ensure him the
place of a publicist who will survive current disputes full of sound
and fury. He'll survive even this slip into megaserbian hallucinatory
inflation (Croatia proper had circa 650,000-700,000 Serb inhabitants
in 1941- virtually the same percentage of Croatia’s population as
in the first post-war census. Had genocide of such monstruous proportions
as Dedijer claims really happened, this would certainly have left
a vast and all-too-visible hole in the country’s demographics. No
such thing, as other researchers have shown: http://www.croatianhistory.net/etf/bul.html
). Also-had this mythic martyrological numerology been at least
partially true, there wouldn't have been Serbs left to start their
irredentist/genocidal "spontaneous" rebellion during which
they had temporarily carved out and seceded 1/4 of Croatia's territory.
Yet, in this pamphlet Dedijer (unlike his brother, respected intelligence
expert and professor Stevan Dedijer) allowed himself to be swept
into the vortex of malign Serbian mythic consciousness (distorted
self-image of a people victimized and humiliated by a legion of
purported enemies, ranging from Croats and Vatican to Muslims and
Tehran- which in turn led to hostility and aggression on almost
all neighboring nations that constituted Communist Yugoslavia) that
was intentionally nourished and intensified in the concentrated
effort of vast majority of Serbian intelligentsia (if this is the
proper word) to create Greater Serbia on the ruins of destroyed
Yugoslavia. So, albeit this perverse pamphlet deserves less than
one star, I'm giving it one and a half for the sake of author's
whole opus.
 Morton
Benson: Standard English-SerboCroatian, SerboCroatian-English Dictionary
Rating: 2
I wouldn't
comment on technical & pedagogical aspects of this book (nouns,
declensions, adjectives etc.) As a native speaker of Croatian, I
can see this book as (at best) an effort to give reader some basic
stuff to linguistically get by in what used to be called "Serbian
or Croatian diasystem" (funny phrase) or “Serbo-Croatian” language.
But, give or take- this is basically a Serbian dictionary. I don't
intend to nitpick, but a few things have to be addressed: Croatian
and Serbian are different standard languages. Bosnian (or, more
precisely, Bosniak) is in the process of standardization, and will
certainly achieve the stable norm in near future. Also, there was
not, ever, a "Serbo-Croatian" standard language. The same
with "Portol" (Portuguese and Spanish), "Hurdu"
(Hindi and Urdu), "Czechoslovakian" (Czech and Slovak)
or "Bulgaronian" (Bulgarian and Macedonian). These are
similar languages which crystallized out of basically the same dialectal
"prime matter"- as is the case with bokmal Norwegian and
Danish or Malay and Bahasa Indonesian. But to describe them as "variants
of a language" (British and American English analogy is frequently
(ab)used) is sheer nonsense. And here is the center of the paradox-
entire books have been translated from one language to another.
Probably the most bizarre case is Swiss psychologist Jung’s masterwork
“Psychology and Alchemy”, translated into Croatian in 1986, and
retranslated, in late 1990s, into Serbian not from the original
German, but from Croatian. A translation and “translation’s translation”
differ on virtually every page: orthographically, lexically, syntactically,
semantically. Yet, to intensify the paradox: the two languages remain
mutually intelligible to a very high degree for their respective
speakers (especially on the colloquial level), which is the product
of two different facts: virtually the same dialectal basis for both
standard languages and effective bilingualism (still alive) as a
result of living almost a century in one state.
Croatian and
Serbian differ in:
1. script (Latin and Cyrillic)
2. grammar and syntax (ca. 100 different syntactic rules)
3. morphology (ca. 300 different prescriptions. Also, Croatian is
a purist language-unlike Serbian. Moreover, even "internationalisms"
like organize are different: organizirati in Croatian, organizovati
in Serbian. Bosniak language tends, in this respect, to overlap
with Croatian- but not entirely, since it was subject of forced
Serbianization in past 50 years and more).
4. vocabulary (ca. 20-30% of everyday vocabulary is different. The
thesaurus of an average high school graduate is ca. 40,000 to 50,000
words. Draw the conclusion).
So, this dictionary will, at best, make you an "expert"
in "pidgin South-Slavic". If this is enough- buy it. If
you want more-avoid it.
 Croatia
in the Early Middle Ages
Rating:
5
Croatia in the
Early Middle Ages is the first volume of the intended 5 volumes
series that intends to present to the wider audience (in French
and English editions) the, in the alchemist parlance, “quintessentia”
of Croatian culture and civilization, spanning thirteen centuries
(7th to 20th ). The entire series is a project of Croatian Academy
of Sciences and Arts, and the other four volumes will see the light
in the next few years (the second volume which covers the 13th to
16th century period-mature Medieval Age and Humanism and Renaissance-
has already been published in Croatian, with English and French
translations to appear till the end of 2003.) This voluminous (630+
pages; dimensions 22 cm x 30 cm) book, written by pre-eminent Croatian
academicians and scholars, lavishly illustrated, both scholarly
impeccable and accessible to the interested general reading public,
is divided into 8 major chapters and 30 minor ones. The major chapters
are: Croatia in European History and Culture; Croatian Territorry
in Classical Antiquity and in the Middle Ages; Origins, Society,
State and Religion; Sources-Inscriptions; Language and Literature;
Fine Arts; Music; Science and Philosophy. Since it is beyond the
scope of the review to enumerate all minor chapters, it will have
to suffice to name just a few in order to get “the flavor” of the
Croatia in the Early Middle Ages survey: Croatia-historical
and cultural identity; Greek and Roman Antiquity; The archaelogical
heritage of early Croats; The Church and Christianity; The Croatian
glagolitic and cyrillic epigraphs until 1200; Language and literature;
Glagolitism and glagolism; The pre-Romanesque in Croatia; Sculpture
from the 8th to the 12th century; Illuminated manuscripts; The first
centuries of Croatian music; Glagolitic chant; Science and philosophy
among Croats.
The best way to conclude
this review is to quote the foreword, written by the foremost authority
on the medieval European civilisation Jacques Le Goff:
“It was an excellent
idea, born in the early 1990s following the creation of the independent
state of Croatia, that the Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts
(founded in Zagreb in 1861) should undertake the publication of
a history of relations between Croatia and the rest of Europe written
from a cultural, scholarly and artistic point of view. Here we have
the English translation of the first volume of the five which are
to be devoted to that history, and it covers the period extending
from the genesis of Croatia in the 7th century to its mediaeval
apogee at the close of the 12th century.
In these pages the authors, all Croats, demonstrate in an erudite,
intelligent and brilliant way, that Croatia is both a culturally
distinct and yet profoundly Western European component of the rich
ensemble which constitutes Europe, and that, from the Early Middle
Ages, she has contributed to it in an outstanding manner within
the specific domain most important to her, that of civilisation.
Croatia manifests most clearly her Western European character through
the remarkable combination of a personality which, right up to the
present day, and through all her torments and tribulations, has
expressed her awareness of her cultural identity, coupled with the
appropriation of a wide range of elements derived from the many
different cultures with which she has been in contact. As with Europe
itself, Croatia is the product of successive cultural contributions
which have enriched her without changing her fundamentally.
This diversity is in the first place dictated by geography, located
as she is in the immediate zone of contact between the East and
the West, between Northern Europe and the lands of the Mediterranean.
She has thus been the fruit of history. Croatia brought together
the heritage of the Roman Empire, around Salona, the capital of
Roman Dalmatia. Of Slavonic origin, she has absorbed into the ongoing
Slavonic heritage contributions from her Carolingian, Byzantine,
Venetian and South Italian, Pannonian and, above all, Hungarian
neighbours. Croatia converted to the Latin tradition of Christianity
- the first of the Slav peoples so to do- which placed her in the
zone of dynamic interaction (as it still is to play) between it
and Greek Orthodox Christianity, but this also integrated her, in
a way which is now becoming better understood, with Latin Christianity,
the cradle of modern Western Europe. As “the easternmost region
of Europe in which the Latin language and alphabet were employed
for diplomatic purposes”, she knew how to unite written Latin with
Cyrillic characters and, above all for liturgical purposes, with
the Glagolitic, which Pope Innocent IV finally approved in the middle
of the 13th century. Furthermore, Pope Paul VI was able to say that
she belongs to the “territories of encounters and dialogue”.
You will see in this superb book-— which will bring blushes to many
of its English-speaking readers, not least myself, on account of
their ignorance - the flowering of one of the finest artistic traditions
of the Early Middle Ages. They will meet there two of the most outstanding
intellectual figures of the Middle Ages: the theologian Gottschalk
from Saxony who was the guest of Prince Trpimir from 846 until 848,
and the great scholar Herman Dalmatin, a brilliant product of the
School of Chartres (1130—1134) and one of the first to introduce
Arab culture into Western Europe together with Greek literature
transmitted by the Arabs.
I do not doubt that readers of this work will find here more than
sufficient reasons to accord to the Croatian people of today, notwithstanding
the vicissitudes of our tragic century, admiration, friendship and
a certain zeal, into the new millenium, to help to encourage wider
recognition of her position within the Western European family.”
 Michael
Sells: The Bridge betrayed
Rating:
1.5
Michael Sells’s
overpraised pamphlet (there is a story that former US president
W.J.Clinton was so fascinated with this sloppy fiction that he (in
his intimate circle) referred to it as one of his favorite contemporary
politics/history books. Bearing in mind that Clinton, during his
“rake’s progress”, listed Marcus Aurelius as his mind/psyche formative
reading experience and Koestler’s hero Rubashov (from “Darkness
at Noon”, describing Stalin’s purges) as a fellow victimized individual-one
should better abstain from a comment.) had achieved its purpose:
it sold well and had had some influence on GRP.
This book possesses at least two peculiarities: the author’s presumed
genealogical “credentials” and the cartoon “paradigm” of three villains
and one guileless victim. As far as “genealogy” is concerned, Sells’s
much publicized partly Serbian descent served as *the* shield from
attacks on his biased pseudoscholium (his tenure as Arab-Islamic
scholar and translator at Haverford College gave him no expert authority
and informed insight into ex-Yu and Bosnia & Herzegovina collapse
causes and effects). One might add (cynically) that Sells’s case
is a good example illustrating the triumph of “nurture” over “nature”-
his life career, studies and sympathies centred on Islamic “oikomena”/Dar-al-Islam,
he probably couldn’t had done it otherwise than in a glaringly partisan
way.
So, the three principal villains are Serbs, Croats and the “international
community”. While they have their own separate agenda, the first
duo is, in author’s view, at least partially united in the “Christoslavism”-
neologism signifying a quasireligious genocidal ideology no one
has heard of until Sells made this archaeideological “discovery”.
The reality of multicentenary Islamic theocratic oppression in Bosnia
under Ottoman rule (now resurfacing within Bosnian Muslim community
in the series of (largely ignored by the Western press) atrocities
grounded in Islamic fanaticism- one can see a gruesome example at
the address http://www.hercegbosna.org/engleski/christmas.html
) - this reality is simply glossed over as a trifling compared to
the ogre of the “Christoslavism” phantasm. The banality of the fact
that so radically conflicting ideologies like Croatian and Serbian
national unification programs cannot be subsumed under one “umbrella”,
mutually neutralizing “Christoslavism” mindset- didn’t bother Sells
at all. The only pathetic excuse of balanced approach he attempted
at consisted in laying more burden of blame and guilt on the Croat
side- in his myopic vision of the chain of violence, Serbs got a
partly “extenuating circumstances” excuse in one respect: they are
portrayed as victims of Croatian villains.
This reviewer has not found in The Bridge betrayed
a single reference on Croat martyrdom in Bosnia and Herzegovina,
both at the hands of Serbs and Bosnian Muslims. An uninformed reader
may get the impression that Croats tried to cleanse Muslims from
Central Bosnia and Herzegovina. Numbers speak the opposite: intercommunal
fighting ethnically "cleansed" 150,000 Croats from Muslim-held
areas & 50,000 Muslims from Croat-held areas. Civilian victims
of coldly calculated massacres: circa 200 Muslims and 960 Croats.
In Central Bosnia, Croatian forces (HVO) fought (successfully) an
uphill battle-they were outnumbered 12/1 by Muslim soldiers.
In short, this book can be summarized thusly: the “international
community” are admixture of dupes, hypocrites and machinators; Bosnian
Muslims are pure and innocent victims; Serbs are the biggest villains,
but with the redeeming quality of being victimized by Croats (both
in WW2 and wars for Yugoslav succession); at the end, Croats are
genuine and unrelenting Fascists with no positive trait whatsoever.
 Alex
Dragnich: Serbs and Croats: The Struggle in Yugoslavia
Rating:
3
Dragnich’s
Serbs and Croats is an interesting book for at
least three reasons: it is written in so elementary manner that
proverbial “complete idiots” (literally) are its target audience;
then, given the quality of this historical narrative and Dragnich’s
professional credentials (former professor at Vanderbilt University,
Tennessee), one should ask some unpleasant questions about the academic
tenure criteria of the US higher education system; and, after finishing
the book, one is left with a kind of contemptuous pity for Serbian
propaganda machine. Serbs and Croats is a litany
of contradictory and easily refutable Serbian national myths: Croats
are both inferior servile pro-German puppets and diabolical Serbocidal
fanatics equipped by formidable survival skills, both as Fascist
Ustashe and Communist Partisans; royal Yugoslavia was a bit flawed,
but still a country close to embodiment of justice, freedom and
democracy for all (especially for ungrateful non-Serbs); Croatian
and Muslim Ustashe killed more than 500 thousand innocent Serbs
(or million- Serbian national mythology has always been generous
with figures); Communist Yugoslavia was dominated by Serb-hating
Croatian dictator Tito (who, immediately after the WW2, ordered
the killing of more Croats- both sexes and every age-than Serbian
Chetniks, German Nazis and Italian Fascists combined had succeeded
to murder); the republics boundaries in Tito’s federal Yugoslavia
were drawn with intent to dismember Serbian ethnic corpus (never
mind that Serbs were more dispersed than any other nation in Yugoslavia
due to the historical fact that they have, in past three or four
centuries, migrated into other peoples’s lands while remaining a
minority there. As the last war has shown, their behavior exemplifies
the case of colonial minorities elsewhere-from French in Algeria
& British in Zimbabwe to Russians in Chechnya & Central
Asian Republics. They either rule as a privileged caste or flee
to their motherland when the system of exploitation, which they
have been so avid a part thereof, breaks.)
Be as it may, I would recommend this book to those interested in
tallying all the pathological fixations oppressing the Serbian collective
psyche. Here you got them all, clearly cut and neatly packaged.
|
