Strands Making Jugoslavia

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31256, 31 December 1966, Page 4

Strands Making Jugoslavia

A Short History of Jugoslavia. Edited by Stephen Clissold. Cambridge University Press. 269 pp. Index.

Five scholars including .the editor have contributed to this history of the Balkan territories which now comprise Jugoslavia. The book is a revised edition of a handbook produced by Naval Intelligence during the Second World War and is probably the best account of the evolution of this important Communist state now available. The history of Jugoslavia is the history of the stronger powers which have at times used her valleys as highways, or have sought to subdue her mountainous terrain. It is also the history of the resistance offered to these incursions by

the hardy mountain peoples, and in more recent times of the ways in which the richly varied peoples and religions left behind by succeeding waves of conquest have tried to unite into a nation state.

Inevitably this book devotes most attention to more recent times. The Turkish invasion of the fifteenth century is the central event of Jugoslav history. It destroyed . the medieval Serbian state, led to the conversion to Islam of most of Bosnia and Hercegovina, and brought about the dependence of Croatia and Dalmatia on the Roman Catholic powers, Hungary, Austria and Venice, for survival. When the Turks were finally driven out, Serbia and Montenegro emerged with a national consciousness forged by a tradition of successful recourse to arms and loyalty to their Orthodox Church, to unite with a Slovenia and Croatia proud of their Catholic and Central European character. Between the First

and Second World Wars this union between such disparate elements proved a troubled one which the Axis powers quickly and brutally destroyed. Its reaffirmation by the Partisans, in the bloodshed of enemy occupation and civil war, and its formal re-establishment under the stern guidance of Marshal Tito’s Communist regime, have been notable.

Throughout the area it has been the peasantry who have embodied the national character and consciousness. The towns have too often proved alien enclaves in their midst. Townsfolk and peasants have differed from eachother in their ways of life, their values and their economic interests. The peasants tend to look with hostility on the towns which send out officials to collect taxes. This dieotomy of town and country reaches its most acute form during an invasion. The towns, occupied by the enemy and his quislings, declare war on the countryside and strive to subdue it. The countryside reacts by passive resistance and in extreme cases by guerrilla warfare. In this sense the Partisan successes between 1941 and 1945 can be viewed as a revengeful rape of the lush valleys and soft towns by the hardy but oppressed mountaineers. Since then, the towns have received a strong infusion of peasant blood, and the social revolution has meant the eclipse of the urban middle class by a radical peasantry rather than by an industrial proletariat which was too weak to play much part in the partisan war. Now, as industrialisation gets into its stride, the workers are increasing in numbers and prestige and a “workers and peasants alliance” is starting to overlay the traditional antagonism between town and country. Post-war Jugoslavia is of tougher texture than the inter-war state. It cannot easily be disrupted by internal friction or external pressure, as Stalin was to discover after he had boasted: “I have only to raise my little finger and there will be no more Tito.” The pattern of the new state is distinctive and clear. This book considers the many different strands from which it is woven. Forty-one maps covering religious, economic and political aspects of the past and present Jugoslavia, plus a short bibliography, complete this excellent, compact history.