Land of the South Slavs

Ancient walls of Dubrovnik

The area around Trieste, having been divided into two zones, was occupied by Anglo-American forces after World War II.  In 1954, residents of Zone A, including Trieste itself, voted to join Italy; residents of Zone B, a larger geographical area, voted to join Yugoslavia.  I was 14 at the time, and I remember the plebiscite well.  I viewed it as free Italy vs. Communist Yugoslavia.  Why would anyone choose Yugoslavia, I wondered?

In the 1990s, as Yugoslavia was breaking up, a vicious war took place between Croatia, striving for independence, and Serbia, which hoped to keep Croatia within a Serbian dominated Yugoslav union.  Serbs and Croats were ethnically identical, and spoke the same language.  Why the hatred and hostility between the two former Yugoslav states, hatred that went far beyond that expected in a simple argument about whether two adjacent states should be separate countries or united, I wondered?

Over the years, of course, I developed some vague knowledge about the background of these two hostilities, and others in the area.  But this week I began reading Dame Rebecca West's amazing 1941 book Black Lamb and Grey Falcon, based on a six-week trip the author and her husband took in 1937 around Yugoslavia.  The book helps the reader understand not only the history of, but the emotions causing, the Slavic people's hostilities among themselves and with their neighbors.

The book is epic in size, over a thousand pages, and I've read only the first 25 percent.  The reading is slow because the text is dense with information, and shifts rapidly between travel writing, historical developments dating back as far as Alexander the Great, art analysis, psychological studies of the local people the couple meet and talk to, and detailed descriptions of flowers, plants, trees, seas and rivers, towns, and architecture.  The book is also filled with Dame Rebecca's (I'll call her "West" for short) somewhat eccentric and boldly stated opinions about German and Austrian boorishness and Austrian fecklessness, Venetian and Italian corruption and treachery, Serbo-Croatian male beauty and manliness, Ottoman Turkish cruelty and rapacity -- and her, at times, surprisingly assertive female chauvinism.  And that's just a start. 

West also has strong views, probably well justified, as to why Croats seem more refined and well-educated than the Serbs and other South Slavs.  The Croats were cuddled up as a protected unit of the Austro-Hungarian Empire for centuries, while the Bosnians, Macedonians, and Montenegrins, were part of the Ottoman Empire, and while the Serbs struggled for their own independence, and eventually for the independence of the entire peninsula from the Turks -- at great cost in suffering and poverty.  They achieved independence after a war against the Ottomans in the early years of the nineteenth century.

In general, West finds the Serbo-Croatians to be loud, proud, and often angry.  She likes that about them, and finds it entirely justified by their history.  By 1937, at the time of West's visit, the Serbs were firmly devoted to the Yugoslavian centralized government in Belgrade, as were some Croatians,  Most Croatians wanted independence, even in 1937.  She toured Croatia with friends from both camps, friends who acted stiffly correct in each other's presence.

I visited Zagreb, the capital of Croatia, in 1961, as part of a school group.  We must have had a guided tour, but I primarily recall wandering around the city in the evening with some friends.  It was the most boring city I had ever visited.  I remember our looking in shop windows, and finding surgical supplies on display.  But in 1937, West loved Zagreb, and she devotes three chapters to its charms.  World War II and Tito's Communist state apparently were not kind to the city. 

So far in my reading, West has discussed her visits to Croatia and Dalmatia.  She and her husband have now just left Dubrovnik and are headed for Herzegovina.  Ahead lie sections of her book devoted to Bosnia, Serbia, Macedonia, "Old Serbia," and Montenegro.  I won't attempt to sum up my conclusions until I've finished the entire book -- a goal I've set for myself, something to occupy the long, COVID-19 evenings of isolation.

I leave you with a final item of trivia:   Our English word "argosy" (a large merchant ship, especially with a rich cargo) is derived from "Ragusa," an important city and a key, very prosperous Adriatic port, one long envied by the Turks.  Ragusa was the historic Croatian name for Dubrovnik.  The Dalmatians changed the name to Dubrovnik ("oak grove") after World War I, because (according to West) "Ragusa" sounded too Italian.  Understandable, because the Ragusans had fought the Italians in general, and Venice in particular, off and on ever since 1205, and right up through the time of Mussolini.

Memories are long and don't fade easily in the Balkans.