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Revolutionary
Communist
;
he may w e l l , asRose maintains,
have
expected
that
the dictatorshipofthe Equalswould soon giveway tosomecombination
ofrepresentative
government
and d i r e c t popular
c o n t r o l ;
but he can only be
c a l l e d
a
democrat
i f
that
term
is
equated, as
Rose
consistently
equates
i t
with
revolution and the serene acceptance, at l e a s t on paper, of the
necessityof
eliminating
a l l
opposition
by wholesale
slaughter.
Even granted
that
the matter was never put
to
the
t e s t ,
i t
is d i f f i c u lt
to concur
withRose's
conclusion
thatwhenBabeuf died
he had
done a l l that
one man coul d do to
vindicatethe i d e a l s of equalityandfreedom.''
Carleton
University
M. J .
Sydenham
The Establishment of the Balka n
National States,
1804-1920, by
Charlesand Barbara J e l a v i c h . Vol. v i i i of A Historyof East Central
Europe,
edited
by Peter F.
S u g a r
and
Donald
W. Treadg old.
Universityof
W ash in g t o n
Press,Seattleand London, 1978. xv, 3 44
pp. 18.95
This is the eighth of eleven volumes projected for the Uni versity of
Washington'sserieson theHistory
of
EastCentral
Europe
which, accordin g
tothe dustcover,aimsto a t t r a c t thescholarwho is not a s p e c i al i s t inthe
area
under consideration
as
well
as the student who
is considering
such
s p e c i a l i z a t i o n .
These
aimsare by no
means
as concordant as they
sound,
and l e a s t of a l l toanyone challenged towritesuch abook;but i f the other
volumes
match
thi s one, e s p e c i a l l y organizationally,the completedset willbe
a
valuable
resource
f o r
any
u n i v e r s i t y
or
large
public
l i b r a r y .
The extremely complex character of Balkan society
e t h n i c a l l y ,
r e l i g i o u s l y , l i n g u i s t i c a l l y ,
h i s t o r i c a l l y
iscommemoratedgastronomically
in
that
salad ofmanyingredients,vigorouslymixed,knownas amacdoine.
Historiansof the nineteenth centurymovements
leading
to the indepen
dence,
in turn,of severalBalkan nations are thus recounting astoryof
e x t r i c a t i o naswellas
s e l f - r e a l i z a t i o n .
But the h i s t o r i a n s themselves are
changing, and inplace ofthat e a r l i e r v i s i o n of Balkannation-buildingas an
east
European
extension of a
west Europan
l ibe ral
resurgence,
have
i n
the
l a s t
two or three
decades
become more s e n s i t i v e to the impact of the
c o l o n i a l experie nce which Balkan peoples shared forcenturiesunder
Ottomanr u l e ;
andmoreaware also
of
the
waysin
which Balkan
nationshave
learnedfrom one another,
about
the very techniques ofnational
r e v i t a l i z a -
tion, i f nothing e l s e .
The Jelavich volume, though dedicated to a consideration of the
emergence
of the separate Balkan
nations,brings
out very
well
the shared
experiences,the
c u l t u r a l
interdependence aswell as independence, the
mutual
i n s t r u c t i o n
as
well
as the
rival rie s .
Explanation for
t h i s
success is
c h i e f l y to be found in the
i n t e l l i g e n t
pre-planning of chapter structureand
content before the actual w r i t i n g
began.
Beginners in Balkan
h i s t o r y
frequently
put
down
survey-volumes
f o r
the
same
reason which
leads
others
toputdownRussiannovels toomanycharacters
with
impossiblenames,
toomanydigressionswhich only thecommittedsurvive.Thisbookshould
encouragethe student who
is considering
a Balkan s p e c i a l i z a t i o n. Itis
c l e a r .
It neverabandonsthemain narrativeli ne. It is well-proportionedand
generally
r e l i a b l e .
The w r i t i n g is
p l a i n ,
at
moments
embarrassed, but
students
do not expect verve or elegance from h i s t o r i a n s , which
is
as
w e l l .
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not a s p e c i a l i s t who neverthelessquicklygets the
f e e l
of abook, may well
noticetwo c h a r a c t e r i s t i c s in t h i s volume. F i r s t , i t grows quite notably in
i n t e r e s t as
well
as authority
a f t e r
the
openingof
the
c r i s i s
of 1876. Secondly,
the authors are
far
more
at
ease
with the diplomacy of Russia than
that
of the
other bigpowers.
Greeceseemstocomeoff
p a r t i c u l a r l y
badly, e s p e c i a l l y in the e a r l i e s t
chapters. Did
thi s
reviewer
imagine
the
boredom
of the authors with the
o f t - t o l d t a l e
ofGreekindependence?The weaknessesof
t h e i r
accountare
c e r t a i n l ynot imaginary, and thei m p l a u s i b i l i t i e s of the
c u l t u r a l
explanation f o r
the
r e v o l t
are
s t i l l
given
precedence
over the
economic,
which
by now has an
accretion
of
good, c h i e f l y p e r i o d i c a l , l i t e r a t u r e
to bemined. The
m u l t i p l i c i t y
of
Greekleaders, as against the charismatic one or two in other Balkan
s i t u a t i o n s ,
poses
an important question,
worth
consideration,
about
the
maturity
of theGreek
u p r i s i n g .
The data on
foreign
intervention
i s i n
places
archaic
or simply
wrong (philhellenism
as a
propellantof B r i t i s h
policymakers
no longer holds up) and at
moments
d i s t u r b i n g l y so; thus, one rubsone's
eyes
(p.
47) in coming across a
Robert
Castlereagh1 descri bed as a
B r i t i s h
prime-minister.
Serbiaand Bulgaria receive themostc a r e f u l and readable treatment,
thoughRumaniai s not f a r behind. As
mentioned,
the i n s i g h t s i n t o Russian
interventionismhavemuchto do witht h i s , and thec u l t u r a l linkagesbetween
St.
Petersburg and the Balkan
c a p i t a l s
are convincingly
delineated.Thus,
one
of
themostsuccessful
passages
treats
of
the disillusionmentand
dismay
in
Belgrade, Bucharest and Athenswhenthe San Stefanoarrangements
becamep u b l i c :
students usually
hear
only of the
hood-winking
of
A u s t r i a .
Compare
with
thi s
the
near
neglect of
French
and
B r i t i s h i n t e r e s t s ,
the
underplaying of the r e s i d u a l l o y a l t y to the Turks, and a lack ofstresson
Vienna's
chronic fears of Austro-Hungarian d i s s o l u t i o n , and one
sees
why,
nevertheless,
the
reality
of Russiandominance
i s
overplayed.
If students are to be won over by
lively discussion
as wellas the inherent
i n t e r e s t of the subject matter,
perhaps
the authors should alsohave picked
up
some
neglected
opportunities
in
t h e i r
own statements. The
background
chapters on the
Ottoman regime
(chapters 1, 7) assert rather than
demonstrate
or discuss the idea that a stronger current
sought
the
abandonmentof the oldways inIstanbul;and is i t r e a l l y true that the
reformerssquaredthe c i r c l e
combining
progressive ideas with anemphasis
on
Islamic
t r a d i t i o n s ? In these
days
of
Pahlavi
e x i l e ,
and with a triumphant
mollah
c a l l i n g
for Islam anddemocracy inIran,the compatibilityof East
andWesthas
perennial
i n t e r e s t . Also,the Braudelianp o s s i b i l i t ie s of Balkan
h i s t o r y
allow
someconstructive
playing with
some
new fashions
in thinking:
besides
castigating
the obscurantism of the
Greek
church
in
Bulgaria,
what
of
the
r o l e
of theGreek merchant as a purveyor of
western
ideology? Or
political
a c t i v i s t s
who were s o c i a l revolutionaries?
This
d i l a t i o n
on a few
flawsin
a
goodbook
should not be misunderstood.
It
is because
a
work
of reference should be as free as possible
from
small
errors
that
one wishes,
f o r instance,
to seecorrections
made
to thesecond
map on p. 154, and to see thebibliographymorediscriminatinglycompiled.
On Austriaalone, readerswouldsurely savour recent
work
by Schroeder,
and older c l a s s i c s byAndrassyand G. P.Gooch. Per
contra,
someof the
very recent titles on other places andtopicshave been received with almost