text Ô Black Lamb and Grey Falcon Ö Rebecca West
Written on the brink of World War II Rebecca West's classic examination of the history people and politics of Yugoslavia illuminates a region that is still a focus of international co I think I only bought this book because it looked fat plain and unappreciated on the bookshop shelf It still is fat and plain but is at least occasionally enjoyed on my shelfWest's prejudices are plain pro Yugoslavia and pro Serb which on the whole means you can take them into account as you are readingSome of her attitudes come across as overly simplistic maybe even naive for instance her characterisation of the young thrusting Serb states at various points in history contrasted with flabby lethargic Byzantine and Ottoman Empires Perhaps this book is best understood as a form of propaganda or better said as expressing a distinct political view at a very particular point in time the run up to the Second World War And for her Yugoslavia is the real thing of which Mussolini's Italy is simply a flabby imitation as well as a kind of answer to the 1930s authoritative masculine virile a country which in her eyes was both well rooted in its past but also confidently looking forwardShe travels both through time and space as she takes us across 1930s Yugoslavia In Sarajevo she shows us the accidental assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand while taking us back to his troubled relationship with the Imperial court and showing us the mass organised slaughter of his hunting parties this as a visual counterpoint both to his own slaughter and that of the first world war She leads us down through the series of battles fought on the Kossovo plain and through the hard lands of Dalmatia stripped bare by foreign occupiers via the city of Split that has grown up in the remains of Diocletian's palace We see in Belgrade the alternation of Karageorges and Obrenovitchs who in turn struggled to build up a polity out from under the Ottomans But at the same time she shows us a society in transition and there references to changing habits and traditions All of this takes place however in the context of the people that she meets and travels with much of which is humorous or at least would be humorous if we didn't know what was very shortly due to happen in this country And in fact the book ends with people of Marseilles having heard of Yugoslavia's resistance to Hitler throwing flowers on the grave of King Alexander An extremely empathetic travel book and a rich introduction to the region although possibly best enjoyed with something a bit sharper and critical to cleanse the palate In any case a master work of British travel writing although it transcends that and is a cultural and historical appreciation of a region coloured by the author's disenchantment with late imperial Britain and the politics of the 1930s
Rebecca West Ö Black Lamb and Grey Falcon epub
Black Lamb and Grey FalconPs amongst its ethnic groups The landscape and the people of Yugoslavia are brilliantly observed as West untangles the tensions that rule the country's history as well as its daily li I imagine this book and I will be together on and off for some months like a Proust project But from everything I've heard I very much look forward to it