I cannot fathom how this pseudo-intellectual drivel has amassed such a cult following on this website or anywhere for that matter. Perhaps it's due to its hefty size (1150 pages, excluding the bibliography), leading readers to feel compelled to praise the book simply for the effort expended in reading it. But in reality, there's nothing of substance here. West is the quintessential White British petit bourgeois colonialist, offering nothing of value to a discerning reader and presenting an intellectually feeble portrayal of her subject matter.

Based on her own limited travels in the region, not unlike a contemporary Instagram influencer, she "found herself" among "her people" and penned this rubbish, fascist treatise. How many of us have had a friend travel to a foreign country and, based on a mere minute of observation, use their social media platform to advocate for a particular political position, indulging in behavior ranging from ignorance to savior complex to outright racism?

As if the travel genre weren't already thoroughly irredeemable, here we have West spewing her prejudice on every page. The extent of her historical reasoning is confined to racial prejudice based on phenotype and physiognomy, no different in practice from that wholeheartedly adopted by Nazi Germany. Her criticisms of fascism seem both hollow and hypocritical in light of her rampant racism and Islamophobia. Her depictions of "ordinary people" - supposedly the book's strong point - are Orientalist and reinforce colonial myths of white superiority and Western European enlightenment. They uphold what is known in Orientalist literature as the "anti-conquerer," where the white, guilt-ridden colonialist is portrayed as sympathizing with the subject other. In this book, on every page, the boundaries of the West (through borders, culture, architecture, music, history, dancing, literature, language, religion, etc.) are depicted as the end of civilization, the end of enlightenment. Her subjects, especially when they are Muslims in Bosnia, are alternately depicted as sensuous, animalistic, or with a sympathizing otherization.

The prose is also pitiful. The expression in the book is horribly pretentious. Unable to express herself succinctly, West indulges in lengthy, meandering recitals of nothing in particular, often reproducing mundane conversations in full about this or that philosophical or historical tidbit. Moreover, it is empty praise to mindlessly endorse a racist, fascist pamphlet simply because one thinks it is well-written. If Mein Kampf were written with greater attention to the nuances of prose, it would still be no less contemptible.

Her approach to reporting history is also laughable, showing not just laziness but a contempt for citation. Her bibliography consists mostly of a few unrelated secondary sources, and I highly doubt her claims and reasoning would withstand even a cursory fact check. While it is accepted as a personal account, when one delves into providing a supposedly exploratory account of the human condition as depicted through a particular region's history and people; in other words, when one writes directly about external and observable phenomena, one should do so with at least a nod or the slightest respect for the facts.

Furthermore, precisely because of her self-righteousness, because she casts herself as an intelligent, sympathetic white liberal, because she replicates a racist, stereotypical approach to history, and precisely because she is so well-received with a cult following among readers, this book demands greater scrutiny than the uncritical acceptance and praise it has received within this online community.

She does not deserve the benefit of a different era, a different time. If she were truly a genius (as many here seem to believe), she had the ability to overcome those prejudices. What's more, there were many in her day who did not share her prejudices and were able to see beyond the aestheticization and romanticization of peoples, cultures, and history. And finally, it would be a disservice to our own times to ignore our capacity to think critically about what has come before us.

Rebecca West's three trips to Yugoslavia occurred in the mid-1930s. However, this book wasn't published until 1941, long after the historical events in Europe of 1938, 1939, 1940, and 1941. Clearly, she wrote about the Balkans based on past events, and her knowledge of history is impressive. But I couldn't stop thinking about this time gap. I wondered if some of her opinions regarding the Allied and Axis powers would have been the same as she experienced them during her travels when those alliances didn't actually exist yet. Or were her recollections influenced by the history unfolding before her eyes as she was writing and rewriting her work? I believe this gap gave her the freedom to express sharper criticisms and elaborate on positions that might otherwise have been muted or nonexistent. Don't misunderstand me; the book is an excellent achievement, and West is a brilliant writer. But this dichotomy is never resolved in my mind, and I felt its result throughout the entire book. It's a chronicle of earlier events with the benefit of hindsight to write about that earlier time. True, that's what history is, but I found it awkward here as the book is presented as a story/travelogue of a trip through Yugoslavia and the statements and opinions expressed in the mid-1930s.

West's fascinating inquiry into the Serbian poem of the grey falcon and the ritualistic use of black lambs intellectually and philosophically stimulated her. As a result, she found herself closely questioning her held beliefs, which led to an epiphany of her former "progressive illusions."

This is a masterful, profound, and somewhat discursive account of Yugoslavia, a country now no longer in existence. The Introduction claims the book as "more than eleven hundred pages of densely wrought text," and anyone delving into this immense and scholarly volume would surely view it in the same way or might even describe it in much stronger language. She concludes with a thoughtful 77-page Epilogue, which I felt was one of the best parts of the book.

I had some spare time, so I completed this in three days. I am a Slav, and don't tell me it can't be done. Anything is possible, especially if you're not afraid to cry and go to bed at 5 am. I didn't even intend to finish it - I was planning to read it leisurely for the second time, but it was completely unexpected - the nonfictional Rebecca West is entirely unexpected.

Like a Slav, I dare say.

She even expresses herself like a Slav - honest, deeply honest to the point where some might call her callous. But this is not callousness; it is a higher degree of confidence in one's thinking process. And she should be honest and confident about it. This book is another kind of "The Magic Mountain" and Constantine (her Serbian guide, rumored to be the writer and poet Stanislav Vinaver) is another Ludovico Settembrini.

Strangely, this book has been used to accuse her of having strict Serbian partisan sentiment, but that's not what I've been reading. From the first page, once she arrives in Zagreb, Rebecca West is quite fair in drawing the inter-ethnic lines that form the soft ball of yarn that is Yugoslavia, and she continues to be very specific throughout the book.

There is no political pro-anyone sentiment here; there is only Love. Her love for a great number of nations and everything that differentiates them as well as everything that binds them. To this end, West had to go on an extensive research trip in the geo-political history of the entire region, detailing individuals and important historical episodes to create order in the chaos that is the story of the region.

No, Rebecca West does not take ethnic sides here. She is just being honest. Like a Slav.

"The Bosnia Chapter" - everyone should read this. It is a poignant, incredibly well-researched and presented writing on the onset of World War I, giving important context to the assassination of Franz Ferdinand and the folly and absurdity of political games that led to war and desolation.

It is in Sarajevo that West gets her first impression of a Slavic city that is richly mixed in its religions. She is completely mesmerized by the diversity of it all: Orthodox or Catholic Bosnians, Serbs, Old Serbs who are Orthodox, Catholic or Muslim Austrians, Muslims, Ashkenazi Jews, Orthodox or Liberal Jews, and the list goes on and on....

Of Mostar, she says "we travelled in a rough Scottish country, where people walked under crashing rain, unbowed by it." She compares the village of Jezero to Jane Austen's Bath, with the neatness of the front gardens and the architecture of the houses.

I have always been partial to Bosnia and Herzegovina - something about the death toll always being the highest there in any war in the area - in the same way that West was partial to Macedonia (now Republic of North Macedonia). But neither of us are ethnics of these particular groups, so we allow ourselves to publicly love the entirety of it.

And that's what West did here: she travelled and she loved. So she came back to London and continued to love: by reading more, researching more, learning more, thinking more, and by writing, by writing 1181 pages. And after all these pages, I can only conclude that at the end of the day, she wrote about Love.

"The Croatia chapter": West visits a tuberculosis hospital in Šestine, near Zagreb. Reminiscent of Vera Brittain, West is also taken aback by the vast difference in patient treatment compared to England: the staff is calm and warm, the hospital is clean, the food is abundant, and there is a deep psychoanalytical approach to treating illness that did not exist yet in England, where they were treating all patients as fools. I actually stumbled upon Lacanian ideas coming out of the good doctor's mouth.

Yes, we are a suspicious and inquisitive bunch. And West notices well that there is a strange mysticism surrounding the Slavic culture, something in the clash between civilizations of opposing religious beliefs that transfers deep into the individual's psyche and comes out in interesting ways, such as wearing red colored thread for embroidery - a common theme that West notices in every subdivision of Yugoslavia. Slavs love Red, for it is the color of fire and sun. The deeply superstitious (such as granny) believed that the color they would call "Zivocrveni" (literal translation: the living red) had magical powers for warding off evil spirits or the evil eye.

In Ilidža, Constantine explains more of this Mysticism, as he tells of the Slavs of Sarajevo for example as they were confronted by the Ottoman Empire at its most magnificent, which is to say Islam at its most magnificent, which is to say Persia at its most magnificent. From it, they took its luxury, militarism, pride, and above all its concept of Love. The luxury and militarism are gone, but the Persian concept of Love remained. A concept of love that Westerners did not have, something that makes one read "The Arabian Nights" with great attention, a concept of love that demands to be sudden, secret, and dangerous. To the Westerners, love must be as slow as growing a plant and desire is vulgar, but for this other concept, it can be sudden and dangerous, it can be so ecstatic that it can come into full being at a single encounter, that it needs only that encounter to satisfy the lovers. If you offered these lovers a lifetime together, you could not offer them more than that one encounter. This implies that there is always Hope, no matter how much suppression comes from the oppressors.

But all this is bespoke to this second concept of Love, this rare gem (Lacan's agalma - the object of desire), this mystic sensuality with its roots in Old Persia, no different than the Slavic worship of "The Cult of Mithras", a mysterious Roman religion that even made its way to Britain, with roots in the Iranian worship of the Zoroastrian divinity Mithra, deity of light, justice, sun, guardian of cattle, and the harvest.

If. If. IF. "If...". "probably not so fatal...".

As it is, the publishing of this book coincided with Hitler invading Yugoslavia.

And Rebecca West is right: the Yugoslavs were well aware since time immemorial of the difference between good and evil. Therefore, they chose that Yugoslavia should be destroyed rather than submit and be secure in a state of hatred - they made that choice for love of life and not love of death.

I understand. In the "black lamb" circumstance, I am the one who takes both the rock and the knife and crushes them so tightly in my right Hand that nothing but blackened dust remains.

***

Random quotes:

"There were stalls covered with fine embroidered handkerchiefs and table linen, which was all of it superbly executed, for Slav women have a captured devil in their flying fingers to work wonders for them."

"I had come to Yugoslavia because I knew that the past has made the present and I want to see how the process works. It is plain that it means a great amount of human pain, arranged in an unbroken continuity appalling to any person cradled in the security of the English or American past."

"The superintendent had been telling my husband what a pleasure he had in welcoming us to Croatia, when Gregorievitch corrected him. 'To Yugoslavia,' he said in the accents of a tutor. After some silence, the superintendent said, 'Yes, I will say that I welcome them to Yugoslavia. Who am I, being a Serb, to refuse this favour to a Croat?' "

"Politics, always politics."

"This was a Slav, this is what it is to be a Slav. He was offering himself wholly to his sorrow, he was learning the meaning of death and was not refusing any part of the knowledge, for he knew that experience is the cross man must take up and carry. Not for anything would he had chosen to feel one shade less pain, and if it had been joy he had been feeling, he would have permitted himself to feel all possible delight. He knew only that in suffering and rejoicing he must not lose that control of the body which enabled him to be a good soldier and to defend himself and his people."

"History has made lawyers out of Croats, soldiers and poets of the Serbs."

" 'We Slavs love the terrible,' he said, 'and it happens that when we feel deeply terrible expressions come on our faces. As we love the terrible we keep them there, and they become grins, grimaces, masks that mean nothing'."

"They want to be right, not to do right."

"The black lamb and the grey falcon had worked together here. In this crime, as in nearly all historic crimes, they had been accomplices. This I learnt in Yugoslavia, which writes obscure things plain, which furnishes symbols for what the intellect has not yet formulated."

I'm not entirely certain that I'll ever manage to complete this book. So, I'm penning down a partial review here, considering I've read a bit more than half of it. It has always been lauded as a great classic of travel literature.

However, now I can't help but wonder how many of those who have proclaimed its greatness have actually reached the end. I'm reading it on the Kindle, and I did notice that the popular highlights seemed to fade away after around page 200.

That's not to say it's a bad book. Rebecca West is astonishingly erudite, and she's a talented writer. The section where she visits Sarajevo and converses with people who were present when Franz Ferdinand was assassinated is truly fascinating. It's precisely what history books should strive to be like, cleverly shedding light on the interaction between personalities and geopolitical issues. She concludes with this thought:

Nobody worked to ensure the murder on either side so hard as the people who were murdered. And they, though murdered, are not as pitiable as victims should be. They manifested a mixture of obstinate invocation of disaster and anguished complaint against it which is often associated with unsuccessful crime, with the petty thief in the dock.

But at times, she can be a bit too erudite for my taste, and it becomes rather exhausting. She knows every single detail about the history of the Balkans since time immemorial and often expounds on it at great length. It's extremely easy to get confused with all the kings, queens, and assassins popping up. She's also a bit overly interested in architecture. As a sample of her erudition, this is allegedly the conversation she has with her husband before they've even had breakfast:

“But wait a minute, wait a minute,” said my husband. “I have just thought of something very curious. It has just occurred to me, does not Seton-Watson say in his book Sarajevo that Chabrinovitch was the son of a Bosnian Serb who was a spy in the service of the Austro-Hungarian Government?” “Why, so he did!” I exclaimed. “And now I come to think of it, Stephen Graham says so, too, in St. Vims’ Day.“ “This is most extraordinary,” said my husband, “for Seton-Watson is never wrong, he is in himself a standard for Greenwich time.” “And Stephen Graham may slip now and then, but in all essential matters he is in his own vague way precise,” I said.

Many of her attitudes will also strike modern readers as rather odd. Nations and their citizens are assigned distinct characters that persist through the centuries. And then there are statements like this that make one gasp:

There is nothing unpleasant in the gesture known as “cherry-picking,” provided it is a Negro or Negress who performs it; the dancer stands with feet apart and knees bent, and stretches the arms upwards while the fingers pull an invisible abundance out of the high air. But it is gross and revolting, a reversion to animalism, when it is performed by a white person.

Modern readers might also be a little taken aback by her passionate admiration for Serbia, which she sees as the savior of Europe from the threat of Islamic Turkey. She also has some prejudice against Germans, but in 1937, that's hardly a surprise.

Anyway, I'm willing to overlook her faults because she can pen lines like: "the stumbling weighty hostility of bears, the incorporated rapacity of wolves". Or this:

The puce-faced old soldier who held the line in front of us shook and heaved, producing laughter from some place one would never keep it unless one was in the habit of packing things away as safely as possible.

Maybe one day I'll actually finish this book!

The trout here, even though famous, is horrible. It tastes like fish crossed with slug. The wine, on the other hand, is good and cheap. I said this to my wife as we took our first steps across the cobbled streets of the old city of Mostar, in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

‘Is this what the British woman you’re reading says? I think it’s funny, and a bit silly, that you insist on following a travel book from the 1930s. I want to eat the trout, and nothing you say will stop me from ordering it.’, she replied, trying not to laugh, as we approached one of the many restaurants lining the grey-green river that flowed through the city.

We took our seats by the water, looking at Stari Most, the old bridge. ‘She considers it one of the most beautiful bridges in the world. Rebecca mentions the slender arch lying between the two round towers, its parapet bent in a shallow angle in the center.’, I said as we sipped the wine, waiting for our food.

‘You know the bridge she mentions does not exist anymore.’, said my wife, ‘It collapsed during the war in 1993. What you see is only a reconstruction, rebuilt in the early 2000s. But I must admit, it is indeed a beautiful bridge.’, she finally agreed.

Our plates soon arrived, and I tried the trout. Flavor-wise, as most river fishes do, it lacked the saltiness of the sea, rather embodying the muddiness of lakes and ponds. While I admired the many mosques and white ottoman houses on the banks, cleaning my taste buds with the chilled, pleasant white wine, I thought about our travel plans. We were in the middle of a 2-week holiday in the Balkans. I pondered that many are the things that never change, including those that seem to have collapsed only to reappear again.

I had long wished to explore Rebecca West’s magnum opus, Black Lamb and Grey Falcon. However, as the book totals over 1,100 pages, I had also long delayed reading it, preferring to wait for the right moment. And so it happened that last September, joined by my wife, I embarked on a trip across the Balkans, suddenly having no excuse to not read it anymore. Now having just finished West’s book and returned from my travels, I recollect the places I visited, reflecting on why Black Lamb and Grey Falcon is one of the greatest works of literary non-fiction of the 20th century.

We started our journey in Albania, where I visited not only the capital Tirana but also the azure beaches along the coast and the city of Gjirokastër with its charming old town of ottoman-inspired architecture. West does not visit Albania in her travels through Yugoslavia, only commenting on it as she approaches its border when travelling through North Macedonia and Kosovo.

A clear feature of her prose is that she does not shy away from expressing her opinions on a wide range of topics. It’s worth noting that throughout her narrative, she exhibits a strong pro-Serbian stance, which may alienate some readers. However, one aspect that is harder to reconcile is her deep aversion to homosexual or effeminate men.

Since Rebecca had little to say about Albania, during my time there I turned to another writer, Ismail Kadare. I visited the Ottoman house where he grew up in Gjirokastër and the museum in the apartment where he lived and wrote many of his books in Tirana.

After Tirana, we headed to Kotor, in Montenegro. West’s description of this city perfectly captures what I believe is one of the true highlights of the Dalmatian coast.

The overly touristic Dubrovnik, in Croatia, was our next destination. Arriving from Kotor by the end of the afternoon, I tried to follow Rebecca’s suggestion for first-time visitors, but I was caught in a long torrential downpour that forced me to cancel any previously devised plans for that first day.

The next two days were of sunlight mixed with occasional chilled winds. The old town of Dubrovnik is indeed a remarkable place of beauty, but the hordes of tourists can make one feel as if he or she were walking through some sort of medieval Disneyland.

After a 2-hour bus ride we arrived in the city of Mostar, our first stop in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The old bridge is truly beautiful, and one can spend hours just appreciating it.

After Mostar, following an itinerary similar to West’s journey, we headed to Sarajevo. She dedicates many paragraphs to the city’s contrasting architecture, shaped both by the Ottoman period and by the Austro-Hungarians. She also delves into the events leading up to the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand.

Belgrade, the capital of Serbia and of the former Yugoslavia, was our final stop on this journey. I was pleasantly surprised to find a vibrant cosmopolitan atmosphere. The city is reasonably large, offering a fair and diverse array of attractions while still being walkable.

After Belgrade, West continued her journey to North Macedonia and Kosovo. Unfortunately, we concluded our travels in Belgrade, but we had the opportunity to explore some of the last drops of the former Socialist Yugoslavia, particularly the brutalist buildings erected on the outskirts of the city.

While in Belgrade, I had the chance to visit Ivo Andrić’s apartment. His book The Bridge on the Drina is a remarkable feat, giving a glimpse of the complex history of the region.

Could I affirm that I had benefited from completing my journey through the Balkans and engaging with the works of Rebecca West and the other writers mentioned in this account? Can a travel book from the 1930s still hold relevance today? Considering everything that has transpired in the region since West’s travels, her aim to show the past side by side with the present it created remains as vivid as when she first wrote her book. During my travels, it was hard not to see the relevance of some of West’s final words in her epilogue.

Christopher Hitchens mentions that buying a travel book to a country that does not exist can be seen as the act of an antiquarian. After reading West’s book, I believe that visiting such an Atlantis can sometimes feel more genuine than stepping on the dry, solid soil of real continents.

Black Lamb and Grey Falcon is a title that has long fascinated me ever since I first came across it in Robert D. Kaplan's excellent Balkan Ghosts. In that account, he noted that he would rather have lost his passport and money than his well-thumbed and annotated copy of Black Lamb and Grey Falcon. He described it as a world unto itself, an encyclopedic inventory of Yugoslavia and a near-scholarly thesis on various aspects such as Byzantine archaeology, pagan folklore, Christian and Islamic philosophy, and the 19th-century origins of fascism and terrorism. This high praise and summary piqued my interest.

Years later, I finally obtained a well-used copy of the book, and it too has now been heavily thumbed and marked with several dozen little yellow flags. This is truly a literary odyssey, not only because of its substantial length of around 1,180 pages but also due to the almost exhausting nature of the journey. The subtitle, A Journey Through Yugoslavia, is accurate, but it is even more a journey through history, religion, sociology, psychology, and ultimately human nature.

The author, Rebecca West, takes the reader on a tour of the Balkans in 1938-39, introducing the various ethnic groups such as Serbs, Croats, Macedonians, Montenegrins, Bosnians, and Herzogovinians. She also explores the powerful and not-so-powerful Balkan neighbors, both near and far, whose constant interference and meddling in the region have been a source of grief for the people. The book ends with their trips in 1938-39, although the epilogue extends into 1941 with observations on early WW2. The previous 800 years of history are filled with twists, turns, and complexity, earning the moniker "byzantine."

West's essays and discourses cover a wide range of topics, from the arrival of Orthodox Christianity to the medieval kingdoms of Serbia, interactions with the Byzantine Empire, the Ottoman conquest and rule, the Napoleonic interlude, the advance of Austria-Hungary, and the Balkan Wars of liberation. Her sojourn in Sarajevo includes an in-depth exploration of the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand and his wife Sophie, as well as the motivation and fates of their killers. She also notes the significance of the dates June 28, 1914, and June 28, 1389, the date of the Battle of Kosovo, which had a profound impact on the region.

Throughout the book, West is unequivocal about what Ottoman Turkish rule meant to the subjugated Christian peoples. She does not shy away from presenting the facts, even if they may be uncomfortable or go against the grain of political correctness. Her admiration for the Slavic resistance and defense of Europe from the further advance of Islam is also evident. Additionally, she provides insights into the plight of women in a land where they were often treated as sub-human, and her observations on the cultures and societies are both perceptive and thought-provoking.

The title, Black Lamb and Grey Falcon, is explained through various events and rituals described in the book. The Black Lamb refers to a fertility rite in Macedonia where black lambs are sacrificed, while the Grey Falcon is associated with the Serb legend of the Prophet Elijah appearing to Tsar Lazar before the Battle of Kosovo. West's passionate dissertation on the parallels between the Black Lamb ritual and the core beliefs of Christianity is both disturbing and enlightening, although it may be controversial to some.

In conclusion, Black Lamb and Grey Falcon is a remarkable work of literature that offers brilliant prose, wide-ranging historical insight, and acute observations of the human condition. It is a must-read for anyone interested in the Balkans, history, religion, or human nature. The patient reader will be rewarded with a deeper understanding of this complex and fascinating region, as well as a greater appreciation for the power of literature to illuminate the past and shed light on the present. Truly an epic achievement.

Of all the treasures in this world, give me something human. This is one of the thoughts from this work.

When reading this description, it's as if I were passing through parts of myself. Or it seems to me that the author has opened them up for us. To get to know ourselves better through the land and the people. And what makes us who we are, through the things that have determined us.

The author's ability to notice the most beautiful phenomena among the southern Slavs, the inner life, that wealth beneath the physical surface, which she so precisely dissects, notices and feels, is fascinating. Above all, she feels. The author draws connections through history with the state she found in individuals, as well as national characteristics, in each of the Yugoslav peoples.

A work of excellent observation, feeling and connection with the people of these our regions.

To adequately praise this book would require a book of equal length.

This remarkable piece of literature is truly a masterpiece. It engages the reader from the very first page and takes them on an unforgettable journey. The author's writing style is captivating, with vivid descriptions and engaging characters that come to life on the page.

The story is filled with twists and turns, keeping the reader on the edge of their seat until the very end. It explores themes such as love, loss, and redemption, in a way that is both thought-provoking and emotionally moving.

Not only is the content of the book outstanding, but the layout and design are also top-notch. The book is easy to read and navigate, with clear font and well-spaced paragraphs.

In conclusion, this book is a must-read for anyone who loves great literature. It is a work of art that will stay with you long after you have finished reading it. I highly recommend it.

In February 2002, I embarked on a journey into the half-million-word world of Rebecca West. I delved perhaps a quarter of the way through the first volume. I truly relished observing how she constructed this masterpiece. For me, a significant portion of the delight lies in appreciating "Black Lamb and Grey Falcon" as a work of art. I can envision her traveling, ruminating on the story she wished to tell. Selecting fragments, deliberately seeking out something - an object, a person - to illustrate a point that already resided in her mind. I can picture her coaxing her husband to utter those long, yet captivating paragraphs of dialogues that neatly encapsulated the points she desired to make.

All in all, it is an incredible, unique blend of opinion bolstered by highly biased historical interpretation, masquerading as a travelogue. It is simultaneously profoundly insightful and completely fanciful - or perhaps I should say that in parts, it is each of these. It alternates with great rapidity. Ultimately, I have not been able to complete the book - at times it is a remarkable book, at times frustrating, at times overly written. Yet, I discover parts that are simply breathtaking. She describes Dubrovnik vividly in "Black Lamb and Grey Falcon" that I yearn to visit it. The three or four chapters on Archduke Franz Ferdinand, who was assassinated in 1914, are superb; excellent and worthy of re-reading. They are in chapters Sarajevo V through VII.

From the Note on Pronunciation:

"I have therefore regarded the problem as insoluble, and have left such words spelt in the Croatian fashion, with the hope that readers will take the presence of the letter 'j' as a warning that there are dark phonetic doings afoot."

This note on pronunciation shows the author's interesting approach. By leaving certain words spelled in the Croatian fashion, it adds an element of mystery and uniqueness to the text. The mention of the letter 'j' as a warning for dark phonetic doings makes one curious about what lies ahead in the reading. It gives the impression that there are hidden sounds and pronunciations that might surprise or challenge the reader.

I love this book already. The note on pronunciation has piqued my interest and made me eager to explore further. It shows that the author has put thought and care into the details, which makes the reading experience all the more engaging. I can't wait to see what other surprises this book has in store.

There's a truly wonderful intro by Christopher Hitchens in the Penguin edition (unfortunately, I don't possess this particular copy). However, you have the option to obtain said intro for free from Kindle if you order the sample of the book. Just recently, I managed to borrow the Penguin version from the library and am currently in the process of copying the intro using my scanner.

Interspersed throughout centuries of dense historical narrative, West presents us with remarkable gems. Take, for instance, this vivid description of the Skopje train station: \\"...the scalp of the years has become dandruffed with undistinguished manufactured good...\\" This kind of evocative language adds a unique charm and depth to the overall work, making it a captivating read for those interested in history and descriptive prose alike. It allows the reader to truly envision the scene and feel as if they are transported back in time to that very place.

The combination of Hitchens' engaging introduction and West's detailed historical account and beautiful descriptions makes this book a must-read for anyone looking to explore the rich tapestry of history.

I had a conversation with a friend from Bosnia about the Bosnian War and Herzegovina. We talked about the massacres and collective atrocities, especially the Srebrenica massacre which was planned by Ratko Mladic in 1995, where 8,000 Bosnian Muslims were killed. Ratko, this butcher, was a fanatical Serb who looked at Muslims and Croats with contempt and hatred, justifying their killing and annihilation. What happened was not an isolated incident. There had always been a long-standing conflict between Serbs, Croats, and Muslims. This satanic curse that befell them dates back to ancient times.

My friend then recommended the novel "Black Lamb and Grey Falcon" by the English writer Rebecca West. It is an account of her journey in the Balkans in 1941. I wonder how this novel contributed to exacerbating this conflict. In particular, it contains a strong pro-Serb bias and a very contemptuous attitude towards Muslims and Croats, which left an impact on at least two generations of Serbian readers and politicians. They turned those ugly scenes of persecution and discrimination into an equivalent truth.

Although the novel is engaging and takes the reader through the cities, villages, and streets of Yugoslavia, it carried a lot of misinformation about the relationship between Serbs, Croats, and Muslims. It suggested that these differences were ancient, deep-rooted, and abhorrent, and therefore there was no hope of any attempts at rapprochement between historical enemies.