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8vo soft cover. 165 pages. ... Read more

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This digital document is an article from The Review of Contemporary Fiction, published by Review of Contemporary Fiction on March 22, 1994. The length of the article is 3883 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

From the supplier: Danilo Kis' believed that historical literature should help connect bare historical facts to contemporary reality without letting imagination distort history. He used documents as a way of authenticating historical literature. In 'Hourglass,' 'A Tomb for Boris Davidovich' and 'The Encyclopedia of the Dead,' he used the documentary method very effectively. Works such as these help recreate the individuality of the dead, who are mere statistics in history. In achieving this, Kis makes his readers realize the tragedy of the past.

Citation Details
Title: Textualizing the past: the function of memory and history in Kis's fiction. (Paul Auster/Danilo Kis)
Author: Branko Gorjup
Publication: The Review of Contemporary Fiction (Refereed)
Date: March 22, 1994
Publisher: Review of Contemporary Fiction
Volume: v14Issue: n1Page: p161(8)

Distributed by Thomson Gale ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Both amusing & saddening, but always fascinating
"Bulletins from Serbia" is a collection of emails and cartoons (there aren't enough cartoons, its almost all emails) from a Serbian cartoonist to his friends and colleagues all around the world during the NATO bombing of Serbia.

In many ways, a book like this is better history than books by professional historians.This book isn't tainted by writing for a specific audience, its just one man's feelings about life during wartime and the little things that make life more difficult or more pleasurable in adverse circumstances.

There is one cartoon I liked in particular that shows all the Serbian citizens (those that were not to blame) celebrating the fact that friendly, smart bombs were being dropped on them and not mean, stupid bombs.This is obviously a jab at some of the new politically correct military jargon that smooths over the fact that people are being killed, infrastructure and beloved landmarks destroyed as well as ruining the lives of those that survive.

Even with all that, this book is actually unbiased.Zograf considers himself apolitical from what I can tell.He just wants the war to stop.He feels for the suffering people no matter what their race or religion.He mentions feeling terrible for innocent Albanians and Serbians.He even mentions feeling sorry for NATO pilots because of what they are having to do.

I think more than anything, the book provides a nice glimpse of the alienation and desperation that common people feel when their homeland is being destroyed.He hypothesizes that war doesn't punish the guilty it only punishes the innocent.(i.e. how approval ratings of the different sides soared: Clinton, Milosovich, and KLA leaders.)

At 96 pages, this short little collection is a good read.Highly recommended for an alternative view of current events.

Humanizing the war
After seeing the Serbs demonized and caricatured in the news since NATO decided to have its war, it's refreshing to see a book like this come outshowing that Serbia is not a nation of Milosevic clones.This publicdiary, by an apolitical Serbian cartoonist living outside of Belgrade,reveals thebefuddlement of many Serbs at the NATO bombing, especially bythose who oppose the current regime, and know that bombing will only makeMilosevic stronger.The Terry Jones introduction discussing this is worththe price of the book itself.

The other thing that this will reveal tothose who have only the evening news as a source for information on theBalkan conflict, is thatthe old Yugoslavia was not a particularlyrepressive place like other communist countries, but had a vibrantexperimental theatre and experimental music community.When you readZograf talking about the artistic scene in Serbia, you see that the eveningnews and NATO spokesperson's cartoon character of the entire Serbianpopulation as a bunch of genocidal maniacs is nothing more than NATO'sattempt to sell the war to a confused and largely ignorant public.

Inaddition, his accounts of what was targeted for bombing (a soybeanwarehouse? ) exposes the bombing for what it was:terror bombing intendedto wear down the populace, not the smart bomb targeted military onlybombing that we are being sold on the news.The only reason I did notgive 5 stars was because I didn't think there were enough of his cartoonsin it.Although the 'Smart, happy bombs' cartoon is brilliant.

Hopefullya sequel will emerge called "Bulletins from Baghdad" ... Read more

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The book has no illustrations or index. It may have numerous typos or missing text. However, purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original rare book from the publisher's website (GeneralBooksClub.com). You can also preview excerpts of the book there. Purchasers are also entitled to a free trial membership in the General Books Club where they can select from more than a million books without charge. Original Publisher: London : H. G. Bohn; Publication date: 1853; Subjects: Eastern question (Balkan); Serbia; Bosnia and Hercegovina; Balkan Peninsula; ... Read more

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This history of the contradictory aims and interests of Kosova's two peoples, the serbs and the Albanians, focuses on the underlying social and cultural factors in the seemingly intractable conflict. The narrative ranges from the Battle of Korsova in 1389 to the present state of affairs. ... Read more

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Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Chapters: Former and Proposed Municipalities of Belgrade, History of Banat, History of Belgrade, History of Novi Sad, History of Syrmia, Roman Towns and Cities in Serbia, Dacia, Obotrites, Treaty of Belgrade, Dacia, Niš, John Hunyadi, Zemun, Belgrade Offensive, Siege of Belgrade, Military Frontier, List of Former and Proposed Municipalities of Belgrade, Borča, Tašmajdan Park, Petrovaradin, 1999 Nato Bombing of Novi Sad, Timeline of Belgrade History, Glad, Historical Population of Belgrade, Ban, Voivodeship of Serbia and Banat of Temeschwar, Order of the People's Hero, Sirmium, John of Capistrano, Rigas Feraios, Singidunum, Ahtum, Battle of Sirmium, Praetorian Prefecture of Illyricum, Terazije, Jovan Nenad, Batajnica, Surčin, Krnjača, Gates of Belgrade, Assassination of Galip Balkar, Banat Republic, Stephen Dragutin of Serbia, Mediana, Banat, Bežanija, Battle of Petrovaradin, Pipo of Ozora, Treasure of Nagyszentmiklós, Srijem County, Bombing of Belgrade in World War Ii, Ripanj, Torontál County, Vinča, Banat, Bačka and Baranja, Mirijevo, Serbian Vojvodina, Avala Tv Tower, Council of Sirmium, Demographic History of Novi Sad, Kuber, Banat of Temeswar, Csanád, Železnik, Temes County, Požarevac, Padinska Skela, Battle of Slankamen, Coat of Arms of Belgrade, Bulgarian Legion, Ţinutul Timiş, Demographic History of Serbian Banat, Danube Banovina, Vrčin, Krassó-Szörény County, Treaty of Karlowitz, Stari Slankamen, United Nations Transitional Authority for Eastern Slavonia, Baranja and Western Sirmium, Sao Eastern Slavonia, Baranja and Western Syrmia, Dobanovci, Karaburma, Ovča, Josif Rajačić, Žarkovo, Temeşvar Province, Ottoman Empire, Mali Mokri Lug, Slavonian Military Frontier, Patriarchate of Karlovci, Bela Palanka, Banoštor, Pašino Brdo, Metropolitanate of Karlovci, Panayot Hitov, Theme of Sirmium, Stephen Vladislav Ii of Syrmia, ... ... Read more

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Chapters: Vlachs of Serbia, Romanian Exonyms, History of the Romanians in Ukraine, Romanian Day Festival, Romanians of Chernivtsi Oblast, Boian, Alberta, Vrav, Ion Filotti, Romanian Migration to the United Kingdom, Romanian Australian, Romanians in Bulgaria, Romanians in Spain, Romanians in Italy, List of Romanians Who Were Born Outside Present-Day Romania. Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 84. Not illustrated. Free updates online. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: Vlach (Romanian) The Vlachs of Serbia (endonym: Rumâni, Serbian: or Vlasi) are an ethnic minority of Serbia, culturally and linguistically an ethnic subgroup of Romanians. Vlachs mostly live in eastern Serbia, mainly in Valea Timocului region (roughly corresponding to Bor and Zaiecar districts), but also in Branievo and Pomoravlje districts. Also a small Vlach population exists in Smederevo and Velika Plana (Podunavlje District), and in the municipalities of Aleksinac and Kruevac (Rasina District), as well as in the South Banat District in Voivodina. Romanians (Vlachs) from the village Zdrelo in 1868The name they identify with Rumâni din Sârbie in fact means Romanians from Serbia. The Romanian(Vlach) community consider Romania as their home country. Although they are ethnographically and linguistically related to the Romanians, within the Vlach community there are divergences on whether they belong or not to the Romanian nation and whether their minority should be amalgamated with the Romanian minority in Vojvodina. In a Romanian-Yugoslav agreement from the November 4, 2002, the Yugoslav authorities agreed to recognize the Romanian identity of the Vlach population in Central Serbia, but the agreement wasn't applied. In April 2005, many deputies from the Council of Europe protested against Serbia's treatment of this population. In March 2007, the Vlach (Romani...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=2888901 ... Read more

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Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Chapters: Obotrites, Iazyges, Military Frontier, Demographic History of Bačka, Voivodeship of Serbia and Banat of Temeschwar, Bács-Bodrog County, Jovan Nenad, Blaško Rajić, Banat, Bačka and Baranja, Serbian Vojvodina, Serbian-Hungarian Baranya-Baja Republic, 1942 Raid in Novi Sad, Danube Banovina, Salan, Sanjak of Szeged, District of Potisje, Buta-Ul, Almaš. Source: Wikipedia. Free updates online. Not illustrated. Excerpt: The Military Frontier (also known as Military Border and Military Krajina; Croatian: , Serbian: , German: , Italian: , Hungarian: , Romanian: ) was a borderland of Habsburg Austria and later the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, which acted as the cordon sanitaire against Turkish incursions from the Ottoman Empire. When created in the 16th century, it was divided into two districts each under its own special military administration. These were the Croatian Military Frontier and the Slavonian Military Frontier. Both of these, along with all later military districts, were placed under the unified control of the Croatian General Command in 1783. The Ottoman wars in Europe caused the border of the Kingdom of Hungary and subsequently the Habsburg Monarchy to shift towards northwest. Much of the old Croatian territory was either captured by the Ottomans or bordered the new Ottoman domain. In 1435, in an attempt to strengthen the defences towards the Ottomans and Venice, the king Sigismund founded the so-called tabor, a military encampment, each in Croatia, Slavonia and Usora. In 1463, the king Matthias Corvinus founded the banovina of Jajce and Srebrenik, and in 1469 the military captaincy of Senj, modeled after the Ottoman captaincies in the Province of Bosnia. All these actions were intended to provide for better defences, but were ultimately unsuccessful. It did bring forth the Cr...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=470678 ... Read more

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Chapters: Jewish Serbian History, Serbian Jews, Synagogues in Serbia, Peter Bogdanovich, History of the Jews in Serbia, Occupation of Vojvodina, 1941-1944, Belgrade Synagogue, Banat, Banjica Concentration Camp, Mira Adanja-Polak, Stanislav Vinaver, Moša Pijade, 1942 Raid in Novi Sad, Boris Kostić, Michael Fekete, Robert Rothbart, Hannah Lamdan, Novi Sad Synagogue, Hashalom, Seka Sablić, David Albahari, Crveni Krst Concentration Camp, Subotica Synagogue, Sonja Licht, Oskar Davičo. Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 96. Not illustrated. Free updates online. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: Serbia was, from 1941 to 1944, occupied by Germany following the invasion and dissolution of Yugoslavia. The Serbian civil administration during that period was formally known as the Government of National Salvation (Serbian: , Vlada Nacionalnog Spasa) and claimed it was an independent state, though its affairs were dictated by German authorities. The entity included most of present-day Central Serbia, the northern part of Kosovo (around Kosovska Mitrovica), and the Banat region. The government was led by Milan Nedi from 1941 to 1944. The Serbian government was, during the whole period, de facto subordinated to a German military administration known as the Military Administration in Serbia (German :Militärverwaltung in Serbien; Serbo-Croatian : / Vojna uprava u Srbiji). The Military administration was established in 1941, after several months of occupation in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia by the Axis Powers in World War II. Other Serbian collaborationist forces during this period, sanctioned by the Serbian government, but acting de facto independently, were the ZBOR party and Serbian Volunteer Corps led by Dimitrije Ljoti and the rogue Chetnik faction of Kosta Peanac. In April 1941, Germany and its allies invaded and occupied Yugoslavia. Af...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=4976079 ... Read more

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This digital document is an article from Countries and Their Cultures, brought to you by Gale®, a part of Cengage Learning, a world leader in e-research and educational publishing for libraries, schools and businesses.The length of the article is 2917 words.The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase.You can view it with any web browser.Covers the broad range of popular religious culture of the United States at the close of the twentieth century. Beliefs, practices, symbols, traditions, movements, organizations, and leaders from the many traditions in the pluralistic American community are represented. Also includes cults and phenomena that drew followers, such as Heaven's Gale and UFOs. ... Read more

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This digital document is an article from Europe, 1450 to 1789: An Encyclopedia of the Early Modern World, brought to you by Gale®, a part of Cengage Learning, a world leader in e-research and educational publishing for libraries, schools and businesses.The length of the article is 894 words.The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase.You can view it with any web browser.Explores European history from 1450-1789, from the print revolution to the French Revolution. Includes articles written by eminent scholars covering major topics in art, government, and education as well as providing biographical entries on key figures of the period. Also covers topics specific to the era, such as apocalypticism, guilds, food riots, royal mistresses and lovers, the Spanish Inquisition, Utopia and others. ... Read more

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This volume is produced from digital images created through the University of Michigan University Library's large-scale digitization efforts. The Library seeks to preserve the intellectual content of items in a manner that facilitates and promotes a variety of uses. The digital reformatting process results in an electronic version of the original text that can be both accessed online and used to create new print copies. The Library also understands and values the usefulness of print and makes reprints available to the public whenever possible. This book and hundreds of thousands of others can be found in the HathiTrust, an archive of the digitized collections of many great research libraries. For access to the University of Michigan Library's digital collections, please see http://www.lib.umich.edu and for information about the HathiTrust, please visit http://www.hathitrust.org ... Read more

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Little notice has been paid to the growing ethnic and religious tensions within the Serbian province of Kosovo-tensions that now pose a serious threat to the security of the Balkans. Miranda Vickers explores the roots of this conflict, and tracks the recent trajectory of Serbian and Albanian relations in Kosovo. The first third of the book outlines the history of Kosovo during the medieval and Ottoman periods, when relations between the two communities were generally good. The second part of the book examines Kosovo since 1945, when the area fell under Serbian administration in the socialist Yugoslav system. Vickers concludes by surveying the steady deterioration in Serb-Albanian relations since the disintegration of Yugoslavia in 1981. With careful detail, she reveals how a largely peaceful, politically driven campaign for the independence of Kosovo has recently turned to violence with terrorist attacks on Serb political and military institutions, on Albanians thought to be collaborating with the Serbs, and on Serbs themselves. In the process, the author provides a balanced account of the Serb and Albanian positions, while placing much of the blame for the current situation on the repressive policies of Serb dictator Slobodan Milosevic.Amazon.com Review
The ethnic conflicts in the Yugoslavian province of Kosovo areoften bewildering to readers without a grounding in the tangledhistory of the Balkans. Miranda Vickers, the leading English-languagestudent of Albanian history, does much to clarify the situation withthis thorough account of the tiny region, a fertile, mountain-ringedplateau whose Serbian name means something like "place of theblackbirds." That bucolic place name, however, does not speak tothe violence that has been visited on the land for centuries.

Kosovo, as Vickers writes, has long been a place where differentcultures--Slavic, Albanian, Jewish, Turkish, and Central Asian--havemet and, at times, either peacefully coexisted or battledbitterly. The lines of division, Vickers proves again and again, havenever been clearly drawn. The debate in the 1990s, as it was in theMiddle Ages, is over which group has the clearest ancestral claim toKosovo: the Muslim Albanians, who make up about 90 percent of Kosovo'spopulation and trace their roots to the ancient Illyrians, hold thatit is theirs, while Orthodox Serbs, defeated by the Turks at theBattle of Kosovo in 1389, similarly claim that their long presence inthe region gives them dominion over it--a claim that, Vickers writes,"derives purely from history and emotion." History andemotion are powerful motivators, of course, as demonstrated by theSerbian nationalists who now seek to thwart ethnic Albanian attemptsto unite Kosovo with Albania itself. (The issue is complicated,Vickers contends, by the presence of many Serb fighters in theso-called Kosovo Liberation Army who are not native to the region, butmercenary veterans of the now-dormant civil war in neighboringBosnia.) After centuries of inhabiting parallel worlds, in Vickers'suseful metaphor, these two groups are now drawing on the memories ofcenturies of conflict to shape the present. The result is a continuinglegacy of bloodshed and hatred that has captured the attention of theworld. --Gregory McNamee ... Read more

Customer Reviews (20)

Nationalism
It is obvious that the opinion about this issue is split and that one side will feel one way, and the other side another way, however to say that this is a bad book just because it does not support one's point of view, that is not valid.I was born and raised in Albania, and I know the strong feeling of nationalism people are raised with in that part of the world.I realize that myths are not history, and I know the claims of the Serbs on Kosovo.Vickers looks at facts as they are, she may express some of her own preference in the book, but that does not make it not valid.
Anyone who wants to learn more about this issue should read it, realizing the mindset of the Balkan people and how important one's nation is.

A most lucid synopsis on the history of Kosovo...
Miranda Vickers does an excellent job of distilling the available primary and secondary historical and geographical material on the former Yugoslavia into a lucid and compelling book. Unlike some writers, she footnotes hersources so the reader can form his or her own opinions based on furtherreading.

Ms. Vickers does not provide in-depth detail because theobjective of this book is to provide a synopsis. Her work supports thecontention that rivalries of the various ethnic groups have waxed and wanedbut long been a source of bloodshed. The worst scenarios in this bookinvolved the spilling of blood as the Serbs attempted to overthrow assortedconquerers including the Ottoman Turks, Austrians, Hungarians, Nazis andothers.

Vickers says the Albanian question is extremely thorny and veryold.On the one hand, the Albaninans in Kosovo seemed not to have muchinterest in being part of Albania proper (probably owing to the radicallydifferent and worse standards of living in Albania).On the other hand theAlbanians seem not to want to be part of Serbia either, though many of themmoved to Serbia.

In 1918, during the Great War, when the Albanians hadsided with the enemy "Hun" and the Serbs were allies, the U.S.recognized the anniversary of the Battle of Kosovo (a battle fought andlost to the Ottoman Turk invaders hundreds of years before). Thisrecognition followed the deaths of 100,000 Serbs as they retreated beforethe Austro-Hungarian army through Kosovo. "The majority lay unburied,covered by either snow or mud, until only their bones were found thefollowing spring."

By the late 1990's many U.S. leaders--forwhatever reason--failed to fully appreciate the ancient hatreds. One has towonder how history might have been different if the diplomatic approachused in the Middle East with the Palestinians and Jews had been attemptedin the Balkans.

The best introduction to the Kosovo problem.
I've been following and working on the Kosovo situation for over two years.I have read many books and articles on the Balkans and especially Kosovo.I first read Ms. Vickers book in the Fall of 1998.Her writing isclear and concise.She does not confuse the writer with uselessterminology that only academics dabble in to demonstrate how"intellectual" they are.Ms. Vickers book is, for the most part,impartial and represents discrepancies on both sides. All sides in Kosovohave myths about their past, this is something not uncommon to nations andpeople throughout the world.Ms. Vickers demonstrates how these myths haveled to Serbian Nationalism and to Albanian reactionarism and the effectsthese beliefs have had on Kosovo.So, in closing, if you want to gain anunderstanding into how the events in Kosovo developed, then read Ms.Vickers book.

good at places, but flawed
I can only assume that some of the readers below who say this book is very "anti-Serbian," etc. have simply not read the book or superficially skimmed through it. As a number of academic reviewers havenoted, this book in fact gives more credence to Serbian historical claimsabout Kosovo than the Albanian ones. For example, Vickers tends to acceptthe Serbian view that most Albanians in Kosovo today are descended fromSerbs who were forced to convert to Islam in the distant past. In fact, Ithink Vickers should be commended for really making an effort to beimpartial between the conflicting claims of Albanian and Serbiannationalists. However, this effort is marred by her superficial approach:she tends to rely too much on secondary sources, and cites, often atlength, excerpts from other books without critically analyzing thesesources (i.e. at several points she very uncritically cites Serbiannationalist "historian" Dusan Batakovic). Although the overviewof events in the last two decades is quite comprehensive and informative,there are many places where Vickers cites questionable figures or incidentsof interethnic violence in Kosovo (sometimes nothing more than rumors)without backing this up with evidence. Again, it seems as though shedepended too much on secondary sources and even propaganda materialspublished by either of the two sides. This is important, because this book,with its emphasis on recent events, could have been a very informativesource for readers who want to learn more about Kosovo and why it hasbecome a major crisis region.

Useful - but for whom?
The book is historically informative but clearly biased. Among other things, it suffers from two flaws. First, it does hardly mention the other minorities that used to live, more or less peacefully, in Kosovo (beforeNATO decided to install the KLA as its puppet regime, that is). Second andin relation to the first flaw, it occasionally falls for thepropaganda-claim that in the 1990s Kosovo's inhabitants were 90% Albanian,a claim that Vickers herself flatly contradicts by saying that an estimated400.000 Albanians (most of them from Kosovo) had left Yugoslavia already by1993. But the numbers game is rather fishy business in any case, since itsfunction has been the support of the exclusive Albanian claims on theprovince. ... Read more

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This digital document is an article from Cities of the World, brought to you by Gale®, a part of Cengage Learning, a world leader in e-research and educational publishing for libraries, schools and businesses.The length of the article is 3710 words.The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase.You can view it with any web browser.A compilation of current information on cultural, geographic, and political conditions in 193 countries and their cities covering six continents, based on the Department of State's Post Reports. ... Read more

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D. Mrkich takes a fresh look at the early life and
times of Nikola Tesla (1856-1943), the inventor of
alternating current the Tesla Coil, induction motors,
radio (in 1943, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned
Marconi’s patent in favour of Tesla), steam turbine,
fluorescent light, remote-control, and numerous
other inventions in the generation and transmission
of electric power.
This book describes Tesla’s genius, his attachment to
his Serbian roots, and why he left Europe for America
at the age of 28. ... Read more