Bosnia: A Short History

Much of what goes by "history" in the Balkans is actually myth, generated and repeated by the regional tribes to serve their chauvinistic purposes. The serious historian will necessarily clash with those treasured myths. Malcolm is a serious historian. When published in 1994, in the middle of the war, this book was Malcolm's herald to an uncomprehending world. He had the fortitude to state up front that he believed the Serbians were primarily responsible for the destruction of Bosnia. For this, he was attacked as "biased." He is not so much biased as opinionated. Objectivity does not require neutrality. Or, as he expressed it himself, truth is not the average of the contending viewpoints. Two main themes pervade. First, the idea of Bosnia as a distinct, free-standing nation is very old and very well-established. The oft-heard claim that Bosnians are "really" Croats or "really" Serbs is historically unsupportable. In a fascinating digression, Malcolm demonstrates that the core ancestors of modern Bosnian Serbs were not even Slavs. They were Vlachs, a Romanized migrant tribe, remnants of the Illyrians, who pre-dated the 6th century Slav migration by hundreds of years. So much for Serbian and Russian affinity for their "Slav brothers." Nor was was Bosnia merely an arbitrarily-drawn administrative district. It was an independent kingdom from the end of Byzantine dominion in 1180 until the Ottoman conquest in 1463 (Herzegovina was annexed in 1326). The Ottomans conferred on it the distinction of being a separate eyalet, or province of the Empire, with its own high-ranking pasha. The Austro-Hungarians from 1878-1918, and Tito's communists from 1945-1989, in their turn treated it similarly. Malcolm's second major theme is that the much-cited "ancient hatreds" that were said by superficially-informed Western commentators to have "re-surfaced" after the collapse of the Yugoslav state did not exist. All the grim episodes in Bosnian history, he maintains, were engendered by outside forces, not internal hatreds. That is especially true of the 1992-95 war. Bosnian Catholics and Bosnian Orthodox Christians share nothing distinctive with inhabitants of Croatia or Serbia, except religion (the more-or-less common language cuts across all religions; and there is no distinctive Bosnian or Serbian or Croation race). Croatia and Serbia, in their competition with each other, have long tried to persuade their co-religionists in Bosnia that they were "really" Croats or Serbs. Slobodan Milosevic pushed that gambit to its limits. In truth, the claim that religious hatred characterized the history of Bosnia is a distortion. During the 400 years of Ottoman rule, there seems to have been little religious strife. Catholics, Orthodox, and Muslims lived in substantial harmony, at least in comparison to the bitter religious conflicts occurring on the main part of the European continent. Jews and Gypsies were treated better by these Moham

Much of what goes by "history" in the Balkans is actually myth, generated and repeated by the regional tribes to serve their chauvinistic purposes. The serious historian will necessarily clash with those treasured myths. Malcolm is a serious historian. Books, like Olympic divers, should get degree-of-difficulty marks. This was a hard book to write. The sources are scanty and access to them difficult. Bosnia was settled, invaded, and impinged upon by so many civilizations that there is no unified tale, just dozens of fragmented tales. The bibliography is in ten languages. When published in 1994, in the middle of the war, Malcolm's book was a herald addressed to an uncomprehending world. He had the fortitude to state up front that he believed the Serbians were primarily responsible for the destruction of Bosnia. For this, he was attacked as "biased." He is not so much biased as opinionated. Objectivity does not require neutrality. Or, as he expressed it himself, truth is not the average of the contending viewpoints. Two main themes pervade. First, the idea of Bosnia as a distinct, free-standing nation is very old and very well-established. The oft-heard claim that Bosnians are "really" Croats or "really" Serbs is historically unsupportable. In a fascinating digression, Malcolm demonstrates that the core ancestors of modern Bosnian Serbs were not even Slavs. They were Vlachs, a Romanized migrant tribe, remnants of the Illyrians, who pre-dated the 6th century Slav migration by hundreds of years. So much for Serbian and Russian affinity for their "Slav brothers." Nor was was Bosnia merely an arbitrarily-drawn administrative district. It was an independent kingdom from the end of Byzantine dominion in 1180 until the Ottoman conquest in 1463 (Herzegovina was annexed in 1326). The Ottomans conferred on it the distinction of being a separate eyalet, or province of the Empire, with its own high-ranking pasha. The Austro-Hungarians from 1878-1918, and Tito's communists from 1945-1989, in their turn treated it similarly. Malcolm's second major theme is that the much-cited "ancient hatreds" that were said by superficially-informed Western commentators to have "re-surfaced" after the collapse of the Yugoslav state have been overblown. All the grim episodes in Bosnian history, he maintains, were engendered by outside forces, not internal hatreds. That is especially true of the 1992-95 war. Bosnian Catholics and Bosnian Orthodox Christians share nothing distinctive with inhabitants of Croatia or Serbia, except religion (the more-or-less common language cuts across all regligions; and there is no distinctive Bosnian or Serbian or Croation race). Croatia and Serbia, in their competition with each other, have long tried to persuade their co-religionists in Bosnia that they were "really" Croats or Serbs. Slobodan Milosevic pushed that gambit to its limits. In truth, the claim that religious hatred characterized the history o

Here's a history of Bosnia by an unbiased outsider, or if you prefer, biased by evidence. The apologists of Serbian atrocities, such as the Canadian 'Ted', refer to Izetbegovic's intolerance, which is clearly a statement by people who are victims of pre-war Serbian propaganda that radicalised the Bosnian Serbs into assault on Bosnian Catholics and Muslims. Izetbegovic never propagated a purely Muslim Bosnia; the books by Izetbegovic these people refer to were dealing with Islam and theology in general, and never to Bosnia, which Izetbegovic implicitly admitted was impossible as the country's population consists of three peoples of almost equal size. I am no fan of Izetbegovic, but the man clearly tried the only possible solution, a multi-ethnic Bosnia. Deliberately taking statements out of context, Serbian media did present Izetbegovic as some kind of fanatic, whereas the evidence is incontrovertibly on Izetbegovic's side. Some mujahedin fighters people are talking about here, did come to Bosnia to defend the Muslims who were attacked so brutally by Europe's fourth largest army (Yugoslavia). However, some of their methods and their presence is decried by Bosnian Muslims themselves. All in all, this is a brilliant book, and hopefully readers won't be deterred by attacks by Serbs who've neither read the book (n)or can claim any impartiality, (n)or clearheaded criticism.

Basically, the name says it all. It's a short, quick history of Bosnia written at the height of the 1990s Balkan War and designed to shoot down a number of myths that the author finds maddening. He ends up having quite a blast ripping into long-dead historians, propagandists, and contemporary journalists and politicians for messing up Bosnian history.While you could say it's biased, the author does do a pretty decent job in covering the history of Bosnia. After taking a brief look at Early Bosnia up to 1100 the book mostly focuses on Medieval and Ottoman Bosnia before breezing through the 20th-century. If you were looking for a history of the Bosnian War don't bother, as the book was written before it was over. However, the author does cover its origins and beginning. He also very strongly makes the point that it was systematic planned genocide by Slobodan Milosevic, not so-called ancient tribal hatreds, that was responsible for much of the carnage in the conflict.All in all it was a very good book. There's a little something for everyone. It's very well written. You can breeze through the small chapters, finish the book in a day, and get a basic outline of everything. Or you can go slow, immerse yourself in the little details, and become a genuine mini-expert on Bosnian history. If you hate foreign words, then there might be a problem because the author uses them constantly and often describes the origins of words to show history. But despite that it's still easy to read. In the end, I came way with a better understanding of topics not generally covered in the history books: Bosnia, the Balkans, the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian Empires, and Islam among other things.

Malcolm's BOSNIA: A SHORT HISTORY is an outstanding work. The book shows the range of Bosnian history and the rich complexity and texture of its various religions. It puts into perspective the savage attack on Bosnia, both by nationalist militias and by propagandist media within the former Yugoslavia.Particularly impressive is the discussion of the Bosnian Church, which brings into a clear and accessible language the breakthroughs by Balkan and Western historians on early Bosnian Church history. Malcolm demolishes the mythologized history of the Serbian and Croatian militias by showing that the patterns of conversion in Bosnia were historically complex. He refutes the notion that present day Catholics, Orthodox, and Muslims are derived in a straight pattern of blood descent from the 15th century. Indeed, there were large-scale conversions back and forth throughout the history of Bosnia. This is no abstract scholarly debate. The stereotype that present-day Bosnian Muslims are descendants of "traitors" in the 15th century who betrayed Christianity is a key element in the attack on Bosnia and also a part of the mythology of "age old hatreds" promulgated by the architects of ethnic-cleansing and adopted by some Western policy makers and journalists. Malcolm shows that Bosnia was for 500 years, despite its many tensions and wars, a successful civilization with different religions that engaged each other in complex ways far beyond the cliches of age-old hatreds. This book is recommended for anyone who cares about the Balkans or who wishes to understand the stakes involved in the struggle against "ethnic cleansing."Malcolm's analysis of the radical Serbian nationalism in Belgrade was unfortunately dismissed by some British political leaders and intellectuals. The horrors in Kosovo today are a tragic vindication of his analysis. Those who dismissed him with a facile refusal to acknowledge an unwelcome message, are left brutal evidence of what they denied. Malcolm no doubt, and all of us, wish he had been wrong--or at least that his warnings, stated with such cogency and scholarly accuracy, had been heeded. There is still time to read this book now and allow the history of Bosnia to come through the smoke of genocide, ethnic-cleansing, and desires for religous apartheid based on historically false and destructive mythologies of age-old hatreds.