War is not a topic that lends itself easily to fiction. Don’t get me wrong: there are many great war novels, written by authors of differing magnitude, from Leo Tolstoy to Erich Maria Remarque to James Michener to Miroslav Krleža to Miodrag Bulatovič.
Krleža? Bulatovič? Who are they, you would be right to ask. Since there is nary a translation available in English of the works of either Yugoslav writer, please take my word for it: to understand the people of the Balkans from the viewpoint of their brethren, one needs to familiarize oneself with the opus of those Croatian and Montenegrin writers.
The term Balkans encompasses most of the southern Slavs (Slovenians, Serbs, Croats, Bosnians, Macedonians and Montenegrins), Bulgarians, Romanians, Moldovians, Albanians and, historically, Greeks and European Turks. The area currently inhabited by these groups over the centuries has experienced more than its fair share of conflict.
The Balkan war that...
Robert Pierre Tomas is a Toronto-based former broadcast journalist and writer. Originally from Poland, he has travelled extensively across central and eastern Europe.
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