Serbian Sturgeon: Journal of a Visit to Belgrade

Author: Anthony Howell

Edition: illustrated

Publisher: Routledge, 2001

ISBN 9057551233, 9789057551239

137 pages

In the seventies the Yugoslav avant-garde contributed key players to the international arena of art. The work of Marina Abramovic and Ulay, Bratso Dimitrevic and and many important figures such as Joseph Beuys, Joseph Kossuth and Simone Forti made contact with the art scene in Belgrade or performed at its progressive Student Cultural Centre.

Since those heady days Belgrade has become an isolated city and Serbs are ostracised by the international community. What has happened to the art scene in Serbia? How do artists survive in an economy ruined by war and by sanctions?

In this free-wheeling journal, Anthony Howell, a frequent visitor to Serbia, describes the intellectual life which continued to flourish in Belgrade (at least until his last visit in the Spring of 1997), lectures by Victor Burgin and by the British Ambassador, exhibitions, theatre festivals and events by Serb artists, his own performances and how they were received, his excursions to historical sites and his intimate relationships.

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The Balkans

Authors: Nevill Forbes, Arnold J. Toynbee

Edition: large print

Publisher: BiblioBazaar, LLC, 2008

ISBN 0554240238, 9780554240237

332 pages

We hope we have dealt fairly with all these peoples. Mediaeval history is mostly a record of bloodshedding and cruelty and the Middle Age has been prolonged to our own time in most parts of the Balkans and is not yet over in some parts.

The whole what may be called the trunk of 'massif' of the Balkan peninsula, bounded on the north by the rivers Save and Danube, on the west by the Adriatic, on the east by the Black Sea, and on the south by a very irregular line running from Antivari (on the coast of the Adriatic) and the lake of Scutari in the west, through lakes Okhrida and Prespa (in Macedonia) to the outskirts of Salonika and thence to Midia on the shores of the Black Sea, following the coast of the Aegean Sea some miles inland, is prepondereatingly inhabited by Slavs. These Slavs are the Bulgarians in the east and centre, the Serbs and Croats (or Serbians and Croatians or Serbo-Croats) in the west, and the Slovenes in the extreme north-west, between Trieste and the Save; these nationalities compose the southern branch of the Slavonic race. The other inhabitants of the Balkan peninsula are, to the south of the Slavs, the Albanians in the west, the Greeks in the centre and north, and the Turks in the south-east, and, to the north, the rumanians. All four of these nationalities are to be found in varying quantities within the limits of the Slav territory roughly outlined above, but great numbers of them are outside it; on the other hand, a therea are considerable number of Serbs living north of the rivers Save and Danube, in Southern Hungary.

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History of the Balkans: Eighteenth and nineteenth centuries

Author: Barbara Jelavich

Edition: reprint, illustrated

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 1983

ISBN 0521274583, 9780521274586

400 pages

This narrative concerns the history of the people in five modern Balkan states - Albania, Bulgaria, Greece, Romania, and Yugoslavia - over approximately three centuries. Although the Balkan peninsula has played a major role in history, the area has been subject to less intensive study tha any other European region. To the outside observer the Balkans often appear to be puzzle of confusing complexity. A geographic region inhabited by seven major nationalities, speaking different languages, it has usually impinged on the Western consciousness only when it has become the scene of wars or acts of violence.

Yet this area, because of both its past contributions and its present importance, certainly deserves a larger place in modern historical studies. Part of former ancient Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Ottoman, and Habsburg lands, and situated at the convergence of Europe, Africa, and Asia, the peninsula has felt the weight of convergence alternate imperial drives and cultural borderline have intersected - for instance, the boundaries between Eastern (Byzantine) and Western Roman empires, between Islam and Christianity, between Orthodoxy and Catholicism, and between the military blocs of the North Atlantic Treaty and the Warsaw Pact.

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