Borderlands, Cross-Cultural Exchange and Revenge in the Medieval and Early Modern Balkans: Roots of Present Regional Conflicts

or Merely a Historical Case-Study? Klemen Pust

Abstract The Medieval and Early Modern Balkans was an area of passage, of transition, of multiple borders. We could claim that the entire region was one huge borderland, a war zone or, better put, a buffer zone between areas of interest of various empires, such as the Habsburg lands, Hungarian kingdom, Venetian Republic and, last but not least, the Ottoman Empire. On the other hand, this territory was a meeting place of several opposing cultural, political and confessional entities. Therefore, it represents a privileged area for the research of border history and coexistence, intercultural exchange, religious dialogue and intertwining of different civilizational patterns, as well as of specific local contexts, that nevertheless exercise a global meaning. In such a context the research on revenge in the Medieval and Early Modern Balkans rises to a new and to a large extent fundamental importance, although the reasons, consequences and forms of revenge have thus far not yet received appropriate research attention. Namely, revenge was arguably one of the most important factors of social and cultural interactions within and across the Balkan borders, while its legitimacy was undisputed. Acts of revenge could be carried across generations, considering the local institution of blood feud forcing the relatives of a slain individual to escape humiliation and shame by embarking on a never-ending journey of vengeance and retaliation. However, while it is true that certain similarities between concepts and actions, as well as cognitive images of the Enemy in the area, have persisted throughout later historical periods, we should not however succumb to tendency of overgeneralizing. The local context, nesting in what we could call the culture of revenge, undoubtedly contributed to tragic events occurring in the 1990s, but this was in its essence nevertheless a process with specific diachronic dimensions, where rather different circumstances and factors coincided in an inopportune manner to produce disastrous results. Key Words: Revenge, Medieval, Early Modern, present, Balkans, regional conflicts, case-study *****

1. The downward spiral of revenge

Borderlands, Cross-Cultural Exchange and Revenge __________________________________________________________________ It is possible to argue that revenge was the main motivator of cross-cultural interactions in all of the numerous borderlands in the Balkans. However, the study of different facets and forms of revenge in the entire peninsula would demand a much wider volume of research that would have to be undertaken by a collective initiative over a longer period of time. In fact, it is not actually possible to refer to the Balkans as a unified or even clearly defined zone. Both the historical and geographical connotations of the term are, at best, vague and ideologically biased, as was established by Maria Todorova.1 Therefore, it is perhaps better to focus particularly on a single borderland region that could be regarded as a zone reflecting many of the characteristics and peculiarities of a wider locus. Such symptomatic area in the heart of the Western Balkans is the Triplex Confinium, a region spreading along the triple Habsburg-Ottoman-Venetian frontier, where three biggest and most important empires staged their struggle for power, domination and control that would set in motion a perpetuum mobile of revenge amongst the local population, regarded to be a mere pawn in the hands of the mighty.2 To elucidate on this claim we should take a closer look at a case study, hiding in the final report or Relatione of Vicenzo Morosini, the rector or capitano of Zadar (Zara), the capital of the Venetian Dalmatia, written in 1589.3 In his report, Morosini states that the town's municipal territory is constantly under the attacks of the Ottomans.4 After one such attack on the 10th of July 1582 Venetian cavalry, called the Stratioti, managed to eliminate two commanders of local paramilitary predatory groups, who captured two boys on the Venetian territory and were leading them along to the Ottoman side of the border. Their perishing stirred great turmoil on the borderland, as their comrades intended to avenge their deaths by launching a retaliation campaign of predatory raids directed against the Venetian subjects. They succeeded in taking numerous captives, together with their cattle and crops, which represented the very base of their existence, while many others were either brutally slain, as Morosini vividly depicts, or mutilated. The Venetians managed to retrieve most of the cattle, while only few of the captives returned home, although Morosini strived to that effect in all possible ways and with outstanding diligence,5 to use his own words. The circle of revenge turned into a downward spiral at the very moment when the outraged Venetian subjects decided to disobey the Venetian authorities and take the matters into their own hands. They took the initiative by kidnapping the Ottomans, killing a certain number of them in the process. The Venetian subjects understood their actions as a counter measure against the unpunished Ottoman attacks and as a means of forcing both the Ottoman and Venetian authorities to step up their pressure on the local Ottoman commanders to diminish the frequency of their raids. The question of incursions as such was not really an issue. Both the

Klemen Pust __________________________________________________________________ Venetians and the Ottomans were accustomed to looting expeditions across the border and such activities were not actually regarded as a state of war or even as extraordinary circumstances. The same was also true for the Ottoman-Habsburg borderlands, where pillaging along the border was known under the name Kleinkrieg or small war.6 However, the ever-growing scale of pillaging eventually tipped the fragile balance between conflict and co-existence, with disastrous consequences. Thus, the privateering actions of the Venetian subjects in Dalmatia proved unsuccessful and they were soon forced to leave their homes and retreat behind town walls, either in Zadar or in nearby Nin (Nona), while seriously contemplating, due to the lack of means of survival, to emigrate to foreign lands, where they could secure their families better chances of a worthy existence and even opportunities for a rise up the social ladder.7

2. Revenge bloody revenge Acts of revenge could be carried out across generations, forcing the relatives of a slain individual to escape humiliation and shame by embarking on a never-ending journey of vengeance and retaliation. In this regard, we need to consider the importance of the local institution of blood revenge, called krvna osveta, basically a form of vendetta that persisted throughout the twentieth century and is still present in certain backwater villages. Blood revenge is namely most typical for remote, detached regions with poor communications, where central state or regional authorities never managed to exert control over the local population. 8 Territory of the Balkans is ideal for the spread of such social mechanisms that in essence constitute forms of self-government, available to the populace mostly originating from the lower social classes. Blood revenge was most present and persistent in clan societies in the remote and mountainous southern most parts of the Balkans, above all in Montenegro, Kosovo and Albania, where revenge could be regarded as a way of life.9 The appeasement is extremely hard to achieve, usually only decades or later after the beginning of the feud between two families. It needs to be officially sanctioned by the council of the elders, the highest decision making social institution in certain village or clan. The elders, as a neutral and unbiased party with absolute authority, start painstaking and lengthy process of negotiations with both families involved. Their main intention is to achieve that the family that drew blood gives financial compensation to the relatives of the slain. Only after this is fulfilled formal ritual of appeasement can take place. It is performed in front of the entire clan, and the oldest member of the family that received the money is obliged to shake hands with the oldest member of the other family and to publicly announce that the dispute is resolved.

Borderlands, Cross-Cultural Exchange and Revenge __________________________________________________________________ However, there were also episodes of mercy, forgiveness and pardon, as was the case with the specific inter-personal, cross-cultural, often even cross-religious social mechanism of blood-brotherhood or pobratimstvo.10 Blood-brotherhood allows us to focus both on social institutions that enabled such communication and on the ways that individuals negotiated its possibilities. Forms and meanings of ritual brotherhood give us an alternative model of the frontier that reveals a fundamental disjunction between imperial and ecclesiastical projects, as well as popular values and behaviour. Pobratimstvo served to regulate public affairs or private economic interests. However it could also consecrate a tie of affectionate friendship. The phenomenon of blood-brotherhood suggests that frontier society was influenced by at least two different and to a large extent opposing sets of referents. On the one hand religious and political divisions separated the people of the frontier; on the other hand common values and institutions drew them together. But the people of the frontier were not just prisoners of their environment. They had the possibility of manipulating the rules or exploiting expectations about how they should behave, while at the same time turning them to their own advantage.11

3. Revenge as a political and social tool of the elites In such a context the research on revenge in the Medieval and Early Modern Balkans rises to a new and to a large extent fundamental importance, although the reasons, consequences and forms of revenge have thus far not yet received appropriate research attention. Namely, revenge was arguably one of the most important factors of social, political and cultural interactions within and across the Balkan borders, while its legitimacy was undisputed. Both lay and Church authorities have manipulated with individual and collective forms of revenge to fit their own purposes, thus granting it official approval. However, revenge had to be formally regulated by an official institution, usually in form of municipal statutes or the cannon law, especially in the Middle Ages, while later in the Early Modern period state decrees were at the forefront of formulating and dispensing of revenge, above all by sanctioning which vengeful actions are acceptable and which are not.12 Antagonisms and conflicts in the frontier region, fuelling various forms and categories of revengeful behaviour, were to a large extent caused by territorial pretensions of regional empires, resulting among other in forced demarcations. This served the purpose of the Ottomans, as it provided an efficient and resilient excuse for their predatory raids on Christian territory. However, even the local Ottoman masters of war gradually realised the importance of peaceful relations with their Christian neighbours. Therefore, certain Venetian and Habsburg possessions that were obtained on the basis of concessions from Hungarian kings have been acknowledged by the Ottomans, while in return Venetian and Habsburg

Klemen Pust __________________________________________________________________ subjects were obliged to provide the Ottoman authorities with tributary levies. Usually it was the Sultan himself that most pursued matters of demarcation, upon which his regional representatives were forced to join the negotiations, even if somewhat reluctantly and by appearance only. The unsettled conditions on the frontier have namely enabled the local Ottoman power figures and their fighting force to obtain huge profits, mostly by pillaging the neighbouring territories and extorting payments and bribes from the Christians. The exact course of the border was not entirely clear even after the demarcation, as it had to be constantly reasserted every time an influential regional representative, be it from the Christian or the Ottoman side, died or was replaced.13 The open border that the Ottomans maintained in the early period of their conflicts with Byzantium had thus irrevocably passed, and a new, diplomatically set form of demarcation developed, which divided two great bureaucratic empires and their military forces.14 The Ottoman borderline, which was drawn after the Cyprus war, was declarative and political, while the Venetian borderline was mainly a cultural and religious one and thus less conspicuous. The Ottomans were not allowed to cross the latter border, unless they fled to the Venetian territory.15 The local Christian officials, be it Habsburg, Venetian, Hungarian or Croatian, had strict orders from the central authorities not to provoke the Ottomans in any way. This was even formulated officially, in the form of commissions granting them different public functions with great political, military and administrative powers. The constant fear of authorities in the neighbouring Christian countries was that the Ottomans would use a petty incident on the border to launch a fullscale attack under the guise of avenging deeds against their subjects and with the real purpose of eradicating the few remaining Christian possessions in the Western Balkans. The only tool the local Christian representatives had was to try and appease the Ottomans by endowing their highest provincial dignitaries, called the sanjak beys, with lavish gifts, while at the same time requesting they control their subordinates. However, as one contemporary Venetian report claims, the Ottomans never did anything against their evil practices.16 It is therefore obvious that revenge was not only understood as a spontaneous action or even a private matter imbued in dark and to a great extent uncontrollable emotion. It was also, and above all, a political and social tool, detached from the actual reason for its creation, thus gaining a strong symbolic meaning. In this respect it is interesting that the same rhetoric was used by the authorities of newly created states, former Yugoslav republics, in the beginning of the 1990s, when searching for a reason to strike against social groups or nationalities that were perceived to be obstacles on the path towards national unification and ethnic purification.

4. Revenge-the trigger effect behind the Yugoslav wars?

Borderlands, Cross-Cultural Exchange and Revenge __________________________________________________________________ Could one argue that the Early Modern mentality, as it was constructed and presented on the basis of revenge, has survived until the present and that atavistic urges have once again broke lose only recently, reaching new heights during the so-called Yugoslav wars? While it is true that certain similarities between concepts and actions, as well as cognitive images of the Enemy in the area, have persisted throughout later historical periods (Balkan Wars, WW1, WW2), we should not however succumb to tendency of over-generalizing. The local context, nesting in what we could call the culture of revenge, undoubtedly contributed to tragic events occurring in the 1990s, but this was in its essence nevertheless a process with specific diachronic dimensions, where rather different circumstances and factors coincided in an inopportune manner to produce disastrous results.17 Yugoslavia collapsed and descended into war for a number of reasons. According to Sabrina Ramet, human agency must be stressed at the outset, but there were also factors which made it simpler for ambitious nationalists to attribute the countrys problems to one or another out-group and to promise to raise the given nation (i.e., Serbs or Croats, in this case) to new heights of rapture. 18 Among those factors, one may mention (1) economic decay, (2) the political illegitimacy of the communist system, (3) structural factors (in particular, the dysfunctional federal system), and (4) the failure to develop a common historical narrative, which had the result that the diverse peoples of Yugoslavia had different understandings of some important aspects of their past history, both in the remote and the more proximate past. What we are less certain about is the underlying shocking mystery: why do human beings take such great pleasure in killing each other? So far, analyses of the Yugoslav war have not moved us very far in grappling with that basic issue.19 Thus, the roots of ethnic conflict in the former Yugoslavia can be, to a large extent, found in the institutional structure of the Yugoslav political and economic systems constructed after World War II. While the post-war institutional structure offered numerous incentives for identity with an integrated Yugoslav state, as well as incentives for regional (as opposed to ethnic) political loyalty, it also encouraged interethnic rivalry through its institutions of allocation, representation, and participation. As the federal state weakened, that institutional structure offered increasing incentives to political entrepreneurs to play the ethnic card in a bid for political power. Regional politicians used their access to resources to build a power base among local, culturally distinct populations. As long as the federal state remained strong, ideological and regional loyalties competed with ethnic loyalties as a source of political identity. Federal institutions could adjudicate disputes among regional elites and provide for peaceful conflict resolution and repression of exclusive ethnic nationalist politics. But ironically, in order to maintain authority

Klemen Pust __________________________________________________________________ by deflecting criticism for economic hardship and political discrimination, the federal government decentralized its control over both the economy and the political system. Each move toward decentralization was a move toward fragmentation and the consequent erosion of federal authority. With deepening fragmentation, local elites had more resources to distribute in exchange for support and saw fewer reasons to maintain loyalty to the central Yugoslav government.20 Why did elites in Serbia, Croatia, and Bosnia shun ideological and regional appeals and decide to engage in vivid displays of cultural symbolism that aroused ethnic emotions and provoked images of ethnic discrimination and privilege? Beverly Crawford argues that their decision was largely shaped by institutional incentives created by federal Yugoslavia throughout the post-war period. As they became more deeply rooted, these institutional incentives discouraged coalitions that would assure moderation on divisive issues. These incentives were reinforced by new institutional rules of participation and representation designed to accommodate multiparty elections in 1990. The rules discouraged issue-based or ideological coalitions across republican boundaries and encouraged the exclusive politics of cultural identity. Initial successful displays of ethnic symbolismoften artificially contriveddrew attention to those ethnic divisions perpetuated by past institutional incentives. In particular, acts of civil disobedience and even violence vividly recalled past grievances and created new ones. Acts of civil disobedience and violence both increased public support for politicians who played the ethnic card and encouraged more violence.21 But what is the chance of nations and individuals, living on the territory of former Yugoslavia, to transcend the bad blood of animosity, hatred and deeprooted mistrust that leads straight to new action-reaction cycles of vengeance? The identities in post-Yugoslav countries can be understood as a balanced game of inner centripetal forces such as ethnicity, religion, myths and language; and external centrifugal ones aiming to keep those nations together. Only after the end of the war new identities were formed on the basis of cultural factors, while the conflict itself started as a consequence of much broader set of issues. The problem of reconciliation as one of the most important in post-conflict societies is possible only by systematic, persistent, long-lasting confrontation with the past in order to create a democratic environment.22 5. Conclusion The main characteristic of the Balkans in the Late Middle Ages and Early Modern period was that it was composed by a conglomerate of borderlands constituting a triple frontier between Habsburg and Hungarian lands, Venetian Republic and the Ottoman Empire. Due to the constantly troubled political situation and often adverse living conditions on the border, revenge obtained a privileged, even fundamental meaning for the local population. The multifaceted concepts and forms of revenge that prevailed in the Balkans account for attitudes,

Borderlands, Cross-Cultural Exchange and Revenge __________________________________________________________________ preferences and actions that would otherwise be hard to explain, including animosity, bitter rivalry and savagery, but also cross-cultural alliances, mutual cooperation and religious dialogue. Indeed, it could be argued that a common culture of revenge existed in the entire region, even though its manifestations could acquire specific shapes. Vengeance namely became a way of life enduring through generations and extending across a vast territory. It could eventually detach itself from the reasons of its creation and thus perpetuate hostilities among the parties involved even after the actual cause for quarrel was long forgotten. Certain features of vindictive behaviour formed patterns that persist until the present, facilitating outbursts of accumulated aggression and hindering the effectiveness of conflict management, thus partly enabling the emergence of recurrent confrontations which on several occasions escalated into total war, ultimately during the Yugoslav wars in the 1990s. However, it is not possible to claim that the mentality of the people in the Balkans is more prone to revenge or that their actions have proved to be more disruptive than that of any other population around the world.

Notes
1

Todorova contributed groundbreaking study on the history of the term Balkans, as well as on balkanology through different periods. See the updated edition of her work Imagining the Balkans (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009). 2 Triplex Confinium was the meeting place of three main opposing cultural, political and confessional entities. Therefore, it represents a privileged area for the research of border history and coexistence, intercultural exchange, religious dialogue and intertwining of different civilizational patterns, as well as of specific local contexts. See Drago Roksandi, ed., Microhistory of the Triplex Confinium: International Project Conference Papers (Budapest, March 21-22, 1997) (Budapest: Central European University, Institute on Southeastern Europe, 1998); Ibid., Triplex Confinium ili o granicama i regijama hrvatske povijesti 1500-1800 (Zagreb: Barbat, 2003); Ibid., et al., eds., Triplex Confinium (1500-1800): Ekohistorija: zbornik radova sa meunarodnog znanstvenog skupa odranog od 3. do 7. svibnja 2000. godine u Zadru (Split: Knjievni krug; Zagreb: Zavod za hrvatsku povijest Filozofskog fakulteta Sveuilita u Zagrebu, 2003); Drago Roksandi and Nataa tefanec, eds., Constructing border societies on the triplex confinium: International project conference papers 2 "Plan and practice. How to construct a border society? The triplex confinium c. 1700-1750" (Graz, December 9-12, 1998) (Budapest: Central European University, 2000); Egidio Ivetic and Drago Roksandi, eds., Tolerance and intolerance on the triplex confinium:

Klemen Pust __________________________________________________________________ approaching the "other" on the borderlands Eastern Adriatic and beyond, 15001800 (proceedings of the Fourth International Conference of the International Research Project "Triplex Confinium", Padova, 25-27 March 2004) (Padova: CLEUP, 2007); Mirela Slukan, Kartografski izvori za povijest Triplex Confiniuma (Zagreb: Hrvatski dravni arhiv, Zavod za hrvatsku povijest Odsjeka za povijest Filozofskog fakulteta, 1999). 3 Grga Novak, ed., Mletaka uputstva i izvjetaji: Svezak IV. Od 1572 do 1590 godine (Zagreb: JAZU, 1964), 444. 4 In this paper the members of the Ottoman Empire are referred to as the Ottomans, which not only marks the Ottoman-Turkish population as an ethnic category, but rather expresses the political meaning of the members of the Ottoman Empire. Namely, the expression Turk is in most sources, as well as in contemporary popular and even scientific literature, used rather uncritically and reveals etymological confusion and deliberate or non-deliberate poor knowledge of actual reality. This is true above all for two reasons. Firstly, the expression Turk in the Early Modern Age marked all those ethnicities and their members, who under the supreme command of the Ottoman state came in contact with the Christian population. The other important reason is that both educated writers and the uneducated majority used the term Turk to name the Turkish, Turkmen and even Tatar and, thus, were not able to identify the differences between the Ottomans and other Turkish ethnicities, such as the Seljuqs. Namely, Heath W. Lowry in his The Nature of the Early Ottoman State (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2003) claims that in the Ottoman Empire the inhabitants of ethnically Turkish origin were in minority, while at the same time one of its main characteristics was that it excepted all those ethnic and religious elements that were of use in increasing its power and wealth, as this was above all a federation of different groups of people that was based primarily on economic foundations, which is clearly visible in its typical gathering of large quantities of booty. Thus, Lowry managed to discard the influential theory that saw the Ottomans as primarily the ghazi warriors, formulated by Paul Wittek in his monumental work entitled The Rise of the Ottoman Empire (London: Royal Asiatic Society, 1938). 5 Novak, Mletaka uputstva i izvjetaji, 444. 6 Regarding the Kleinkrieg phenomenon, see Jan Paul Niederkorn, Die europischen Mchte und der Lange Trkenkrieg Kaiser Rudolfs II. (15931606) (Vienna: Verlag der sterreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1993); Gza Plffy, ed., Gemeinsam gegen die Osmanen: Ausbau und Funktion der Grenzfestungen in Ungarn im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert. Katalog der Ausstellung im sterreichischen Staatsarchiv 14. Mrz 31. Mai 2001 (BudapestVienna: sterreichisches Staatsarchiv-Collegium Hungaricum Wien, 2001). 7 Novak, Mletaka uputstva i izvjetaji, 443. Thus, under the rule of the sanjak bey of Lika Mehmed the Ottomans, in the villages of Draevac and Grusi alone, killed

Borderlands, Cross-Cultural Exchange and Revenge __________________________________________________________________ 17 women and children, enslaved further 57 persons, while burning all the houses and confiscating 20 oxen, 520 cattle and 1 550 small cattle. Ibid., 444. 8 On vendetta in its original setting of Early Modern Italy see Edward Muir, Mad Blood Stirring: Vendetta in Renaissance Italy (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1993). 9 See Christopher Boehm, Blood Revenge: The Enactment and Management of Conflict in Montenegro and other Tribal Societies (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1987); Islam Qerimi, Mejreme Berisha: Criminal Offences, Sentences and Its Enforcement Under the Albanian Customary Law (GRIN Verlag, 2011), 1-18. On blood revenge in Arab lands that possibly affected the Balkan forms of krvna osveta by mediation from the part of the Ottomans see Joseph Ginat, Blood Revenge: Family Honor, Mediation and Outcasting (BrightonPortland: Sussex Academic Press, 1997). Blood revenge is a theme that reoccurs regularly in literature, the most famous example being Ismail Kadares Prilli i Thyer, first published in 1978. See the English version Ismail Kadare, Broken April (London: Saqi Books, 1990). 10 Wendy Bracewell, Frontier Blood-Brotherhood and the Triplex Confinium, in Constructing border societies on the triplex confinium: International project conference papers 2 "Plan and practice. How to construct a border society? The triplex confinium c. 1700-1750" (Graz, December 9-12, 1998), eds. Drago Roksandi and Nataa tefanec (Budapest: Central European University, 2000), 29-45; Maria Pia Pedani, Beyond the Frontier: the Ottoman-Venetian border in the Adriatic context from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries, in Zones of Fracture in Modern Europe: the Baltic Countries, the Balkans, and Northern Italy, ed. Almut Bues (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2005), 59-60. 11 Wendy Bracewell, Blood Brothers and Frontier Divisions in the Adriatic Hinterland, 16th-18th centuries, Paper presented at the Eleventh Mediterranean Research Meeting, Florence and Montecatini Terme 24-27 March 2010, organised by the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies at the European University Institute, 1, 24-25. 12 An important example of revenge codification is the Libro doro of the town of Split (Spalato) in Dalmatia, a diplomatarium containing the collection of several hundred documents, reflecting the gradual modification of the Split statute between 1420 and 1797, when the commune was under Venetian rule. See the published version: Ivan Frange, et al., eds., Zlatna knjiga grada Splita, vol. 1 (Split, Knjievni krug, 1996). 13 Geraud Poumarede established that the border between the Ottoman and the Venetian state was by no means impenetrable. Not even the constant OttomanVenetian conflicts in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries could prevent the

Klemen Pust __________________________________________________________________ passing and circulation of people and goods. Therefore, regardless of tolerance or intolerance of authorities on both sides a certain porosity of the border existed, which was based on the mobility of population, continuity of rural and mountainous areas, complementary needs of territories on both sides of the border, local practices and forms of production and exchange, as well as the inclusion of various regions into international commercial connections. Despite numerous incidents and the consequent lack of security caused by the trans-border contacts, the latter was indispensable in keeping the internal balance of the Venetian territory. Thus, a paradox occurred: the inhabitants of the Venetian possessions, in order to survive, had to rely, to some extent, on their biggest enemies, the Ottomans, who they were in constant conflict with. See Pour en finir avec la Croisade: Mythes et realites de la lutte contre les Turcs aux XVIe et XVIIe sicles (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2002), 129-130. 14 Mark L. Stein, Guarding the Frontier: Ottoman Border Forts and Garrisons in Europe (London, New York: Tauris Academic Studies, 2007), 20. 15 Josip Vrandei, Had an Ottoman Combatant any Chance to Win the Love of the Daughter of the Rector of the Dalmatian Town Zadar (Islam in Ottoman Dalmatia in the 16th and 17th century and its coexistence with the Christian world of neighboring Venetian Dalmatia), Radovi Filozofskog fakulteta u Zadru 34 (1994-1995): 176, 182. 16 Simeon Ljubi, ed., Commissiones et Relationes Venetae. Tomus III. Annorum 1553-1571 (Zagrabiae: Sumptibus Academiae Scientiarum et Artium, 1880), 191. 17 There is a vast bibliography on recent history and the collapse of Yugoslavia, including the Yugoslav wars. Here is the synthesis of most relevant works: Barbara Jelavich, History of the Balkans, vol. 2 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1983); Ivo Banac, The National Question in Yugoslavia: Origins, History, Politics (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1984); Misha Glenny, The Fall of Yugoslavia: The Third Balkan War (London: Penguin, 1992); Laslo Sekelj, Yugoslavia the process of disintegration (Colorado: Boulder, 1992); Mark Thompson, A Paper House: The Ending of Yugoslavia (New York: Pantheon, 1992); Robert J. Kaplan, Balkan Ghosts: A Journey through History (New York: St. Martins, 1993); Branka Magas, The destruction of Yugoslavia: Tracking the breakup 19801992 (London: Verso, 1993); L. Susan Woodward, Balkan tragedy: Chaos and dissolution after the Cold War (Washington: Brookings Institute, 1995); Laura Silber and Allan Little, The Death of Yugoslavia (London: Penguin/BBC Books, 1996); Ana Devi, Antiwar initiatives and the unmaking of civic identities in the former Yugoslav republics, Journal of Historical Sociology 10 (1997): 127 156; Eric Gordy, The culture of power in Serbia: Nationalism and the destruction of alternatives (Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State University Press 1999); John Lampe, Yugoslavia as History: Twice There was a Country (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000); Jasna DragoviSoso, Saviours of the nation: Serbias intellectual opposition and the revival of nationalism (London: Hurst &

Borderlands, Cross-Cultural Exchange and Revenge __________________________________________________________________ Company, 2002); David B. Macdonald, Balkan holocausts? Serbian and Croatian victim-centred propaganda and the war in Yugoslavia (Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 2002); Sabrina P. Ramet, Balkan Babel: The Disintegration of Yugoslavia from the Death of Tito to the Fall Of Milosevic (Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 2002); James J. Sadkovich, Argument, Persuasion, and Anecdote: The Usefulness of History to Understanding Conflict, Polemos 5 (2002): 33-49; Stef Jansen, Notes on ethnography, everyday lives and the postYugoslav wars, LBC Newsletter 2 (2002): 1617; Ibid., Antinacionalizam: Etnografija otpora u Beogradu i Zagrebu (Belgrade: Biblioteka XX vek, 2005); Miroslav Hadi, ed., The Violent Dissolution of Yugoslavia: Causes, dynamics and effects. Collection of Papers (Belgrade: Centre for CivilMilitary Relations, 2004); Orli Fridman, Alternative Voices: Serbias AntiWar Activism, 19912004 (Fairfax, VA: George Mason University, 2006); Ibid., It was like fighting a war with our own people: AntiWar activism in Serbia during the 1990s, Nationalities Papers 39 (2011): 507522; Lenard J. Cohen and Jasna Dragovi-Soso, eds., State Collapse in South-Eastern Europe: New Perspectives on Yugoslavia's Disintegration (West Lafayette: Purdue University Press, 2008); Charles W. Ingrao and Thomas A. Emmert, eds., Confronting the Yugoslav Controversies: A Scholars' Initiative (West Lafayette: Purdue University Press, 2009). According to Bojan Bili, the majority of studies on the former Yugoslavia, and especially those chronologically closer to the armed conflict (e.g., Glenny, Kaplan, Magas), are based on the paradigm that multi-national societies are by definition conflictual and characterised by a tendency towards ethnically homogeneous nation-states. Such approaches perceive ethnic identity as a fixed category superimposed over a whole range of other possible personal affiliations. They, thus, leave insufficient space for trans-republic, pan-Yugoslav or supra-national peace-oriented civic engagement. There are, of course, scholars foreign, domestic and diasporic who have provided more balanced explanations by complementing and qualifying the nationalist argument with an analysis of long term social developments and the countrys cultural life (e.g., Sekelj, Devi, Gordy, DragoviSoso, Jansen 2005, Fridman). See (Post-)Yugoslav Anti-War Engagement: A Research Topic Awaiting Attention, Historija i drutvo 4 (2001): 83-107. 18 Sabrina P. Ramet, The Dissolution of Yugoslavia: Competing Narratives of Resentment and Blame, Sdost Europa 55 (2007): 2669. 19 John Lampe, et al., Instant History: Understanding the Wars of Yugoslav Succession (review essay), Slavic Review 55 (1996), 160. 20 The institutional argument presented here runs counter to those made in the recent flood of literature on the violent dissolution of Yugoslavia. That literature

Klemen Pust __________________________________________________________________ can be divided into three rival intellectual camps. The first has been labelled the essentialist or primordial perspective. Primordial explanations stress the role of the Balkan temperament and ancient hatreds unleashed by the collapse of communism. Essentialist arguments are difficult to discredit because they are nonfalsifiable. They link conflict with irrational and natural psychological and social tendencies to belong to a group and to reject the other. Although they do not explain why the central focus of belonging needs to be an ethnic or religious group, essentialists argue that this tendency emerges when it is no longer repressed. At the other extreme are explanations for Yugoslavias violent dissolution that view international forces as central causes. There is a large body of both historical and current literature that blames Balkan war and its particular ethnic content on great power attempts to carve up Balkan states for their own advantage. A third explanation for the Yugoslav conflict suggests that the causes were instrumental. This literature places blame for the war not on primordial urges within society or great power pretensions within a changing international structure, but rather on political entrepreneurs like Slobodan Miloevi, Franjo Tudjman, and a host of local Serb and Croat politicians and intellectuals. The central argument is that these political entrepreneurs exploited ethnic differences and whipped up ethnic hatred in their effort to expand their own power base in the aftermath of institutional collapse. See Beverly Crawford, Explaining Cultural Conflict in the ExYugoslavia: Institutional Weakness, Economic Crisis, and Identity Politics, in The Myth of Ethnic Conflict: Politics, Economics, and Cultural Violence, eds. Beverly Crawford and Ronnie D. Lipschutz (Berkeley: University of California, 1998), 197-260. 21 Ibid., 198-199. 22 Ana Ljubojevi, Tomorrow people, where is your past? Mapping of post-war national identities in new Yugoslav states, Paper presented at the ECPR Graduate Conference, Dublin City University 2010, 24-25.

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Klemen Pust __________________________________________________________________ Todorova, Maria. Imagining the Balkans. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009. Vrandei, Josip. Had an Ottoman Combatant any Chance to Win the Love of the Daughter of the Rector of the Dalmatian Town Zadar (Islam in Ottoman Dalmatia in the 16th and 17th century and its coexistence with the Christian world of neighboring Venetian Dalmatia). Radovi Filozofskog fakulteta u Zadru 34 (19941995): 163-184. Wittek, Paul. The Rise of the Ottoman Empire. London: Royal Asiatic Society, 1938. Woodward, L. Susan. Balkan tragedy: Chaos and dissolution after the Cold War . Washington: Brookings Institute, 1995. Klemen Pust, is a RS Postdoctoral Researcher attached to the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. He gained his Ph.D in History, dealing with OttomanVenetian interactions in the Eastern Adriatic in the sixteenth century, at the University of Primorska, Koper/Capodistria, Slovenia (2009). His research is devoted to forms, characteristics and cross-cultural consequences of the Ottoman presence in the Late Medieval and Early Modern Balkans.