The Wars of the Balkan Peninsula: Their Medieval Origins: Amazon.co.uk: Madgearu, Alexandru: 9780810858466: Books

Let me explain the paradox title of my review. Madgearu basically tries to present the use and abuse of medieval balkanian history by the modern Balkan states as a mean of legitimation of their current/modern nationalist aspirations. This is a common concept: History is... See more

Let me explain the paradox title of my review. Madgearu basically tries to present the use and abuse of medieval balkanian history by the modern Balkan states as a mean of legitimation of their current/modern nationalist aspirations. This is a common concept: History is always 're-modelled' and 're-invented' in order to justify current aspirations. So, unfortunately, it is completely normal that two different (if not contending) sides will have conflicting 'historical' narratives of the same events. Since, most of the world-wide well respected scholars are practising 'academic historiography for the sake of academic historiography', they are usually not interested in exposing the 'nationalist abuses' of history, because such an exposure is an act of historical divulgation and divulgation usually requires a 'lowering of academic high standards'. This neglect of the serious scholars towards divulgation has created a great gap between 'academic historiography' and 'populist/nationalist narratives'. I wrote that Magdearu's work is 'NECESSARY' because it tries to close this gap.

And the historical narrative that he presents is good and detailed and -I think- the strong part of the book.

However, I also wrote that Madgearu's work is 'MEDIOCRE'. This is for the other part of the book: that is not the historical narrative, but his INTERPRETATION of the 'uniqueness' of the Balkan peninsula and the general ethnologic arguments.

Madgearu shows a great number of minor flaws:

1) HE OFTEN CONTRADICTS HIMSELF. For example in trying to locate the 'mysterious' 11th century Arbanon in pages 25 and 26 he writes that it was a small region located NORTH of the Shkumbin river. On the other hand, in page 148 he writes "as a matter of fact, the real location of Arbanon was SOUTH OF THE SHKUMBIN Shkumbin valley". Both versions have refererce pointing to Allain Ducellier. So the rational reader will ask: was it south or north?

2) HE OFTEN SHOWS A SUPERFICIAL UNDERSTANDING OF MODERN ETHNOLOGY (POST-FREDRIK BARTH ERA) COMBINED WITH A VERY MILD PRO-ROMANIAN BIAS. Examples:
i) In page 28 he writes very correctly that 'the fate of Kossovo cannot be based on Albanian and Serbian WISHFUL THINKING' and in page 145 he again very correctly writes that the Albanians have an "OBSESSION WITH AUTOCHTHONY". On the other hand, always in page 28 we writes "THE ROMANIANS ARE THE HEIRS OF THE THRACIAN AND DACIAN ROMANIZED POPULATION". The very use of the word 'heirs' shows a same kind of obsession. Although there's no doubt that Romanian and the other Balkan Romance languages (like the now extinct Dalmatian) have evolved from the Balkan Romance varieties spoken by such Latinized paleo-balkanian people, hence we can discuss of continuity in the sense of LINGUISTIC COMMUNITY, we cannot speak of ETHNIC continuity. The Romanian appropriation of the Daco-Moesian pre-Slavic past is a modern construction and it is many times characterized by the same 'obsession for autochthony' ('Dacian' rather than immigrant 'Moesian') as the modern Albanian constructed identity. A Romanian is no more 'heir' of the Latinized Paleo-Balkanian 'legacy' than a 'newcomer' Slav. One has to remember that prominent medieval 'Romanians' as Vlad 'Dracula' had pure slavic names and were bilinguals in Romanian and Slavic and in the same time Godescalc of Orbais reported that in the 840s the 'Slavic' court of the Croatian duke Trpmir was bilingual in Slavonic and 'vulgar Latin' that Godescalc considered 'degenerated Latin'.

A further example of typical Romanian bias is found in pages 28 and 147 where he tries to explain the similarities of the Albanian and Romanian languages ONLY as part of their distant common Daco-Mysian linguistic heritage. In this sense he does not accept the post-Roman symbiosis of the ancestors of the Albanians and Romanians. Of course, every neutral scholar immediately recognizes that Romanian shares with Albanian both pre-roman substratal features AND post-Roman common innovations. I will provide two examples. The romanian substratal words rață and mazăre are cognates of the albanian words rosë and modhë/modhull. The romanian terms show the evolution *ā>a which is different from the albanian evolution *ā>o, hence in this case we may talk of pre-Roman divergence. On the other hand, the romanian terms moș and cioară (<*tsòra)when compared to their albanian cognates mot,moshë and sorrë (PA *tsārna) show the entire scheme of the albanian evolution *ē>*ā>o and hence must be treated as Albanian loanwords into Romanian, which requires Albano-Romanian symbiosis. Since romanian cioară comes from Late Proto-Albanian *tsārra (~ latin terra > roman. țară)and not from the Early Proto-Albanian *tsārna and since the albanian assimilation -rn->-rr- is certainly post-roman (infernus,furnus> ferr,furrë) and, according to Vladimir Orel, Early Medieval, this means that the ancestors of the Romanians were still coinhabiting with the ancestors of Albanians during the transition from Late Antiquity to Early Medieval period (~600 AD).

ii) Madgearu shows a kind of bias towards the Dalmatian language and the Western Balkan 'Romanity'. Many times he remarks that Dalmatian was strictly limited to the coastal cities (in fact it was gradually restricted there after a long period of time) and in the same time presents ALL the 'Illyrian Vlachs' as 'Western Romanian immigrants' from further east (Morava-Drina region) just because some (cf. Istro-Romanians) probably were so. Thus Madgearu creates the impression of a 'Latin vacuum' in Illyricum at the time of the Slavic settlemenent, which is certainly not correct. The very fact that modern Serbo-Croatian has Dalmatian loanwords (cf. kelavna < Dalm kilauna < Lat. columna with typical balkan romance mn>vn as in Romanian scaun<scamnum) along with the fact that HINTERLAND toponyms like Duvno indicate a Slavo-Romance symbiosis (Romance Delminium> Delvno & Srb-Croat Dlvno> Duvno ala vlk>vuk) point to an once deeper penetration of the Dalmatian language in the Illyrian hinterland. In fact, one of the linguistic issues I'd like to see solved someday is the exact definition of the border between 'West' and 'East' Balkan Romance (if there was one anyway).

iii) His main conclusion that 'high ethnic interpenetration' is a particularly Balkan feature and that it is the main cause of the Balkan conflicts is not true. First, the Medieval Balkans were not more ethnically mixed than say Medieval Spain (Ibero-Latins,Basques, Germanic invaders, Arabs etc) or Medieval England (latinized Celts, celtic speaking people like the Welsh and Cornish, German invaders like the Anglo-Saxons and the varius Norsemen, half-latinized norsemen liek the Normans etc). So there must be another reason why these western territories managed to eventually produce more 'homogeneous' nation-states than the Balkan states (in fact at some point he speaks about western european successful centralization). Secondly, "interpenetration of linguistic communities" does not necessarily mean 'tendency towards ethnic conflict'. Most scholars who currently view ethnicity with an instrumentalist point of view will argue that 'ethnic conflicts' in a region rise AFTER conflicting indoctrinations occure. Kosovo wasn't always an 'apple of discord' between Albanians and Serbs. As long as medieval Serbs and Albanians lived together and even intermarried there was no 'endemic ethnic conflict'. The conflict emerged when Kosovo had to be "either Serb or Albanian". Similarly, in the multi-ethnic Bosnia there was no 'endemic ethnic conflict'. John Lampe in page 367 of "Yugoslavia as History" writes:

"Such cleansings preoccupy public attention, much as the presumption of 'ancient ethnic hatreds' did when the former Yugoslavia was breaking up. That presumption was false, as we have seen, but the forced movement of some 3 million people is all too real".

"Ethnic conflict" in multi-ethnic regions is not "endemic". It is instrumentally constructed when the whole region is claimed "exclusively ours or exclusively theirs".

Madgearu at some point distinguishes between Dobrudja and the multi-ethnic Balkan regions, because he claims that in the former there was no endemic ethnic conflict only an 'artificial' one that was created by Bulgaria. In fact, there was no 'endemic ethnic conflict' neither in the Balkanian mutli-ethnic regions nor in Dobrudja (or Transylvania which Madgearu does not even discuss), before the emergence of the modern Balkan Nation-States and the 'exclusive possession rights' that each declared to possess.

So, what Madgearu fails to point out is that 'ethnic interpenetration' does not necessarily create a state of 'endemic ethnic conflict'. It is the mentality of 'exclusivity' that generates ethnic conflict and this mentality, rather than 'endemic' is a social construct, a product of instrumentalist ethnic agendas.

This is why I wrote "Mediocre, but Necessary": Of Mediocre quality in many of his interpretations, but a Necessary first step (eith a good historical narrative) towards a work on the same subject with higher academic standards (cf. participation of scholars who are better informed in modern ethnology and of linguists who can present better and more analytically the linguistic arguments found in the book).

PS: Plus overprized !!!! 38 pounds for this when Florin Curta's "Southeast Europe in the Middle ages", published by CUP cost only 24 pounds is a disgrace.