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253
MONTENEGRO IN REBECCA WEST’S
BLACK LAMB AND GREY FALCON
:
THE LITERATURE OF TRAVELLERS
AS A SOURCE FOR POLITICAL GEOGRAPHY
CRNA GORA U DJELU REBECCE WEST
BLACK LAMB AND GREY FALCON
:
PUTOPISI KAO IZVOR PODATAKA U POLITI
ČKOJ GEOGRAFIJI
ANDRÉ-LOUIS SANGUIN
1
1
Sveučilište Paris-Sorbonne / University of Paris-Sorbonne
UDK: 911.3:32:82-992](497.16)=111
Primljeno / Received: 2011-06-30 Pregledni rad
Review
The literature of travellers represents a key foundation upon which geography was built as a social construct.
It depicts the territorial reality on a personal level. The literature of travellers has been at the origin of popular
geographical knowledge. In 1941 the great British novelist Rebecca West (1892-1983) published a chronicle of
her travels through Yugoslavia from 1936 to 1938:
Black Lamb and Grey Falcon.
Her book is a good example and a relevant test of the literature of travellers as a source of political geography.
Actually, Black Lamb and Grey Falcon is West’s political response to the Balkans rather than an account of
her journey through Yugoslavia. Through her writing, West has contributed to the shape of a different public
opinion about Yugoslavia and its peoples which continues to live on. Moreover, her book strongly influenced the
Anglo-Saxon policy makers on their comprehension of Yugoslavia. West significantly depicted Montenegro in its
history, people, traditions and politics by means of pictures regarding Boka Kotorska, Budva, Cetinje, Kolasin,
Mount Lovcen, Plav, and Skadar Lake. On the basis of the chapter devoted to Montenegro in West’s book, the
paper will focus on its features of political geography through an analysis of significant geosymbols.
Key words: Political Geography, National Identity, Geography of Representations, Spatial Perception,
Geosymbols, Travel Literature, Montenegro, Yugoslavia, the Balkans, Rebecca West
Putopisna literatura ključni je temelj na kojem je geografija nastala kao društvena pojava. Ona opisuje
prostornu realnost iz perspektive pojedinca. Putopisna literatura je izvor popularnoga geografskog znanja.
Godine 1941. poznata britanska spisateljica Rebecca West (1892.-1983.) objavila je kroniku svojih putovanja
kroz Jugoslaviju u razdoblju od 1936. do 1938. pod naslovom Black Lamb and Grey Falcon.
Njezina knjiga je odličan primjer putopisne literature kao izvora podataka u političkoj geografiji. U stvari,
Black Lamb and Grey Falcon je politički odgovor Rebecce West na Balkan, a ne prikaz njezina putovanja kroz
Jugoslaviju. Svojim zapažanjima West je pridonijela oblikovanju javnog mišljenja o Jugoslaviji i narodima koji
u njoj žive, a koje je i danas prisutno. Nadalje, njezina knjiga imala je snažan utjecaj na razmišljanja anglo-
saksonskih političara o Jugoslaviji. West je izuzetno opisala Crnu Goru, njezinu povijest, ljude, tradiciju i politiku
kroz opise Boke kotorske, Budve, Cetinja, Kolašina, Lovćena, Plava i Skadarskog jezera. Analizirajući odlomak
iz knjige vezan uz Crnu Goru, ovaj rad se fokusira na obilježja političke geografije kroz analizu značajnih
geosimbola.
Ključne riječi: politička geografija, nacionalni identitet, geografija prikaza, prostorna percepcija, geosimboli,
putopisna literatura, Crna Gora, Jugoslavija, Balkan, Rebecca West
254
A. Sanguin Geoadria 16/2 (2011) 253-260
Travel Literature and Geography:
Some Theoretical Issues
Halfway between higher culture and talk
litterature, the travel book is a literary genre which
is considered a popular work today. For centuries
it was one of the key bases upon which geography
was built as a social construct (
Scaramellini,
1996). Discovery travel can be considered a
typical experience of modern Europe (Stafford
,
1984; Charmasson, 2010). Consequently, the
travel book in a way represents the heart of the
relationship between the travel experience and the
geographical knowledge. Travel literature depicts
the territorial reality. Nevertheless, it is done on
a personal level which has the effect of distorting
the images and selecting the memories. Travel
literature is a true archive of cognitive practices.
The account of journeys realized in 1936-1937-
1938 by Rebecca West through Yugoslavia was
titled Black Lamb and Grey Falcon. It is truly an
exemplary text. Why? It offers many significant
historical data which are accompanied by the
author’s comments about a not well-known country
by the Westerners at that time, and a part of what
was still the Ottoman Empire in 1912. From the
strict viewpoint of political geography, West’s book
represents an outstandingly important document
insofar as one can consider it an intelligence report
which had a role in shaping the perception of
Yugoslavia among the political establishment in
Great Britain and in the US.
Black Lamb and Grey Falcon is a woman’s
testimony based on personal experience of
Yugoslavia, in which one finds specific forms of
feminine sensitivity and expression. Consequently,
it is not always easy for a masculine observer to
decipher the subtlety and sensitivity of West’s
Yugoslav experiences, notably the significances
which are attached to those experiences and the
ways in which she articulates them (Berdoulay
,
1988). Rebecca West’s analysis often follows
more from an anthropological commitment
than from any sense of adventure. Within such a
special context, it is necessary to establish a clear
distinction between
travel and tourism. West
never considered herself a tourist, but a traveller.
Historically speaking, tourists were those who
followed in travellers’ footsteps. The key feature
of tourism is the travel realized as
leisure. In
contrast, the traveller is involved with serious
work. The travel is an acceptation, a legitimate
purpose in itself. The public travel account takes
the exceptional, abstract and generalized feature of
an ethnography, while the private travel account
takes the shape of a
travelogue (Bianchi, 1985;
Della Dora, 2009). Black Lamb and Grey Falcon
made a contribution in the development of the
Anglo-Saxon public opinion about Yugoslavia and
its peoples. This process of forming opinion is a
complex one, and it acts at different levels. West’s
book shoulders a very strong political dimension.
She even explained that within the travel literature
the study of interactions of political and religious
ideas was the matter (West, 1958).
One can read Black Lamb and Grey Falcon
as a sustained meditation upon the theme of
power. This meditation is present throughout the
book. The depth of West’s political committment
underlines the author’s bitterness when Yugoslavia
became Communist in 1945. Commander of the
Order of the British Empire, West (1892-1983) was
an active feminist who took part in the suffragette
movement before WW1. She was a radical socialist
at the beginning of her writer’s career, but she
became a passionate anti-Communist at the end
of her life. She wrote papers for The New Yorker
,
The New Republic
, The Sunday Telegraph, and
The New York Herald Tribune. She attended
the Nuremberg Trial. If Black Lamb and Grey
Falcon is a standard of the travel literature, this
book, widely favourable to the Serbs, represents
a noteworthy review of history and ethnography
of the Balkans, but also an advanced and clear
thought regarding Nazism.
Rebecca West and Yugoslavia
It is very clear that the unchanging character of
a country’s history means that its territory and its
people cannot be reinterpreted without the traveller
being overwhelmed by the absolute weight of the
past legacies (Barnes, Duncan, 1992). Black Lamb
and Grey Falcon was published in two volumes in
1941 just when Great Britain fought alone for its
survival against the Nazi barbarity. In 1936, 1937
and 1938, Rebecca West did not visit a Yugoslavia
at war when she and her husband, the banker
Henry Maxwell Andrews (married in 1930),
ventured into a country which the West did not
know well and which took the name of Yugoslavia
only in 1929. Of course, there was no civil war
in Yugoslavia but one must say that Yugoslavia
was an artificial creation of the victorious Allied
Powers for the benefit of Serbia which had paid
the price of blood at their side between 1914 and
1918. At the moment of Rebecca West’s journeys,
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A. Sanguin Geoadria 16/2 (2011) 253-260
the country was suffering from Serb centralism.
The Ustashe separatism in Croatia was a minor
and irrelevant community of several hundred
members, most of whom were in Italy. In the
1930s, the most important political party was the
conciliatory Croatian Peasant Party led by Vladko
Maček. That party frequently won the elections
on the present-day Croatia’s territory, and it used
democratic methods for improving the position
of the Croatian people within the Kingdom of
Yugoslavia. From 1933, Nazi Germany used
ethnic cleansing (Jews and Gypsies), and political
murder became common: Stjepan Radić (1871-
1928), leader of the Croatian Peasant Party, had
been slaughtered on the floor of the National
Assembly in Belgrade, whereas King Alexander I
had been murdered in Marseilles in 1934. During
her Yugoslav tours, West quickly discovered an
underlying stream of violence which was trapped
in the collective memory and which was linked to
the stormy past of that Balkan area.
Rebecca West came to the Balkans for the
first time in 1936 when visiting Greece, Bulgaria
and Yugoslavia. She did not need much time to
fall in love with Yugoslavia and its peoples. At
the time of her Yugoslav stays, she experienced
an enormous emotional gap, and she had been
looking for something to fill that gap. Although she
achieved considerable international fame both as
a novelist and as a social commentator, frequently
agressive, West was not happy in her private life
and she suffered from a mass of conflictual frights
(Rollyson, 1995). A ten-year love affair with the
British novelist Herbert George Orwell (1866-1946)
had just ended. He was 26 years older than her.
Rebecca West had a son fathered by him. According
to her biographer Victoria Glendinning, she had
ended all sexual intercourse with her husband
(Glendinning, 1987). In 1935 the British Council
had sent her to Scandinavia and the Baltic States
for dispensing lectures. It was her opportunity to
stand up for Finland. The three Yugoslav journeys
came and changed her viewpoint. The same love
story occurred between her and Yugoslavia as
between Ernest Hemingway and Spain (Death in
the Afternoon, For Whom the Bell Tolls).
Structurally speaking, Black Lamb and Grey
Falcon is a seamless book even if the writing is
supported by the obviousness and experience of
three different travels. Actually, West’s very strong
committment is the key element which confers to
the book its full significance and grandeur. She
knew her topic and wrote her book when Europe
was on the brink of war. Within her book, West
emphasized with strenght her hate for Nazism which
was present in Germany since 1933. This is also
the reason why she has nothing but contempt for
the autonomist process which led to the founding
of the Ustashe Croatian State (1941-1945). Let us
speak clearly: on one hand, West did not like the
Croats very much because she compared them to
Irish Catholics, sometimes unfairly. On the other
hand, she identified herself very strongly with
the Serbs. She took her choice within the context
of that time: Yugoslavia was a constitutional
monarchy under the regency of Prince Paul. It
was not so much a nation as a federation of Serbs,
Croats and Slovenes, plus Bosnians, Macedonians,
Montenegrins and a scatter of diverse minorities.
When backing up one of the Yugoslav wings, West
did not state only a personal preference because
she also placed herself in a particular political and
historical context: Yugoslavia had been invaded,
within 10 days, in April 1941 by the Wehrmacht
when the Regency and the General Simović’s pro-
Allied Powers government lost with all hands.
Life after death? That is the central theme of
Black Lamb and Grey Falcon if we decode its
symbolism. The black lamb is offered as a sacrifice
by a Gypsy woman on St George’s Eve in order
to expect a child. According to West, it is the
illustration of a contemptible belief: one receives a
wealth of life in return for a gift to death. The grey
falcon is the epic bird which gives
knez (prince)
Lazar the choice before the Kosovo Polje Battle (13
June 1389) between the heavenly kingdom and the
earthly kingdom. At the Sheep’s Field near Skopje,
West witnessed the black lamb sacrificial slaughter
on the occasion of a repulsive ceremony of fertility
for barren women. Life comes after death. The
same symbolism applies to the grey falcon. After
the Kosovo Polje defeat, Serbian people suffered
a fifty-year Ottoman subjection, but it saved
their soul. Through this double symbolism,
West provides an understanding of the historical
strenghts which forged the Balkan lands (Matera
,
1996; Nerozzi Bellman, 2001).
Montenegro’s Geosymbols according to
Rebecca West: A Political Geography
Within a bright PhD thesis devoted to
Montenegro (the first one published in France till
now), Amael Cattaruzza puts forward the notion
that symbolic places occupy an important position
regarding the acceptance and assimilation of
national representation at collective and individual
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levels (Cattaruzza, 2011). Those places engrave
with all individuals some specific mental plans
regarding the relationship with the Nation. As he
points out very pertinently, the study of symbolic
places in Montenegro implies that the significance
of these geosymbols be defined not only with regard
to their location, but also with their involved
communities with times and memories. But, by the
way, what is a
geosymbol? Bonnemaison proposed
the best definition: a place, a route, an area
which, for cultural, political or religious reasons,
shoulders a symbolic dimension which reinforces
some peoples or ethnic groups in their identity
(Bonnemaison, 1981).
Rebecca West is not a geographer, but a writer of
travel accounts (Saunders, 2010). Consequently,
she is aware of the field like the geographer. She
speaks through symbols in Black Lamb and Grey
Falcon. These develop some significant elements
of political geography which are amalgamated
around some strong key themes:
1) Montenegro in the heart of Ancient Illyria
2) Centuries-old Venetian influence and the
opening to the West
3) Anti-Ottoman independentism
4) Inter-Christian coexistence
5) Relations with Russia
6) Montenegro’s strategic location
7) Montenegro’s original State structure till 1910
Montenegro in the heart of Ancient Illyria
West is a woman of the field. She knows
how to get the field to speak when she sets her
own knowledge in motion. When entering Boka
Kotorska’s shores, she goes through Risan, a small
town located in Boka’s background near Perast.
There she recognizes one of the oldest towns in the
world, but also the capital city of Ancient Illyria
and the home of Teuta, the last Illyrian Queen
(231-228 BC) before the Roman conquest. With
this noticing, West looks at Montenegro in its past
political geography. Consequently, she grants an
old historical root to the country (p. 256) (1).
Centuries-old Venetian influence and the
opening to the West
For five centuries (1389-1912) the Balkans’
political geography has been suffocated by the
Ottoman Empire enslavement. The presence of the
Republic of Venice allowed the Eastern Adriatic
coastal areas to be secured to Catholicism and the
West. West points out this feature in various sections
of her book. Along the whole Boka Kotorska
shore, she observes that the look is Dalmatian,
i. e. the coastline is bordered by Gothic Venetian
styled palaces and churches from which Perast
is the quintessence (p. 256). Perast was Venetian
from 1420 to 1797 and it never fell into Ottoman
hands. Its container is Venetian (the urban fabric),
but its content is Slav (the inhabitants). She also
notes that the city of Kotor is nested at the bottom
of a kind of Norwegian fjord (actually a huge
karstic canyon invaded by the sea). Kotor knew
its greater prosperity under the Venetian regime
(p. 259). Located between Boka Kotorska and Bar,
Budva is a small Dalmatian town which appeared
not to be of interest to Venice for two reasons,
according to West: on the one hand, it was located
too southward from Venice; on the other hand,
it was too exposed to Ottoman naval attacks (p.
1066).
Anti-Ottoman independentism
Without any doubt it is the most powerful
integrative principle in Montenegro. Actually, for
many centuries, Montenegro was a kind of
Asterix
Village, as Paul Garde rightly points out. The whole
Balkans suffered under the Ottoman yoke, except
Montenegro. In the heart of their inaccessible
upper valleys, the Montenegrin mountain tribes
resisted and defended their villages. They organized
punitive expeditions against the occupying forces
and they gloried in cutting Ottoman heads (Garde,
1992). It is the first difference with Serbia which
was occupied by the Ottoman army rabble. The
second difference is the following: Montenegro
had no joint border with Serbia until the partition
of the Novi Pazar Sandjak in 1912 which was the
final retreat of the Ottoman Empire extension in
Europe.
In Boka Kotorska, West discovered that Perast
is a town which never fell into Ottoman hands. The
wonderful small island Gospa od Skrpjela is facing
Perast. She lingered to look at a small masterpiece
in the church: a bas relief represents the Ottomans
who rush down the mountain to attack Perast,
but they are forced back by the population (p.
258). Between Perast and Kotor, the small city of
Dobrota owes its prestige and fame to the exploits
of its inhabitants due to the naval war with the
Ottomans (p. 259). West picked up the same anti-
Ottoman independentism in Kotor itself: the city
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A. Sanguin Geoadria 16/2 (2011) 253-260
was destroyed by the Ottomans, but it had never
surrendered to them.
The British novelist pursues this same analysis
through inner Montenegro. When visiting Plav, she
worked like a geographer because she explained
the settlement distribution: the Montenegrin house
is often isolated because, as this land was not
occupied by the Ottomans, there was not the same
necessity to huddle together for protection from
armed raiders (p. 1006). A little further on, West
stoped at Andrijevica on the road to Kolasin. She
pursued her analysis. She contemplated the war
memorial to the Vasojević tribe with the names of
700 members who were killed in action during the
ultimate war of liberation against the Ottomans.
She admired the inhabitants of this area because
not only were they engaged in a desperate struggle
against the Ottomans, but they also defeated
them on several occasions (p. 1006). In her view,
Andrijevica represents a strong bastion of the anti-
Ottoman Montenegrin independentism because in
1702 in that place Prince-Bishop Danilo I Scepcev
(1696-1735) killed the inhabitants who have been
converted to Islam (p. 1007). Then, West visited
Kolasin. For her, this small city is also a famous
place of the Montenegrin independentism: as a
climax in 1858 the members of several tribes in the
neighbourhood attacked the town and destroyed
all the inhabitants who had kept their Albanian
identity or who were Muslim (p. 1075).
Inter-Christian Coexistence
During her visit to Boka Kotorska in 1936-
1938, West discovered the historical coexistence
between the Catholics and the Orthodox. She
admired two small islands facing Perast, Sveti Juraj
and Gospa od Skrpjela, which both accomodated
a Catholic monastery (pp. 257-258). She was
confronted with the same observation in Kotor
where several Catholic and Orthodox churches
peacefully coexisted within the urban fabric (pp.
259-260). She found the explanation both in the
long Venetian presence in that area and in the
existence of a historical Croatian minority. Besides,
Croatia was not very far away and its border was
located at Boka Kotorska’s northern entrance. West
met this Catholic-Orthodox juxtaposition again in
inner Montenegro, but upon another basis. It is in
Kolasin: during the eighteenth century, the same
thing happened there, as in many other parts of
Montenegro – Catholic Albanians merged with
the Montenegrins, adopting their language and the
Orthodox faith (p. 1015).
Relations with Russia
From the beginning of its frontal opposition
with the Ottoman Empire to be driven out of
Europe, Tsarist Russia became the elder protective
brother of the South Slavs who were enslaved under
the Ottoman yoke. During the different stages
of the Orient Question’s settlement, Russia was
always on the side of the South Slavs. However,
this relationship is perhaps more explicit with
Montenegro. West brought an expressive light
when she entered Cetinje: Peter the Great conceived
an admiration for the South Slavs. He treated
Montenegro with special favour, proclaiming
Prince-Bishop Danilo as his ally “to conquer the
Turk and glorify the Slav faith and name”, and
sending him money and gifts calculated to foster
the Orthodox religion (p. 1038). By the way, West
emphasized that Montenegro lived from Russian
grants during the nineteenth century.
Montenegro’s strategic location
West was a fine observer of the field and she felt
its contours and detours. During her stay in Kotor,
she noticed two key elements regarding the political
geography of its position. On one hand, Kotor
was the necessary intersection and the gateway
for Cetinje, the historical capital city which was
located higher in the mountain. On the other hand,
Kotor’s position transformed that small town into
a meeting point between the caravan trade from
the interior and the seaborne trade with Italy. With
the disappearance of the Republic of Venice in
1797 and of the Napoleonic Empire in 1814, Boka
Kotorska was assigned to the Habsburg Empire.
West mentioned the oppressive Austrian trusteeship
which generated the economic decline of the Kotor
area (p. 259). She stayed in Andrijevica and she
brought up a key aspect again: Montenegro was a
major strategic place in the Adriatic (p. 1009).
Montenegro’s original State structure till 1910
In Black Lamb and Grey Falcon, the passages
devoted to Montenegro break strongly with
those devoted to Serbia. According to West, it
is very clear that Montenegro was not Serbia,
included in the unified Yugoslavia she visited in
1936-1938. She strongly underlined the central
component which forged Montenegro’s identity
during modern and contemporary times: Church
and State were unique and identical from Danilo I
Scepcev (1696) to Danilo II (1852). This lineage of
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A. Sanguin Geoadria 16/2 (2011) 253-260
prince-bishops succeeding from uncles to nephews
ensured a remarkable politico-governmental
consistency. She underlined this aspect on the
occasion of her stay in Andrijevica (p. 1008). She
thought about this topic again in Kolasin: Kolasin
inhabitants developed a spirit of resistance, of
independence which made them bitterly resentful
after the war when Montenegro was amalgamated
with Yugoslavia (p. 1015). During her long visit
to Cetinje, the historical capital city, West drew
attention to the original political values of an
independent Montenegro about which she seemed
to think with nostalgia in 1936-1938. The country
has always struggled for its survival under difficult
conditions. Montenegro was well managed when
Prince-Bishop Sava II (1766-1781) died. He had
a brilliant successor in the person of his nephew,
Prince-Bishop Petar I (1781-1830), who was the
ally of Tsar Alexander I. Afterwards, Prince-
Bishop Petar II (1830-1851) was an enlightened
and modernist ruler. Prince Danilo I (1852-1860)
crushed the Ottoman invader at the Grahovo Battle
(29 April-1 May 1858). Last, Nicholas I (1860-
1918) arrived. Within 20 years, he was capable
of definitely pushing the Ottomans away from the
country and doubling the size of Montenegro. West
conceived of him as a cunning politician able to
treat European statemen like Disraeli or Gladstone
as equals. King Nicholas I skillfully took advantage
of Montenegro’s strategic position and he was
able to get grants from Turkey, Italy, Austria and
Russia. West deplored that Yugoslavia be divided
into provinces (
banovinas) under the reign of King
Alexander I after 1918 when Cetinje was set under
the central control of Sarajevo, where the Muslim
political party was very influential. For her, a serious
political mistake had been made during WW1: the
Heir Prince Petar surrendered Mount Lovcen to the
Austrians in June 1916. Then, Mount Lovcen was
Montenegro’s high-rank place since its summit was
occupied by the mausoleum of Prince-Bishop Petar
II (1813-1851) which had been destroyed by the
Austrians in 1916 (pp. 1036-1063). It was rebuilt
and completed in 1974.
Conclusion: Montenegro and the
Construction of Images
If West’s glance on Montenegro is that of a
traveller-writer, it is not one of a hurried tourist
because it demonstrates a sense of the field, i. e.
ability for spatial analysis with typical connotations
of the Anglo-Saxon humanistic geography fin de
siècle. For instance, this piece about Skadar Lake:
“… the long high vista of Lake Scutari, with its
grey pyramids of rock mounting towards the noon
of the sky through ooze-bound in the adhesiveness
of green jelly, was earth’s self-drawn ideogram,
expressing its own monstruosity” (p. 1035).
And West’s other impression upon discovering
Cetinje:
“We climbed the sheer mountainside and dropped
over the crest, and found Tsetinye. It lies in a
stony crater like a town set inside the brainpan of
an enormous skull. Its square stone houses, laid
out in broad streets, are typically Montenegrin in
a Puritanism that suffers no decoration save an
occasional great tree; and all its horizons are edged
with a breaking wave of rock, which at this hour
was the colour of chill itself” (p. 1038).
Black Lamb and Grey Falcon represents a
particular image of the Balkan region which has
come to be largely accepted in the English-speaking
world. Maybe because she was a woman and a
feminist, West brought a particular lighting about
knowledge as a social construct (Allcock, Young
,
2000). When observing the interwar Montenegro,
she turned her attention to people, families,
women, churches. According to a kind of non-
Orientalist vision, she was inclined to downplay
the Ottoman Empire and the Turks and to oversize
Serbia. She also made both good and bad marks.
Did she allow the natives to speak for themselves?
Did she internalize the Western definition of the
Orient in spite of her own background? The
theme of Ottoman decadence is nowhere conveyed
with more force or more vividness than in West’s
work. Her visits to Yugoslavia took place nearly
a quarter of a century after the effective ejection
of the Ottoman Empire from the area; thus the
completeness of her condemnation is the more
remarkable. This is Rebecca West’s notion that
Montenegro and its people are the heirs of the
Classical World and that Montenegrin land is the
home of great civilizations: Illyria, Roman Empire,
Venice etc.
The key quality of the life in the Balkan
peninsula is its proximity to Nature. This aspect
is thoroughly developed in West’s Black Lamb and
Grey Falcon. The key point of the whole book is the
account of her visit to the Macedonian area of the
Sheep’s Field. In that area West witnessed several
folk rituals which were traditionally performed on
St George’s Eve. Two of these events moved her
profoundly. The first rite involved Muslim women
who were experiencing difficulty in conceiving, and
embraced a large black stone in order to promote
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their fertility. The second rite was the black lamb
sacrificial slaughter by a group of Gypsy women,
in thanksgiving for the birth of a child (Allcock,
Young, 2000).
When completing Black Lamb and Grey
Falcon, Rebecca West delivered a lesson on political
geography:
“In contemplating Yugoslavia the disadvantages of
Empire are manifest. I can think of no more striking
relic of a crime than the despoilment of Macedonia
and Kosovo, where the Turks for five hundred and
fifty years robbed the native population till they got
them down to a point beyond which the process
could not be carried any further without danger
of leaving no victims to be robbed in the future.
The poverty of all Bosnians and Herzegovinians,
except the Moslems and the Jews, is as ghastly an
indictment of both the Turks and their successors,
the Austrians. Dalmatia was picked up clean by
Venice. Croatia has been held back from prosperity
by Hungarian control in countless ways that have
left it half an age behind its Western neighbours
in material prosperity. Never in the Balkans has
Empire meant trusteeship. At least, there are such
trustees, but they end in jail. The South Slavs
have also suffered extremely from the inability
of Empires to produce men who are able both to
conquer territory and to administer it. This does
not apply to the portions that belonged to Austria
and Venice, for these powers never conquested
them and acquired them by the easier method of
huckstering diplomacy; but it is the keynote of the
Turkish symphony
” (p. 1092).
Through a referendum held on 21 May 2006,
55.5% of Montenegrins voted for the independence
of their country. For a long time, Montenegro forced
upon the representations of its populations as a
national territory (Cattaruzza, 2011). There is
an intimate relation between nationalism, political
space and territorial representations. In 1936-
1938 West had felt that
bottom-up nationalism
in Montenegro which was based on intimate and
individual representations of the nation and its
territory (Dijkink, 1996). Black Lamb and Grey
Falcon is still the book to read on the Balkans. It
renders vividly the tensions between Croats, Serbs,
and Muslims, and the inability of the great powers
to understand and promote a unified Yugoslavia
(Rollyson, 1995). Literature of travellers is truly
a source of political geography.
(1) All the cross-references to the page numbering
of Black Lamb and Grey Falcon refer to the 2001
edition at Canongate Books Ltd, Edinburgh,
Scotland.
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