Or do we think quite otherwise—and blame the Serbs as a race? Or do we find fault with the southern Slavs as a people? Or with the Illyrians, who claim so much of the now-Slavic Balkans as their own? Or does the heart of the Eastern Question, as it was known, lie within the Great Schism? Or is the fault with those dignified and duplicitous Viennese in general, or with that master mechanician and geopolitical cynic, Prince Metternich, in particular? Was it all the result of the meddlesome dealings of the Great Powers, the Triple Alliance of then, the United States today?
Or is it all to do with Islam—or is it the fault of all the gods, conjoining Allah with the pantheons of Orthodoxy and the Church of Rome as well? Or is it, more fundamentally, the geology, or the tectonics—for this is a place of earthquakes still, even here in Istanbul—and earthquakes produce, do they not, an unstable and fractious people?
Or perhaps do we blame no one and just shrug our shoulders and relegate the region to the backwaters as somewhere incomprehensible, intractable, and, one is tempted to splutter with exasperation, impossible?
But then it was a little before eight o’clock, and the sun had set over the Sea of Marmara, and unseen, from one of the slender minarets above the Blue Mosque, a muezzin began to call. His voice, amplified by electronics, echoed and boomed around the square, and for a moment all at the café tables, and all the people passing by outside, were stilled, enchanted and respectful of this ancient and poetic cry. I picked up my telephone as quietly as I could, and dialed the number of a woman I knew (and had once loved) in New York, where it was still the middle of the afternoon. She answered, and I held the telephone up into the soft air, and let her listen to a sound she knew well, and that I knew well that she would like to hear.
And as I played the sound of the Ottoman call to her all those thousands of miles away I gazed up into the purple of the Turkish evening sky, and I watched the seagulls circling, illuminated by the floodlights like tiny ghosts, as they glided endlessly around the very tips of the four minarets, and over the huge dome under which, even now, scores of the faithful were kneeling to their God in Mecca. The force of Islam, unchanging and unchanged, seemed then of a power and majesty like no other.
Silence fell, suddenly and thunderously. I put the telephone back to my ear, and in the distance I could hear the thin siren of a police car making its way up Madison Avenue. The ancient and the modern, the eternal and the fleeting, briefly connected in a flicker of electronics.
“That was enchanting,” said the voice at the distant end. And then, “So—you’ve finished?”
“Yes,” I replied. “I’ve arrived.”
Epilogue
THREE DAYS LATER I was in Bulgaria again, buying an airline ticket for the journey back home. The airline office was almost empty but for the two ticket agents, both of whom were young women. I asked them where they were from.
One, it turned out, was an ethnic Turk from southern Bulgaria. The other had come down from Belgrade: She was a Serb. Her office had been closed because of the NATO bombing, and the company had temporarily transferred her to the office in Sofia.
I remarked with some surprise that this was rather unusual, having a Muslim and a member of the Serbian Orthodox Church working side by side. “Surely,” I ventured, “and particularly now during the war, you must find working together very difficult indeed?
The women laughed, as if they had been asked this question once too often already.
“No, don’t be absurd,” one of them said. “We get along just fine.”
And then they did something they had clearly rehearsed before, and had rehearsed well. Each of them raised her left arm and held it out straight, for me to see.
On each there was a gold wristwatch, by Cartier.
And that, of course—that they had money, that they could buy things, that they could escape the rigors of Balkan poverty—was the reason. And maybe, in time, and for everyone, it would be the answer.
Glossary and Dramatis Personae
AFOR Acronym for NATO’s Albania-based security force.
Aga Turkish tribal leader.
Albanians Non-Slavic Indo-European people, descendants of the ancient Illyrians, who inhabit Albania itself as well as much of the Serbian province of Kosovo and western Macedonia.
Andric, Ivo 1892–1975. The Nobel Prize-winning author (1961) of The Bridge on the Drina and other works, Andric was a Croatian-born Yugoslavian diplomat
Apache American attack helicopter, formally the McDonnell Douglas AH-64, designed for day or night all-weather combat. Its reputation suffered somewhat in 1999 after the Apache was deployed in Albania and proved to be somewhat less than invaluable.
Attar of roses A fragrant, volatile essence distilled from roses, used as a perfume base.
Bailey bridge Prefabricated steel lattice bridge, designed by the British engineer Sir Donald Bailey and meant for rapid assembly on battlefields.
Balkans The word Balkans, which comes from the Bulgarian word for mountain, loosely defines the peninsular region of southeastern Europe that is bounded by the Danube River, the Adriatic and Black Seas, and the border of Greece. But the word has also come to stand, in ways both sad and pejorative, for the intractability of the regions social and political problems and, more generally—and with the use of the words Balkanize and Balkanization—for the numerous attempts, usually failing, to alleviate the problems of mutually warring states by redrawing their boundaries to make them ever smaller and more ethnically exclusive.
Baklava A Turkish dessert, made from pastry, honey, and nuts.
Berlin, Treaty of An agreement among the European powers, forged during the summer of 1878, that essentially laid the foundations for the Balkan crises that have erupted with grim regularity ever since.
Bey Turkish prince or governor.
Bogomil A member of a heretical tenth-century Bulgarian dualist sect, believing that Satan and Christ were both sons of God.
Bosniak Current colloquial name for a Bosnian Muslim; in Turkey the term is used for any Yugoslavian Muslim—Serb or Montenegrin, too—who chose to emigrate.
Byzantium Former name of the city that was to become Constantinople and eventually modern Istanbul: the capital of the Eastern portion of the Roman Empire, which, with its Hellenistic religious traditions, survived for more than a thousand years after the collapse of Imperial Rome.
Caftan A long, loose-flowing Turkish robe, favored briefly by young Westerners of indolent habits.
Caliph The chief civil and religious ruler in Muslim society. In the Ottoman Empire the sultan was also caliph, but when the sultanate and the caliphate were dissociated in 1922, the last ruler was reduced to being a caliph only.
Chetnik Serbian guerrilla fighter, often now used as a term of Muslim or Croat abuse. The word means “Yugoslav Army of the Fatherland.” See also Partisans.
Chinook Twin-rotor helicopter, the CH-47, made by Boeing and used for transporting troops (it can carry up to forty) and heavy matériel, including underslung vehicles.
Chokidar Hindi word for “night watchman.”
Constantinople Ottoman capital of Turkey, 1453–1923: formerly Byzantium, now Istanbul. The Orthodox Church headquarters still regards it as the city’s proper name.
Convertible marks Currency now used in Bosnia, on a par with the deutsche mark.
Cook’s Continental Former and now colloquial name for monthly European railway and ferry timetable published by Thos. Cook, carried by all seasoned travelers and homebound dreamers. The rest of the world is covered in Cook’s equally legendary Overseas Timetable.
Crna Gora The local name for Montenegro.
Czarigrad The name Russia planned to give to Constantinople in the event of their successful occupation of the city in 1878.
Dayton Generally accepted name for Bosnian peace-and-partition agreement secured at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio, in November 1995.
Didicoi The Romany word for Gypsy, or Roma.
Dinaric Alps
Range of steep limestone mountains defining the Adriatic coast of the former Yugoslavia.
Dinkel A wheatlike grain, grown in southern Europe, also known as spelt.
Divan The Turkish council, which, under the chairmanship of the grand vizier, essentially ran the Ottoman Empire; also the long, low seat where audiences were held or judgments given.
Djukanovic, Milo The young (b. 1962) prime minister of the Yugoslav Federation’s Republic of Montenegro.
Doge The duke or chief magistrate of the Republics of Venice and Genoa.
Dragoman A guide-interpreter in, generally, a Near Eastern or Islamic country.
Eastern Question The former term, often used with a sense of weary exasperation, for the political problems of the Balkans and Southeastern Europe.
Egnatian Way The Roman road connecting the Adriatic with the Bosporus, running from what is now Albania through Greece to Turkey.
Effendi Sir, Master.
Emir A prince, a Turkish military commander.
Eothen Meaning “from the East,” the title of and only difficult word in Alexander Kinglake’s magnificent book of travels in the Near East, published in 1844 and never since out of print.
Fener The old Greek quarter of Istanbul, and headquarters of the Orthodox Church—the only surviving relic of old Byzantium.
FYROM Acronym for the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, used in some quarters to soothe Greek anger at what they consider Skopje’s illegal expropriation of the name of their eastern province.
Gheg A northern Albanian people and language, in constant rivalry with their southern neighbors, the Tost (q.v).
Grand vizier The Chief Imperial Minister of the Ottoman Empire, the hugely powerful right-hand man of the Sultan.
Gurkha Diminutive Nepalese soldiers of fierce reputation, hundreds of whom have been assigned since Indian independence to both the British and Indian armies, and claiming to be mercenaries in neither force. Their loyalty to the British crown is legendary, and they have won many battle honors in wars and skirmishes from Burma to the Falkland Islands. A Gurkha battalion assigned to NATO was the first regular unit into Kosovo in June 1999.
Gusla A single-stringed bowed instrument of mournful sound used by Slavs to accompany the reciting of epic poems.
Halal Food prepared according to Islamic law and tradition.
Halvah A Turkish sweet made of honey and sesame flour.
Hammam The Turkish bath: communal, steamy, and dreamily erotic.
Hammer film Low-budget horror movie, after the somewhat-less-than-Oscar-standard sex-and-gore films made at the London-based Hammer Film Studios.
Hapsburg Great European sovereign dynasty, originating at Castle Hapsburg in Aargau, Switzerland, and ruling, through its Spanish and Austro-Hungarian branches, immense swaths of territory from Holland to the Balkans.
Harem The family quarters or, more commonly, the female quarters of a substantial Turkish or Arab house or palace.
Herzegovina The hot and dry southern portion—named for a German duke, or herzog—of the Bosnian Federation.
Hofburg Vienna’s vast imperial palace, from which the Hapsburgs ruled for six centuries, until 1918.
Hoxha, Enver Albanian leader and principal architect of the state’s fiercely isolationist, rigidly xenophobic, and diehard communist policies. He died in 1985 and is little missed.
Humvee U.S. Army–made High Mobility Vehicle, with distinctive wide-track appearance. A civilian version, the Hummer, has found some limited appeal among the American rich.
IFOR In Bosnia, NATO’s Dayton-agreement Implementation Force.
Illyria Country north and east of the Adriatic, roughly congruent with the Dinaric Alps (q.v.), and subsumed into the former Yugoslavia.
Imam The officiating leader of prayer in a Muslim mosque.
Istria A large peninsula on the eastern Adriatic coast, south of Trieste.
Ixarette Sign language, introduced for reasons of serenity and dignity to the Ottoman court by Süleyman the Magnificent (q.v.), and initially taught by a pair of mute brothers.
Janissary The Ottoman Empire’s crack infantry soldiers, and Sultan’s guard: often, and until their abolition in 1826, they were Slavs, tributary children from Balkan Christian families.
Jasenovac Notorious Croatian concentration camp near Zagreb, where thousands of Serbs and Jews were butchered, often following forcible conversion to Catholicism.
Juche North Korea’s rigid policy, invented by Kim II Sung, of socialist self-sufficiency.
Kaaba The black dolerite cube at the center of the Great Mosque in Mecca, and thus the spiritual heart of the Islamic faith.
Kapia The wider central part of a Turkish-built bridge, where merchants might set up stalls, sentries might stand, and passersby might rest or stop to gossip.
Karst Porous limestone and the unusually dramatic topography that it and the erosive effect of rain- and stream-waters help create.
Kastrioti, Gjerg The former name of the great Albanian warrior-hero, Skanderbeg (q.v.).
KFOR NATO’s Kosovo Force.
Kismet The Turkish word for fate.
KLA Kosovo Liberation Army, a guerrilla group bent on securing an independent Kosovar state. See also UCK.
Krajina The old military frontier between the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires, populated on Hapsburg initiative by Serbian refugees, creating Serbian Orthodox enclaves in what later became Catholic Croatia.
Kukri The sharp curved knife traditionally carried by all Gurkhas (q.v.). The legendary sharpness of the weapons is such that, during the Falklands War, Argentine soldiers were led to believe they could have their heads cut off during the night and not know it. It briefly became part of the wake-up drill for some less intelligent conscripts to shake their heads to make sure this had not happened.
Lazar, Prince Heroic Serb leader, subject of countless epic poems, who was defeated by the Ottomans—choosing death rather than dishonor at Turkish hands—at the Battle of Kosovo Polje in 1389.
Lokum From the Turkish phrase for “comfortable morsel,” the soft, gummy, and sweetly fragrant substance that came to be known as “Turkish delight.”
Konditorei An elegant, mirrored Viennese coffeehouse, often frequented by middle-aged women.
Mamelukes Egyptian rulers, originally Caucasian slaves, who ruled from Cairo under the authority of an Ottoman viceroy.
Marmite A dark and viscous yeasty delight much loved by Britons, and fervently missed by all expatriates; not to be confused with the similarly colored but feeble Australian imitator known as Vegemite.
Metternich, Prince Clemens von Austrian statesman, one of the great geopoliticians of all time, architect of nineteenth-century European stability and conservatism.
Metropolitan A senior Orthodox cleric, senior in rank to an archbishop but inferior to a patriarch: addressed as “Your Beatitude.”
Milosevic, Slobodan The almost universally reviled bogeyman of the Balkan conflict since 1989, he remains indicted by the Hague War Crimes tribunal, though simultaneously remaining president of his country. Milosevic was born of a Montenegrin father and mother, both of whom killed themselves; he married and remains married to his childhood sweetheart, Mirjana, who, as is so often the case, appears to be the power behind this particular throne. Milosevic, a former official in the Yugoslav gas monopoly and an exceptionally skillful Communist Party boss, has managed to outflank almost all foreigners with whom he has had to deal, giving him a reputation as one of the craftiest and most difficult nationalist figures in postwar Europe. There is a belief abroad, almost certainly erroneous, that his removal from office would solve the Balkan problems for all time; most nations’ foreign policies include his removal high on their global wish lists.
Muezzin The public crier who calls the Islamic faithful to prayer from the minaret of a mosque.
Mullah An Islamic scholar and divine.
MUP The Serbian special police, dark of uniform and, it is said, of intent.
Nan
sen passport Identification papers issued to stateless persons following the massive European refugee movements of World War I; named for Fridtjof Nansen (1861–1930), the Arctic explorer who championed the cause of the displaced.
Novi Pazar A fingerlike extension of onetime Ottoman rule between Serbia, Bosnia, and Montenegro, which housed many sacred Orthodox relics and churches. The people from this so-called sanjak (q.v.) are invariably Slavic Muslim converts, reputed for their trading abilities and commercial cunning.
Ocalan, Abdullah Kurdish guerrilla leader and terrorist fighter; Serb militants like to point to his violent predilections as an indication that, in the region, Milosevic and his allies do not have a monopoly on making mayhem.
Oslobodenje Sarajevo daily newspaper, published continuously during the city’s three-year siege, 1992–95.
Osmanlee Alternative spelling for the name of the Ottoman (q.v.) dynasty.
Ottoman The dynasty founded by Osman (or Othman) I, in or around 1300, whose forces swept through western Turkey to capture Byzantium in 1453 and thereafter conquered a vast region from Central Europe to Africa and the Middle East, which was known as the Ottoman Empire. Following the unsuccessful siege of Vienna in 1683, a long period of decay ensued, the empire eventually becoming known as “the sick man of Europe.” The final sultan was forced to abdicate in 1922, ending the Ottomans’ immense influence on world history.
Partisans Antifascist liberation guerrilla fighters in wartime Yugoslavia, led by Josip Broz Tito (q.v.). See also their Serbian counterparts, the Chetniks.
Pasha A Turkish military commander, his rank noted by the number of horsetails—three being the highest—displayed as a symbol in war.
Pavelic, Ante Croatian fascist leader during World War II, whose irregular Ustashi (q.v.) troops committed a series of particularly dreadful atrocities against Serbs, Jews, and others, largely at the behest of the occupying Nazis. Pavelic died in Madrid in 1959.