User:Mdupontmobile/Milutin Krunich/Review1

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 * settlement which leaves the southern Slavs with a legitimate grievance can only lead to new wars
 * unexploited mineral wealth
 * loyalty to democratic ideals 

Serbia Crucified
By Milutin Krunich. 303 pp. Houghton Mifflin Co. Price $1.50; by mail of the Survey $1.62.

As may be deduced from their titles, the first two of these books cover the same ground to some extent. The second, however, forms a valuable supplement to the larger volume, inasmuch as it deals at greater length with certain aspects of 'the subject which did not lie so well within the scheme of Mr. Taylor's work, as for instance the Pan-Slar question and the influence of Russia.

Moreover, it is well to be able to compare the views of the interested parties with those of the independent onlooker with no axe to grind. It speaks well for the essential justice and moderation of the southern Slav case that the demands of Mr. Savic coincide so nearly with those of the English writer.

The two books come at an opportune moment, when there is a growing desire in this country for information on the more difficult aspects of the European situation. Of all the obstacles to lasting peace none would be more formidable than a partial solution of the Balkan question. A settlement which leaves the southern Slavs with a legitimate grievance can only lead to new wars, for they have reached the limit of endurance.

On the new state which will hare to be formed with Serbia as nucleus, the future peace of Europe will depend to a great degree. Serbia it must be remembered, is the one nation which Germany in her preparations for the ""Drang nach Osten"" could neither terrorize nor suborn. Her loyalty to democratic ideals has proved unbreakable and can be relied on to stand any future tests.

Mr. Taylor's book is a very valuable and eminently readable study of the future southern Slav state, preceded by a concise and lucid resume of Serbian history up to the outbreak of the great war. His chapter on the Problem of the Adriatic may well prove a useful contribution to the eventual reconciliation of conflicting southern Slav and Italian aspirations. In the face of the remorseless logic of the facts, it is difficult to imagine Italy deliberately playing Austria to Serbia's Piedmont; and, indeed, as Mr. Taylor demonstrates by wide quotation, the best thinkers in Italy are coming to realize the validity of the southern Slav claims on the eastern Adriatic coast.

Nothing affords better ground for optimism in regard to the future southern Slav state than a review of the internal progress of Serbia in the period immediately preceding the Balkan War of 1912, since which time, of course, she has been continuously at war. Serbia herself is the most essentially national of the Balkan countries. She is in the best sense of the word "home-made."

Unlike Bulgaria, which owes her existence as a state to the will of Russia, Serbia regained her independence by her own unaided efforts. Her ruling house — alone with that of Montenegro among Balkan dynasties — is a native one, democratic to the core. She has struggled forward with none of the dubious advantages of foreign guidance for her first steps in independence; with the result that her constitution, her laws and customs are genuine products of the soil, formed to meet national needs, and not mere sentimental imitations of foreign institutions.

Her progress has been proportionately less spectacular; but the need for coping with her own problems in her own way, under the burden moreover of an unmerited reputation bad enough to harig the proverbial dog, has fostered a sturdy self-reliance and laid for the national edifice a secure foundation in the particular genius of the race and the conditions of the country.

When, after the war, with increased responsibilities, Serbia takes up again the business of national development, she will have little to clear away except the evils inflicted by the foreign domination of the moment, and can safely build on the basis already established. She has indeed arrived in some respects at a point towards which many of the larger countries are still struggling.

The national taste for cooperation, rooted in the ancient social economy of Serbia as centered in the Zadruga or family group, has produced conditions in both the agricultural and the nascent industrial life of the people, which in Britain and America are still little more than distant ideals of advanced economists. Her organization of cooperative productive societies may well, as Mr. Taylor suggests, develop into the point of reconciliation, sought for with such earnestness in these days, "between capi- talism and labor, between syndicalism and socialism, between individualism and collectivism, between the old order and the new."

That her path in this direction has been the path of wisdom is evidenced by her improved financial condition. Financial sta- bility is not usually associated in the public mind with the Balkans; but an examination of Serbian affairs for the years prior to the war shows a steadily growing surplus in the budget, a considerable decrease in the national debt, and a generally sound system of state accounts.

The future Serbia, however, while duly reckoning with increased opportunities for developing her vast and almost unexploited mineral wealth and industrial potentialities, will do well to give some heed to the plea of Mr. Taylor, which is indeed the hope of all who believe in her:

"For many years, however, it is to be hoped that no effort will be made artificially to stimulate industry. The ultimate strength of a nation is derived from agriculture, and for a long time the soil of greater Serbia with its agriculture, its forests and its pas- toral industry, will suffice to maintain not merelv the present population but one very much larger. Nations pay dearly enough for industrialism in the loss of many things that make life sane and sweet, in the decay of a sturdy peasantry, in the loss of a simpler and more healthv mode of life, of simpler and healthy pleasures, and of a really gentle code of manners. To transform the Serb peasant into a copy of the western artisan would be a poor work, and if the Serb retains his present dislike of manufacture and town life, the evil would be still worse, either in the form of a corruptio optima pessima or in the introduction of an alien- owned and worked industry superimposed upon those elements which have preserved the heritage of the Serb through darkest de- pression to our own day. 'A peasant state,' so let it remain as long as may be."

Serbia's greatest treasure is unquestionably her magnificent peasant stock, probably the finest in Europe; and nothing that she might gain in the way of industrial prosperity could compensate for its deterioration.

In view of the immense strategic importance of her geographical position, there is reason for universal thankfulness that this gateway between East and West lies, and will lie, in the hands of a nation which, after a hard struggle up the ladder of political development, has so fully "found itself" and gives such promise of progress.

Few more vivid pictures of Serbia's share in the world sacrifice have been given than that contained in the four sketches which make up the third book. The author fought throughout the campaigns of 1914 and 1915, and whether the stories be a record of his own experiences, or simply founded on fact, they bear the stamp of actuality. Indeed, knowing all we now know of Serbia's martyrdom, there is no need to question the essential veracity of these incidents.

This is a cry that comes from the heart of the men and women who endured the agony, not — as in so many cases — the account of a spectator who saw them suffer. The story of Our Child, the little waif of the great exodus, throws as much light on the character of the Serbian soldier, his unwavering heroism, his love of the land, his gentle kindliness, as on the terrible burden of memory that must weigh on each pitiful little survivor of the retreat, and on the children still growing up in the darkened land. The "aid in English idiom of Leah Marie Bruce," acknowledged on the title-page, has been skilfully given, inasmuch as it has ensured a fluent and readable English without taking away from the characteristic flavor of the author's style.