Elegy for Kosovo : Stories

Rating:
Summary: A poetry.
Review: Excellent. A poetry of the Balkan turmoil.

Rating:
Summary: 600 Years Ago: the Battle in Kosovo ...
Review: from the viewpoint of eyewitnesses. Although it is fiction: the message is clear, strong & real ..."rumors of impending war", "rumors of peace", "newly sealed alliances" - the story begins. Kadare's use of natural imagery & language is phenomenal. You understand how the anxiety of the mountain people adds to the tensions of political alliances, the ancient memories of past battles won & lost is ever present, as strummed on the gusle & sung by the bards. The Turks, Serbs & Bulgarians (Byzantine empire) and other peoples, kingdoms once existed in cohesion ... but with rumours & past memories inflaming emotions: the inevitable occurs. THIS IS ONE GREAT EPIC: told in about 120 pages!!!! AMAZING! Erika B.

Rating:
Summary: Vintage Kadare
Review: I am a fan of Kadare's and recomend all his books, this one in particular. What beautiful language and powerful image. This is also one of the few books of his that was translated directly from the Albanian, and not from the French, which is important too. We see Kosovo from a completely different angle, as a Serb and an Albanian are thrown together by fate during a medieval battle. The book is full of superb surprises.

Rating:
Summary: Vintage Kadare
Review: I am a fan of Kadare's and recomend all his books, this one in particular. What beautiful language and powerful image. This is also one of the few books of his that was translated directly from the Albanian, and not from the French, which is important too. We see Kosovo from a completely different angle, as a Serb and an Albanian are thrown together by fate during a medieval battle. The book is full of superb surprises.

Rating:
Summary: Trying to Understand Ethnic Hatred
Review: While I took Western Civilization in college many years ago, the amazing professor Thacker managed to comment on the current situation in Kosovo circa 1998. Some kid had asked about what the Serbs and the Albanians were fighting over. His response was, "they just hate each-other and they have been hating since the beginning of time." Dr. Thacker wasn't very far off the mark.

And in "Elegy for Kosovo", world-renown novelist Ismail Kadare has attempted to deliver a big message through the use of a parable-legend. The message that blind hatred continues to spawn between the Albanians and the Serbs in the region for over a millennium. Yet, these very people fail to grasp why they hate each other so much.

Milosevic tried to evoke the battle between the Ottomans and the Balkan coalition as a tool to pursue his agenda of ethnic cleansing in the region. That's what sparked the attention of Kadare to the issue, who based on some historical research, and on the epic legends that get carried on from generation to generation wrote this nice account of the battle. As a matter of fact in that part of the world history and legends run hand in hand.

The book is short, and having read many volumes of Kadare, I was a little disappointed. However, the story is right on target. It is absurd to use a battle that happened over 600 years ago, as a tool to annihilate an entire ethnic group.

The style of narrative is pure, and makes it an easy one-afternoon-read. I would highly recommend this book to whoever is interested on the Balkan conflict, as a mean to sort through some of the cloudy logic surrounding this matter.