The Impossible Country: A Journey Through the Last Days of Yugoslavia

by Brian Hall

Book Overview

"A tragic portrait . . . presented with sympathy and frequently with humor . . . [of] a disparate people who were never united except by their resentment of a foreign conqueror." - Atlantic Monthly In The Impossible Country , Brian Hall relates his encounters with Serbs, Croats, and Muslims-- "real people, likeable people" who are now overcome with suspicion and anxiety about one another. Hall takes the standard explanations, the pundits' predictions,...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0140249230
• ISBN13: 9780140249231
• Release Date: October 1995
• Publisher: Penguin Books
• Length: 352 Pages
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.1" x 7.8"

Customer Reviews

Well-Written, Relevant to All Wars

This book is as relevant today as it was when written in 1991. Its author was an on-the-ground observer as Yugoslavia was deconstructing as a nation and as the Balkans were once again building to war. Brian Hall tells generally how old ethnic/religious antagonisms can smolder - and specifically how some of the small daily differences between groups make the kindling that eventually gets the fire going. This combination of the general and the mundane are what caused the most recent Balkan conflict, and are probably what ignite most wars. Halls writes, "I felt, as the groups polarized day-by-day, that I was watching a chemical reaction, a precipitation of hatreds resulting from interactions on a molecular level, too tiny to be visible or analyzable, but inevitable and irreversible." One general pre-condition that favored the war in what was then Yugoslavia was the way in which rights and government representation were granted on the basis of nationality rather than on a principle of the inalienable, equal rights of all human beings (as developed in our own Declaration of Independence and Constitution). Those Balkan ethnic groups without a "high historical culture" to point to, often got the short end of the stick. Ethnic heritage - whether Serb, Croat, or Muslim - became a group's defining quality and branded the groups separately. There was no overarching word to encompass and include all groups - as the word "German" embraced and eventually melded both German Catholics and Protestants into a sort of unity after the 30-years-War. On the more specific level, Hall points out how old massacres were constantly being re-hashed in people's daily conversations. But specific cultural habits also made moats between groups. The sequestered life demanded of Muslim women often led to misunderstandings between cultures. But very minute cultural differences would also cause comment and become the basis for one group's disdain of another group. For example, in Croatia it was considered very bad-manners to take a doggie bag home from a restaurant. In Slovenia, that saving was acceptable. All the groups suffered under the Communist regime - with toxic lead build-ups in the vegetables grown on public lands - with shortages - with frustrations of all kinds. But each group translated those sufferings into their own language and suffered them singularly. This book could really have used an index. And Hall could have explained some of his terms better, such as who exactly constituted the "Partisans" he frequently mentions as having played such an important role in the region historically. Overall though, this is an excellent, well-written book - more relevant than ever.

Start with this book to understand the Yugoslavian conflict

This is my choice for the best introduction to the conflicts in what was Yugoslavian. When I was hosting an exchange student from the Balkans, I read 15 books in an effort to gain understanding. I was frustrated with blatantly one-sided books, and also books which had all the names, dates and horrors but did not help me understand. Hall's book was the best. While I will never truly understand the roots of the hatred, this thoughtful and amazingly non-partisan book opened windows for an uninvolved American into the psyches of that troubled region. I wish I had read it first.

Middle Ground

I read Brian Hall's account of the Balkan conflict while in Zagreb on a language immersion program. I was incredibly impressed by his ability to give a balanced view on this incredibly difficult land. I felt his astute observations made it easier for me to remain neutral in my views and perceptions of the land, people and complicated situation. I was surrounded by ultra-nationalists, and honestly did not meet a single person in Croatia that could look at their role objectively. Brian Hall's insights helped me to step back and view the situation with a completely different outlook.

Balanced observations on an unbalanced land

Brian Hall knows there is no reasonable way to explain what happened in Yugoslavia, so he doesn't even try, at least not in this exciting if somber travelogue. What he does do is travel extensively in that country and engage in conversation with all sorts of people, many of them journalists who themselves are trying to figure out what is going on politically in their own country. Apart from a few wry comments and astute observations on some of the more glaring inanities and venalities he encounters, Hall refrains from expressing his own opinions, prefering to let his several interlocutors express the truth in their own words and ways. The difficulty is that there are several truths here, or versions of it. Croatians are Catholic and they think they hate the Serbs because they are Orthodox. They are unable to admit they hate Serbs because they feel dominated by Belgrade. On the other hand, Serbs think they despise Croatians because they are Catholics and because Croatians helped the Nazis when they came calling. They can't admit to a certain envy of Croatia's Western orientation. An underlying philosophical theme of this book is 'attitude to truth.' South Slavic culture seems to believe that one can be in possession of the truth absolutely and for all time. The idea of striking out independently and asking questions that might lead to more and more questions is simply not part of the Yugoslav mindset. Each group or 'republic' has its own view of reality and this is usually so out of sync with the rest of the country that there is no point in discussion or conversation. The only solution is force, or so each party thinks. If you can't make sense of your neighbor's point of view, kill him and his family and friends. This general outlook must have helped Milosevic in his sleazy rise to power. Most Yugoslavs, as Hall points out, believe that Serbian and Croatian are two distinct languages, which is completely at odds with what linguistics tells us. And then there is Bosnia and its overwhelmingly Muslim population, unloved by both the Croatians and the Serbs. In hindsight, one shudders to think... The journey described in this book took place in 1991, when things were starting to heat up in the Balkans. Slovenia had just separated. The author shows how ominous things were at that point, how one didn't need much imagination to foresee what the unhappy future would hold, including the sad Kosovo events. Hall has done a masterful job of describing Yugoslavia on the verge of disintegration. He includes excellent descriptions of buildings and landscapes, but his more important work is reporting on the interviews he conducted with real people in real situations of frustration, danger, and sometimes despair. Now that the NATO bombing of Serbia and Kosovo is just a puzzling memory, we should all go and read a lot of books that show how and why all that came about. Of all such books, this is one of the best I know of.

Best Book on Yugoslavia and Reads Like a Novel

This is one of those books I couldn't put down. It's the travel book as political history, full of facts and landscape but dominated by characters, storytelling and superb writing. The story Brian Hall tells, as he travels among the peoples of a country about to dismember itself, is often surprisingly comic, but, of course, finally it is heartbreaking. If you read only one book on the recent and distant history of Yugoslavia--and if you wonder why the United States and many of its allies were (and are) willing to wage war with the Serbs--read this book. It's a true story, and it is written with the skill and passion of a great storyteller.