About the Region

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    Some things can’t be true even if they happened.
            ——Ken Kesey


    The general sat and the lines on the map moved from side to side.
            ——Roger Waters


    …many things can be viewed more clearly, explained in greater detail,
        and understood more easily.
    This does not mean that the world has become any smarter or better for it.
            ——Dragoljub Žarković


    Can you imagine a country where you can still find ancient towns
        ringed by a crystal clear sea?
    Jugoslavia is a country with a long, turbulent history.
        After World War Two, it became a socialist federation
        made up of six republics and two autonomous regions.
        It speaks five official languages and prays to an Eastern Orthodox,
        Catholic, and Muslim God.
    This is no imaginary land, this is Jugoslavia.
            ——Tourism Commercial, 1990


    What is the good of your speeches?  I come to Sarajevo on a visit,
        and I get bombs thrown at me!
    It is outrageous.
            ——Archduke Franz Ferdinand, 1914


    If the Balkans hadn't existed, they would have been invented.
            ——Count Hermann Keyserling, 1928


    The Balkans, which in Turkish means mountains, run roughly from
        the Danube to the Dardanelles, from Istria to Istanbul, and is a term for
        the little lands of Hungary, Rumania, Jugoslavia, Albania, Bulgaria,
        Greece, and part of Turkey, although neither Hungarian nor Greek
        welcomes inclusion in the label. It is, or was a gay peninsula filled with
        sprightly people who ate peppered foods, drank strong liquors, wore
        flamboyant clothes, loved and murdered easily and had a splendid talent
        for starting wars. Less imaginative westerners looked down on them with
        secret envy, sniffing at their royalty, scoffing at their pretensions, and
        fearing their savage terrorists. Karl Marx called them ethnic trash.
    I, as a footloose youngster in my twenties, adored them.
            ——C. L. Sulzberger, A Long Row of Candles, 1969.


    Don’t, don’t, don’t live under this dream that the West is going to come in
        and sort this problem out.
    Don’t dream dreams.
            ——Lord David Owen at Sarajevo International Airport,
                December 18, 1992


    In winter days frost grips the city, but still the dedicated elderly and youth
        meet for discussion, but when it comes time for spring and blossoms,
    Heaven becomes the Sarajevo gardens of roses.
            ——Muhamed Nerkesija Es-Saraji, 17th Century


    All the devil requires is acquiesence;
        not conflict, not struggle.
    Acquiesence.
            ——Suzanne Massie


    Pessimum facinus auderent pauci,
        plures vellent, omnes paterentur.
    [The worst crime was dared by a few,
        willed by more, and tolerated by all.]
            ——Tacitus


    La vida total es un porqueria porqueria.
            ——Black Francis


    A little political murder in the Balkans?
        That will never lead to anything.
            ——Anonymous internet comment, 2003


    As soon as flags start to wave and national anthems start to play,
        as soon as history and religion are mentioned,
        you can be sure that new bloodshed is coming for new generations.
            ——Hidajet Seric, 1993


    Solo i morti hanno visto la fine della guerre.
            ——Platone



    That crossed the line from ironic coincidence to evil omen.
            ——Calvin





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