Histoire de Dalmatie by Comte L. de VoinovichReview by: R. W. Seton-WatsonThe Slavonic and East European Review, Vol. 17, No. 49 (Jul., 1938), pp. 241-246Published by: the Modern Humanities Research Association and University College London, School ofSlavonic and East European StudiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4203481 .

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REVIEWS. 241

position as an.authority on Eastern Europe by at least a generation of consistent study. There are those who say-mostly with sorrow, or even in anger-that he is responsible for more frontiers in Europe than all the diplomats. Be that as it may, he has given us in twelve chapters, and an Epilogue-on the Austrian occupation, an account of things as to many of which he might truly say et quorum pars magna fui !

He is not uncritical of the Versailles Treaty, but he says quite truly that more of the claims for revision have rested on political calculations than on national or moral grounds. He surveys Britain's relations with Moscow, Rome and Berlin, for good reasons giving much the longest chapter to the third. Then follows a sketch of the new States and their Minority problems, and an account of the Mediterranean "gamble" in both its aspects: the eastern in Abyssinia and the western in Spain.

We see clearly the extent to which this " gamble " is a direct challenge to British and French interests on their most material plane. But we are shown how the whole march of totalitarianism is a threat to two things Britons, and many others, have come to love and cherish: (i) the theory and practice of free institutions, the advantages of which far outweigh their weakness, and (ii) the hope of arriving in international relations at some kind of law and order, analogous to the kind of thing on which most civilised communities stand.

It is perhaps too much to expect that the reign of reason will commend itself to the wider reaches of mankind, who not only do not "think deeply" (Eden's phrase), but are for the most part innocent of thinking at all. But Seton-Watson clearly belongs to those who do not despair of the prospects of reason (rather than emotionalism) commending itself to those who govern the nations; so that those living may see the day when the will to work together will prevail over the will to quarrel, and a sense of responsibility of the stronger toward the weaker may take the place of the blind urge to subdue and to exploit. W. J. R.

Histoire de Dalmatie. Vol. I. Des Origines au Marche Infdme (I409); Vol. II. Des Griffes du Lion Aile a la Liberation (I409-I918). By Comte L. de Voinovich (Lujo Vojnovic). Paris (Hachette), I934. 894 pp.

EDWARD FREEMAN-the pioneer in this country of understanding for the unfamiliar and much misunderstood Southern Slav Question- wrote in his essay on the Illyrian Emperors, that " the physical position of Dalmatia has ever made it the marchland of languages, empires and religions," between East and West, lying as it does "on the border of those two great divisions of Europe which we may severally speak of as the Greek and Latin worlds." It is this fact-reflected in its geography and in the mentality of its inhabitants-that gives to Dalmatia a peculiar fascination of its own. She has now found in Count Vojnovic a historian worthy of such a subject, and these two

Q

REVIEWS. 241

position as an.authority on Eastern Europe by at least a generation of consistent study. There are those who say-mostly with sorrow, or even in anger-that he is responsible for more frontiers in Europe than all the diplomats. Be that as it may, he has given us in twelve chapters, and an Epilogue-on the Austrian occupation, an account of things as to many of which he might truly say et quorum pars magna fui !

He is not uncritical of the Versailles Treaty, but he says quite truly that more of the claims for revision have rested on political calculations than on national or moral grounds. He surveys Britain's relations with Moscow, Rome and Berlin, for good reasons giving much the longest chapter to the third. Then follows a sketch of the new States and their Minority problems, and an account of the Mediterranean "gamble" in both its aspects: the eastern in Abyssinia and the western in Spain.

We see clearly the extent to which this " gamble " is a direct challenge to British and French interests on their most material plane. But we are shown how the whole march of totalitarianism is a threat to two things Britons, and many others, have come to love and cherish: (i) the theory and practice of free institutions, the advantages of which far outweigh their weakness, and (ii) the hope of arriving in international relations at some kind of law and order, analogous to the kind of thing on which most civilised communities stand.

It is perhaps too much to expect that the reign of reason will commend itself to the wider reaches of mankind, who not only do not "think deeply" (Eden's phrase), but are for the most part innocent of thinking at all. But Seton-Watson clearly belongs to those who do not despair of the prospects of reason (rather than emotionalism) commending itself to those who govern the nations; so that those living may see the day when the will to work together will prevail over the will to quarrel, and a sense of responsibility of the stronger toward the weaker may take the place of the blind urge to subdue and to exploit. W. J. R.

Histoire de Dalmatie. Vol. I. Des Origines au Marche Infdme (I409); Vol. II. Des Griffes du Lion Aile a la Liberation (I409-I918). By Comte L. de Voinovich (Lujo Vojnovic). Paris (Hachette), I934. 894 pp.

EDWARD FREEMAN-the pioneer in this country of understanding for the unfamiliar and much misunderstood Southern Slav Question- wrote in his essay on the Illyrian Emperors, that " the physical position of Dalmatia has ever made it the marchland of languages, empires and religions," between East and West, lying as it does "on the border of those two great divisions of Europe which we may severally speak of as the Greek and Latin worlds." It is this fact-reflected in its geography and in the mentality of its inhabitants-that gives to Dalmatia a peculiar fascination of its own. She has now found in Count Vojnovic a historian worthy of such a subject, and these two

Q

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242 THE SLAVONIC REVIEW.

volumes, constituting the fullest narrative in any language, have obviously been a labour of love, and crown a long life of research into the history of the Ragusan Republic and other kindred studies (com- bined, it is true, with active political work in most Balkan countries). The brother of that gifted dramatist, Ivo Vojnovic, has a literary and artistic sense that is all his own. It may be that he has lingered a little too lovingly over the earliest period of Dalmatian history, but some readers will be specially grateful for his imaginative treatment of The Voyage of Cadmus and The Dragon and the Wolf. It may be well that he goes too far in asserting that " in all the naval battles of Antiquity and of modern times" (doubtless as regards the Adriatic and Greek Coast) "the attitude of Dalmatian seamen determined the victory" (p. I2I). When he insists that "Roman Peace" never achieved the complete assimilation or Romanising of the Dalmatian coastline, he is on firmer, though still contested, ground. But in describing the role of the great Illyrian peasant Emperors in reorganising the Empire in the 3rd century, and thus arresting its final decay, it is hardly possible to be too emphatic. Decius, Claudius, Aurelian, Probus, Carus, pass before us; then the great figure of Diocletian is sketched with discerning tenderness, as a statesman rather than a soldier, a man with far-reaching administrative and strategic views, no mere persecutor as he is some- times portrayed, but finding in his wonderful seaside palace and its gardens a consolation for the barren vanities of power.

Constantine also was born in Illyria in a wider sense; but he does not figure on the narrower stage of Dalmatia. One other prominent figure, however, Dalmatia did produce amid the rapid decline of the Empire-while indeed she was once more revealing her character as borderland between East and West. Of St. Jerome, Count Vojnovic writes: "Nature violente, excessive en tout, autoritaire, tranchant, polemiste fougueux et sans rival, feministe, croyant fermement que sur le facteur femme se fonde la vie morale et sociale de l'humanite, homme de la foi la plus profonde, ascete jusqu'a l'inanition, erudit prodigieux, un des plus grands de tous les siecles, Jerome etait par tous ses defauts et par toutes ses qualites un authentique enfant de la Dalmatie, un Illyrien romanis ! " And then his fantasy takes flight, and Jerome is intriguingly compared to "a Christian Clemenceau, who could not be Pope despite the popular favour which surrounded him in Rome, for the same reasons which prevented the Gallo-Roman of La Vendee- ardent, impetuous and personal, like the Roman-Illyrian Jerome-from becoming the Chief of the French State-because the mediocrities and intriguers of Rome were to make his candidature fail." (p. I74).

In the 5th century Dalmatia finds herself balanced between the Roman and barbarian worlds; after a series of obscure interludes under Marcellinus, Nepotian and Julius Nepos, the province is ceded by the Byzantine Emperor to Theodoric, who sends it a Viceroy under the curious title of " Princeps Dalmatiarum." With the decline of the Gothic

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REVIEWS. 243

Kingdom, Byzantium reasserts its sway, but ere long this is overthrown by the Slavs (race poitique, interjects our imaginative author) and less permanently by the Avars, who sack the great Roman city of Salona in 614, but in the end are ejected, conquered or assimilated.

In the gth century it is in Dalmatia that the Croat State first establishes itself; its capital, Nin or Nona, must have been of con- siderable size and importance, if the legend be true, according to which it contained seventy-two churches, with as many canons, in memory of the seventy-two disciples of Jesus. Little trace of all this is left, and little that is reliable is known of Bishop Gregory, whose giant symbolic statue by Mestrovic now decorates the peristyle of Split Cathedral. He stands for the Slav idea, and for the ancient Glagolitic liturgy which still lingers on the coast, and which has since defied all assaults on the "barbara seu sclavinica lingua." There was another more ephemeral state with its capital at Sisak, of which M. Vojnovic says with some exaggeration " Jugoslavia today is nothing else than the Empire of Ljudevit the Pannonian, realised after a political servitude of ten centuries " (p. 275).

Meanwhile the coast towns maintained their link with Byzantium, while the young Kingdom in the main held both Byzantines and Franks at bay, only to succumb to the encroaching Slavs. These towns the author not unfittingly ranks with Venice and other Italian towns of the Adriatic as " un essor du genie municipal romain, tel qu'il a evolue au contact du christianisme et des idees empruntees apres la chute de l'Empire au reservoir commun slave-latin " (p. 361). Their statutes are among the oldest in Europe and survived a whole series of regimes.

The book has been subjected to a good deal of criticism by Jugoslav historians, owing to its rather inadequate account of the period of the Croat Kings (circa 927-II04); here there is certainly an error of proportion, if we consider the much fuller measure meted out to the dreary annals of the I2th, I3th and I4th centuries, when Croatian independence has fallen before the Magyar invaders, and Dalmatia in particular becomes a bone of contention between Hungary, Venice and Byzantium-the latter soon dropping out of the struggle and leaving the other two to fight on till the final capitulation of I420. Up to a certain point M. Vojnovic can doubtless justify his method by pointing to the lack of material, and to the deliberate suppression by Venice of much ancient documentary evidence, and cannot be taken too seriously to task for refusing to clothe the somewhat shadowy figures of Tomislav or Zvonimir with myth and conjecture, as compensation for solid fact. None the less he shows a curious indifference to a period to which many patriots have attached an altogether exaggerated importance; we cannot but regret that he did not establish a juste milieu, by summarising such fragmentary records as do exist, and especially by devoting closer attention to the relations of Gregory VII with Croatia and to the all too obscure circumstances of Koloman's conquest of Croatia for Hungary.

What he has to say of the long rivalry for the mastery of the Adriatic

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244 THE SLAVONIC REVIEW.

is very just. Venice aimed at erecting a corridor to cover her commerce eastwards; she cared nothing for Dalmatian interests and for the fate of the mountainous and savage hinterland, though she was eager to prevent the formation of any continental Power based upon Dalmatia (this was why in the end she twice had to push her frontier further inland against the Turks). The adventure of the Fourth Crusade (beginning with the conquest of Zara) and the Latin Empire are rightly described as deciding for centuries the mastery of the Mediterranean; for Dandolo in effect, by undermining Byzantium's powers of resistance, handed it over to Asiatic barbarism, his true successor being Mohammed II (p. 399).

In the I4th century Dalmatia is in the thrall of powerful and undis- ciplined feudal barons such as the Counts of Bribir, while the communes balance between Venice and Hungary, and Ragusa profits by her relative remoteness to build up a special position of her own. The three great figures of that age are Louis the Great, the Angevin King of Hungary, who in 1358 acquires the greater part of Dalmatia, the distant Slav Emperor Charles IV in Prague and the upstart Nemanjid Emperor Stephen Dusan, who as he pressed westwards to Cattaro and Durazzo, found Venice a most useful ally. Of the three, Louis inevitably fills a larger portion of the stage-not a man of real genius, indeed something of a dilettante, lacking perseverance and esprit de suite, and yet full of vast conceptions, rude jouteur mais mauvais joueur, hesitating between a crusade against the Turks and an onslaught upon the loosely-knit Serb and Bulgar states, but constantly decoyed into ambitious Italian projects which led nowhere and merely drained the resources of what was still the most powerful kingdom of Central Europe.

The I6th and I7th centuries, with which the 2nd volume opens, are described, surely with undue emphasis, as the saddest in all Dalmatian history. The League of Cambrai, in which Pope and Emperor combined in vain for the overthrow and partition of Venice, is treated in considerable detail, the excuse being that Dalmatia was the bribe offered for the support of Vladislav of Hungary and Bohemia, and that Dalmatia and the Ionian Isles were already the key to Venice's whole position-alike strategically, as securing communications with her Levantine possessions and in a still more material sense, owing to her dependence upon them for the food supplies of the capital. Meanwhile, ever since the fall of Bosnia in 1463, a new danger, the Turkish, had been steadily growing, and served as a check to Venetian expansion along the coast. At its height Turkish rule reached to the very gates of the Dalmatian cities, some of which replenished their population with noble Bosnian refugees. The mountain fortress of Klis (Clissa), perched in full view of Split itself and of the " seven castles" between that town and Trogir (Trau), was in Turkish hands for about a century, and a perpetual menace. Sibenik, too, for a long time saw more than half its territory in Turkish hands and was a mere rock amid the floods.

M. Vojnovic draws an interesting contrast between Venice's

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REVIEWS 245

astonishing neglect of her land forces in the I6th century and the care which she devoted to her navy, manned in large measure by " Schiavoni " and Greeks. Incidentally he considers the charge levelled against Venice, of responsibility for deforestating the Dalmatian coast, to be considerably exaggerated, and credits the fierce bora wind and the goats --ith at least their share. On the other hand he goes too far when he includes as an important factor in the decline of Venice, " l'elimination progessive des elements constitutifs slaves dans le sang venitien" (p. 567).

Considerable space is devoted to the steady inroads of the Turks in Dalmatia, their treaty of I540 with Venice, the role of the Uzkok pirates, owing allegiance to Ferdinand of Habsburg as Hungarian and Croatian king, and the decisive events of Lepanto in I57I. " Rebels of St. Mark, Spaniards, Germans, traitors, brigands"-such were the terms of abuse levelled against the Uzkoks, who maintained an obstinate double front against Venice on sea and Turkey on land, and loyally served the Habsburg cause, like their kinsmen, the Granicari on the Austro-Turkish river front. It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that with the I7th century the author is beginning to lose interest in his theme. He summarises the steps by which Venice extended her borders in Dalmatia during the second half of the I7th century up to the final " Linea Mocenigo " or Nuovissimo Acquisto of 1721-33; but his treat- ment then becomes increasingly episodic, there is no clear account of the system of government under which Dalmatia lived, and the fall of the Republic is described solely in terms of Venice and of Bonaparte.

Chapter XIII, on "Le Liberateur Gaulois," opens with extracts from a vindication of Venice by that great " Italo-Slav " Dalmatian, Nicolo Tommaseo, and tells in outline the story of Napoleon's shortlived Illyrian experiment, the downfall of the Ragusan Republic, the British occupation of the islands after Hoste's naval victory over the French in I8II, the return of the Austrian troops under Croat commanders, and the re-establishment of Habsburg rule over Dalmatia. Chapter XIV "Le Retour au Foyer "-not a very accurate title, for Dalmatia had never been united with Serbia before I918-throws useful light on the intricate quarrels of " autonomist " and " unionist " in the middle of last century, and their relations to Vienna; but as a guide to the history of Austrian rule from 1814 to I918 it is exceedingly slight. The narrative virtually stops with the fall of Bajamonte, the famous Mayor of Split in the early eighties, and there is no attempt to explain the important role of the Dalmatians in the national movement in Croatia, above all as regards the Resolution of Fiume and the formation of the Croato-Serb Coalition. The names of Supilo and Trumbic, Peric, Bulat, Cingrija, and Biankini, are not even mentioned.

There remain two chapters which form a most attractive con- clusion-an almost lyrical sketch of Ragusan history, and a series of vignettes under the title of " Hommes et Monuments," where the author is at his very best in imparting a human touch to his account of

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246 THE SLAVONIC REVIEW.

Dalmatian art treasures. The splendid Cathedrals and other archi- tectural gems of his native province are presented as "un echo fidele de l'esprit dalmate-isolement, tradition, conservation, culte jaloux d'une beaute et d'un rite tout en dedans."

There is a useful bibliography of 516 items; but it is strange that Robert Adam's unique monograph on the Palace of Diocletian-which has a pre-eminent place in the history of Dalmatia and its art-should by an oversight have been omitted.

R. W. SETON-WATSON.

Polski Slownik Biograficzny (Polish D.N.B.). Published by the Polish Academy of Sciences (Gebetner i Wolf, Cracow and Warsaw). Vol. I, I935 A-Bey, Vol. II, I936 Bey-Brow, Vol. III, I937 Brow-Chwal. Each volume 480 pp. 4to.

The three volumes, now available, of the Dictionary of National Biography enable us to form an opinion not only of the dimensions of this great enterprise, but also of the quality of work contained in it. The indications are that the whole work, when completed, will amount to some thirty volumes; filling a good deal of shelf-space even when the use of thin paper makes each book rather slenderer than the India Paper volumes of the Enclycopedia Brittanica. Both printers and publishers have done their work admirably, and the price is extremely reasonable- about one pound sterling, in durable binding.

No " review " of over 1,400 pages of greatly compressed biographical materials is possible here. One can only commend to all interested persons a work whose pages make a contribution of a unique nature to the cultural history of Europe. Beside a distinguished Board of Editors, with Professor Konopczyinski of Cracow at their Head, we have a Council of Advisors, representing all fields of knowledge and activity. In this way not only elegance of form but also accuracy of matter are assured. A striking paragraph in the general Preface tells us that, badly as such a work was needed before, the conditions making its execution possible have only now been fulfilled. Certain it is, that the three volumes before us are an earnest of something very satisfying to come.

If one merely turns over the pages one will be struck by one fact. The names are not only Polish, but represent literally every national stock in Europe. This need not surprise those who know to what an extent Poland has been intimately related to every phase of European civilisation for close on a thousand years. We have Scots and Armenians, Latins and Muscovites, Catholics, Protestants, Orthodox, Jews and even Mahometans. The pedant might object to the inclusion of such figures as Bogdan Chmielnicki, or of the painters Bacciarelli and Canaletto (though the former was admitted to the ranks of the nobility while working in Warsaw). One might object also to the famous Bona Sforza, queen- consort of Sigismund I, who spent all her life in Poland but was born and died in her beloved south. It is to be regretted that the work was

246 THE SLAVONIC REVIEW.

Dalmatian art treasures. The splendid Cathedrals and other archi- tectural gems of his native province are presented as "un echo fidele de l'esprit dalmate-isolement, tradition, conservation, culte jaloux d'une beaute et d'un rite tout en dedans."

There is a useful bibliography of 516 items; but it is strange that Robert Adam's unique monograph on the Palace of Diocletian-which has a pre-eminent place in the history of Dalmatia and its art-should by an oversight have been omitted.

R. W. SETON-WATSON.

Polski Slownik Biograficzny (Polish D.N.B.). Published by the Polish Academy of Sciences (Gebetner i Wolf, Cracow and Warsaw). Vol. I, I935 A-Bey, Vol. II, I936 Bey-Brow, Vol. III, I937 Brow-Chwal. Each volume 480 pp. 4to.

The three volumes, now available, of the Dictionary of National Biography enable us to form an opinion not only of the dimensions of this great enterprise, but also of the quality of work contained in it. The indications are that the whole work, when completed, will amount to some thirty volumes; filling a good deal of shelf-space even when the use of thin paper makes each book rather slenderer than the India Paper volumes of the Enclycopedia Brittanica. Both printers and publishers have done their work admirably, and the price is extremely reasonable- about one pound sterling, in durable binding.

No " review " of over 1,400 pages of greatly compressed biographical materials is possible here. One can only commend to all interested persons a work whose pages make a contribution of a unique nature to the cultural history of Europe. Beside a distinguished Board of Editors, with Professor Konopczyinski of Cracow at their Head, we have a Council of Advisors, representing all fields of knowledge and activity. In this way not only elegance of form but also accuracy of matter are assured. A striking paragraph in the general Preface tells us that, badly as such a work was needed before, the conditions making its execution possible have only now been fulfilled. Certain it is, that the three volumes before us are an earnest of something very satisfying to come.

If one merely turns over the pages one will be struck by one fact. The names are not only Polish, but represent literally every national stock in Europe. This need not surprise those who know to what an extent Poland has been intimately related to every phase of European civilisation for close on a thousand years. We have Scots and Armenians, Latins and Muscovites, Catholics, Protestants, Orthodox, Jews and even Mahometans. The pedant might object to the inclusion of such figures as Bogdan Chmielnicki, or of the painters Bacciarelli and Canaletto (though the former was admitted to the ranks of the nobility while working in Warsaw). One might object also to the famous Bona Sforza, queen- consort of Sigismund I, who spent all her life in Poland but was born and died in her beloved south. It is to be regretted that the work was

This content downloaded from 62.122.79.52 on Sat, 14 Jun 2014 19:05:39 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions