black lamb and grey falcon a journey through yugoslavia

It is part - the distilled spiritual essence - of what may be accurately described as a most brilliantly objective travel book although the travels are most significant for their observation of history. This may seem remote and recondite, but it is not. And slaveryĬlosed down upon the Balkan peoples - no legend here, but history - for 500 years. He and his soldiers died vainly on that consecrated but disastrous battlefield. Its oncoming enemy 'all was holy and honorable' within him, but like the celebrants of false sacrifice, he had set death before life. For the king chose piety and immolation instead of the effective defense of Christian civilization against Not less but more tragic when man identifies himself with the false altar's hapless victim rather than with its cruel priest. The black lamb is the symbol, seen in a gypsy rite in Macedonia, of false - and thus of impious - sacrifice and the terrible complexity of the choice between good and evil becomes

Of modern pacifism and points to its tragic results. He gray falcon is an enigmatic figure in a Slav folksong about a military defeat in the year 1389 and it offered the Serbian king a choice which expresses the sad dilemma OctoRebecca West's Brilliant Mosaic of Yugoslavian Travel By KATHERINE WOODS

Rebecca West's Brilliant Mosaic of Yugoslavian Travel

Black lamb and grey falcon a journey through yugoslavia