Elegy for Kosovo

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Never before had rumors of impending war been followed by rumors of peace. Quite the opposite — after hopes for peace, suddenly war would be declared, which was practically routine in the large peninsula.

There were times when the peninsula seemed truly large, with enough space for everyone: for different languages and faiths, for a dozen peoples, states, kingdoms, and principalities — even for three empires, two of which, the Serbian and the Bulgarian, were now in ruins, with the result that the third, the Byzantine Empire, was to its disgrace and that of all Christianity declared a Turkish vassal.

But times changed, and with them the ideas of the local people changed, and the peninsula began to seem quite constricting. This feeling of constriction was spawned more by the ancient memories of the people than by their lands and languages rubbing against each other. In their solitude the people hatched nightmares until one day they felt they could no longer bear it.

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