Review: [Untitled] Reviewed Work(s): Iz Istorije Srednjovjekovne Bosne. by Anto Babi# John V. A. Fine, Jr. Slavic Review, Vol.

33, No. 2. (Jun., 1974), pp. 389-390.

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Reviews
found sources. T h e importance o f his work considerably enriches our understanding o f the developnlent o f the Ottonlan towns. A s for Tsvetkova, she has once again produced a first-rate study, written with meticulous care and convincing documentation. Both authors raise nlany interesting questions and indicate the direction further research should take. T h e value o f the t w o works is enhanced b y a number o f reproductions o f scenes o f Ottoman towns, urban life, and artifacts, as well as extensive bibliographies and good indexes. Todorov supplies a seventeen-page summary o f his book i n French and Tsvetkova a five-page sunlnlary o f her book in English.

IZ I S T O R I J E S R E D N J O V J E I C O V N E B O S N E . B y A~zto BabiC. Sarajevo: "Svjetlost," 1972. 326 pp. 40 new dinars. T h i s volume contains the collected scholarly works, published during the past t w o decades, o f Professor A n t o BabiC. Following shortly upon Professor BabiC's retirement f r o m the History Department o f the Philosophical Faculty i n Sarajevo, t h e book is a worthy tribute t o t h e dean anlong historians o f medieval Bosnia. H i s contributions t o scholarship and education are too numerous t o list i n this brief review. But a f e w highlights can b e mentioned: he became Bosnia's first minister o f culture after t h e war, and shortly thereafter ( i n 1946) the president o f t h e Bosnian Parliament. I l e was one o f t h e prime movers i n t h e founding i n 1948 o f the Philosophical Faculty i n Sarajevo; and i n t h e years that followed, as chairman o f its History Department, h e more than anyone else deserves credit for building in Sarajevo, i n less than twenty years, one o f t h e finest history departments i n Yugoslavia. I n addition h e was one o f the Faculty's most popular teachers and had a tremendous and lasting influence on the students w h o were privileged t o study under him. H e is also a top scholar who, i n a region o f national and religious passions, has always stood above the ephemeral quarrels-an objective scholar whose work is always solidly based o n the sources. And no one knows t h e sources for the history o f medieval Bosnia better than Professor BabiC. T h e articles, w i t h t w o exceptioils, center on t w o major topics: t h e social structure o f the medieval Bosnian feudal state, and the heretical medieval Bosnian church. T h e studies on t h e first topic are particularly important and together provide a clear explanation o f w h y the medieval Bosnian rulers were never able t o overcome feudal fraginentation and create a strong centralized state. T h e second topic takes up more than half o f the book, since the t e s t o f BabiC's Bosagzski heretic; ( 1 9 6 3 ) , written for the general reading public, is included i n its entirety. H e depicts t h e heretics as dualists-part o f the neo-RiIanichean movement o f medieval southern Europe-and gives t h e reader a thoughtful well-documented presentation o f this view. However, it is a v i e w that I cannot share, but owing t o lack o f space I can only refer readers to m y forthcoming book o n t h e problem for m y critique o f this theory. Also included is a masterful and inlportant study on the diplomatic service i n medieval Bosnia and a delightful study ( n o t part o f the book on heretics, as t h e table o f contents misleadingly suggests), "Fragments f r o m the Cultural L i f e o f Medieval Bosnia," which discusses entertainers (musicians, actors, and so f o r t h ) imported t o perform at t h e courts o f the medieval Bosnian rulers and nobility.

Slavic Review
I t is a great service to have these important scholarly contributions by Professor Babik collected in one place. The book deserves to be widely read.
JOHN V. A. FINE, JR. University of Mickiga~z

CRNA GORA I FRANCUSICA, 1860-1914. By Di~izitrije-DimoVz~joviC. Istorijski institut u Titogradu. Cetinje: "Obod," 1971. 515 pp. The intractable limitation of this book is that relations between France and Montenegro in the second half of the nineteenth century were neither extensive nor important. For a few years, during the period when Napoleon I11 flirted with East European nationalists, France held the dominant position at the court of Cetinje, supporting Prince Danilo until his assassination in 1560 and favoring Montenegrin claims after the unsuccessful war with Turkey in 1862. But the probleiils posed by the German unification movement shortly thereafter led France to a new Balkan policy of peace and status quo, which she continued to advocate through thick and thin until the Ottonlan Empire was pushed out of Europe in 1912. Prior to 1878 such a policy could not attract the Montenegrins, who were seeking independence at Turkey's expense, and after 1878 it did not appeal to the vain and anlbitious Prince Nikola. Hope in Russia, fear of Austria, conflict with Turkey, and scluabbles with Serbia all became more iinportant realities to Montenegro than relations with France. The author, a fornler Partisan and tnember of the federal parliament whose doctoral dissertation was highly praised in Yugoslavia a decade ago and who is director of the Ilistorical Institute of Montenegro, is only partially aware of this limitation, and he does not transcend it. Instead, although he provides excellent descriptions of changes in France's international position and the resulting modifications in her European policy objectives, he assumes too readily that his readers have a detailed knowledge of Montenegrin history. The iinpression of parochialisill this produces is intensified by his propensity for citing and summarizing what appears to be every document he uncovered in the French archives concerning Montenegro. Thus the reader will find detailed discussioils of dozens of unsuccessful and fruitless negotiations concerning Montenegro conducted by French representatives over a fifty-year period, but he will not find satisfying descriptions of the Balkan context in which many of these negotiations occurred. The effect is to restrict further an already restricted subject. The rigorous documentation, exhaustive research, and attention to detail which characterize this study make it a reliable guide to the minutiae of Franco-;\Iontenegrin relations and a valuable source of hitherto unpublished archival material. But the narrowness of the author's purview makes this book most useful to those who are intensely interested in Monteilegrin diplomatic history and thoroughly familiar with Montenegrin affairs. Those \tho do not fall in that category can turn to the sixteen-page French rCsumC for a good overview of the subject and a summary of the author's broader conclusions.

GALE STOKES Rice U~ziversity