This compellingly written autobiography covers the past century and more in the life of Bato Tomasevic's Montenegrin family in the harsh and ever-turbulent mountains of southern Yugoslavia. The narrative begins some fifty years before the Balkan wars (1912-1913) and recounts the harrowing experiences of the Tomasevic clan in the twentieth century's two World Wars. The author conveys vividly the hardships of life in under Italian and German occupation: the daily executions, the heroism of underground workers and the effects of occupation on ordinary people. Bato Tomasevic was a boy soldier with the Partisans and experienced the horrors of warfare against the Chetniks, cheating death in an ambush in Eastern Bosnia.Just as vivid are his accounts of, inter alia, post-war Yugoslavia, his narrow escape in the Munich air disaster, life in Belgrade in the hopeful sixties and seventies, the break-up of the Federation after Tito's death, and the efforts of extreme nationalists to create a Greater Serbia and a Greater Croatia through armed might and ethnic cleansing. The family saga ends with Tomasevic's experience of the NATO bombing of Serbia in March 1999 and the downfall and imprisonment of President Milosevic. Tomasevic's story is at once fascinating, heroic, tragic, sometimes even funny, but unquestionably moving, such as his description of he and his mother finding his dead brother's skull or of witnessing a suicide by a young German prisoner of war of roughly the same age as him. It is a story as remembered by a young boy, whose family, like his country, was drawn into a violent and brutal conflict that it could not escape.
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'Tomasevic happened to be an eyewitness of some major events in post-war Yugoslav history and to know personally many remarkable people....It should be read as a wonderfully balanced account, sensitive and sensible at the same time, of how history was experienced by people who were unreservedly involved in the successive political regimes (his father to royal, and he himself to communist Yugoslavia), but did not belong to the powerful elite of decision- makers.' --European History Quarterly
'This is a fascinating book. Bato Tomasevic provides an engaging, insightful and often moving account of his and his family's rich history and of his country's turbulent life and death. It also provides an excellent insight into the social history of the early twentieth-century Balkans. Amid a great many books published about former Yugoslavia over the past fifteen years, this one stands out as a moving memoir that often reads like an enthralling historical novel. Tomasevic's book opens a unique window into a lost world of the Balkans in the modern era.' --Dr Dejan Djokic, Goldsmiths College, University of London
'This is a fascinating book. Bato Tomasevic provides an engaging, insightful and often moving account of his and his family's rich history and of his country's turbulent life and death. It also provides an excellent insight into the social history of the early twentieth-century Balkans. Amid a great many books published about former Yugoslavia over the past fifteen years, this one stands out as a moving memoir that often reads like an enthralling historical novel. Tomasevic's book opens a unique window into a lost world of the Balkans in the modern era.' --Dr Dejan Djokic, Goldsmiths College, University of London
About the Author
Bato Tomasevic, born in 1929 in Kosovo, was the seventh child of a Montenegrin family which till 1945 lived in Kosovo and Montenegro. He has written a dozen books, mostly on art, and collaborated with Oto Bihalji-Merin in writing and editing the unique Encyclopedia of World Naive Art.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Jaw dropping family history
23 April 2011
By Jimbo60
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Hardcover
I am stunned that this book has not been reviewed before. Bato Tomasevic and his family led an amazing life. His story is told very simply and with dashes of humor -considering the dire times covered by the book as well as the breadth of his life - this is a real achievement. The book principally covers the period from the 20's to the 40's - and the role of his family during the war. His sister was a darling of Tito's Partizans and later became the first (in the world?) female ambassador to Norway for Yugoslavia. In one chapter relatively late in the book- it is revealed that he was a survivor of the Munich air crash that decimated the Manchester United Football team in 1958. For many that would be a major part of a book and yet the author covers it in one chapter- and in a very understated way. He does not push himself to the forefront- in many events he considers himself an observer. Grab a hold of this book.
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful
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excellent history of the family and period in the Balkans
26 Feb 2013
By Jerry Lieu
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
This book was of particular interest as a very good friend is from the "Tomasevic" clan of Montenegro. He has recently invited me to visit his home in Montenegro and Serbia, two countries which I know little about. Besides giving me an understanding of the country, its war stricken history, this book has given me a great insight to the mind set of the people. The Life and Death of the Balkans is a tremendous background to my understanding many of my friends' stories and also to understand his value system.
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