The Serbian people have faced numerous hardships and challenges throughout their long and storied history. In this compelling book, Leah Marie Bruce and Milutin Krunich explore the beginning of Serbia's journey, from the early days of the Ottoman Empire to the First Balkan War. With rigorous research and compassionate storytelling, this book is a must-read for anyone looking to understand the complex history of the Balkans. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

If what Lieutenant Krunich has written were really and altogether what it seems to be in part-if it were in any abstract or pretentious way a treatise on the national spirit of Serbia, an interpretation, or a formal plea,-one would have to set it down simply as a very naive book. Especially in the earlier chapters, there is, indeed, an overflow of emotion that strikes one as somewhat primitive or childlike-an unrestrained glorification of Serbia, a vehement, heartfelt hatred of Bulgaria, a loathing almost physical for Serbia's enemies and especially for Germans. The effect of unsophistication is increased by a somewhat overwrought and ecstatic style. Different peoples, to be sure, nave different temperaments. To the Anglo-Saxon the melting of the soul into an intense feeling of mingled hatred and pity may seem a kind of moral deliquescence. In the Serbian this very state appears to be consistent with the sternest, most deliberate heroism, if not the normal accompaniment of it. One night, after five days' fighting before Nish, Lieutenant Krunich was lying in the grass outside the trench. "Suddenly, in the midst of this silence, this beauty ... a voice, a songl A beautiful manly voice on the Bulgarian side is softly and sadly singing a song. My God, a Bulgarian is singing! My whole being, intoxicated by the sweetness of this night, now fell into such an emotion under the influence of this voice, this song, that I became oblivious of place and reality. . . . 'La Toscal' I exclaimed loudly. 'A Mario in his last moments, in a sea of most dreadful human unhappiness, feeling the sighs of the dead instead of the embrace of happy love, seeks with the last shriek of his heart his happy dreams 1 The dreams of love! And this Mario now is a Bulgarian! A traitor, murderer 1 No, no, I cannot believe it! . . . What desires this man, this unhappy Bulgarian?' I asked myself. I felt a powerful struggle which surged more and more through my being. I can never psychologically explain those moments. ... I felt only as if a strange power had risen with a dreadful right in my soul, to destroy the song, this confession of a murderer, this sacrilege of the last beauty of a Serbian dream." But if the mood of this personal record is quite different from anything that one would expect to find in an English, French, or American fighting man, it is in this very fact that the strength of the thing ultimately proves to lie. And the strength of it is, ultimately, very great-so great, indeed, that extremely tender-minded people cannot be advised to read Lieutenant Krunich's story. The reader must expect to be wrought up-not merely horrified as by blood and crime, but stirred in a more actively emotional way. Chivalrous devotion to country, sensitiveness of soul-these are united in Lieutenant Krunich's way of reacting to war with a terrible clearness of vision and a raw sense of reality. In brief, no one else has drawn war-pictures quite so fearfully appealing as has this Serbian officer. Poor writing there is, doubtless, in the narrative, but there is also sincerity and power. The death of a dear friend, horribly wounded, in a hospital; the frantic protests of a feeble old sexton who tries to protect a graveyard from desecration by trench-diggers; the inconsolable sorrow of a company of Serbian soldiers for the death of a homeless child whom they have adopted and hungrily loved; the helpless pain of aged men and women; the unutterable grieving of a mother over a mutilated body,-these things are made not merely catastrophic, but as home-felt as the sufferings of a child. The violation of Serbian soil itself is described not merely as an affront to manhood, but almost as the dishonoring of a woman. The book induces an acute, painful pity and a strong abhorrence of those who caused the war....br> -The North American Review, Volume 207 [1918]

Excerpt from Serbia Crucified: The Beginning "How beautiful is this country!" exclaimed Bata, filling his breast with the pure fresh air, and stretching out his arms in a tender imaginary embrace toward the fields, forests, rosy hills, blue mountains, white and peaceful villages of the paradise which sped before our eyes, bathed in an ocean of morning sunlight. "Beautiful? You might say this of a dross, a hat, a horse, a house, or even an apple, but for this land, our Serbia, it means nothing. To describe her you must use the language of poetry, for her country is poetry and her people are poets. Or you must speak in the voice of thunder, for those hills are pyramids built of the bones of your grandfathers, piled and cemented with their blood; from them the song of liberty has thundered in terrible battles. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

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