Vision of the past
Sir: My old friend Vane Ivanovic's charac- teristically self-righteous attack on Richard Bassett (Letters, 28 July) has been eagerly published here by the Serbian opposition paper, Democracy, which regularly attacks all who take an anti-Serb viewpoint.
I should like to point out, as someone who has observed the political situation here for some years, that while I can understand Mr Ivanovic's sentimental longing for the Yugoslav idea, things have
LETTERS
moved on. Anyone in this country will tell Mr Ivanovic that romantic notions of uni- fying the South Slays have proved dis- astrous already twice this century. Such a unity has only been possible under dicta- torships, monarchist or communist. The bond of race Mr Ivanovic cites as an historical fact between Croats and Serbs indeed now belongs to history. If it existed at all it was in the minds of Slav intellec- tuals and those with ambitious territorial designs for Serbia. As Mr Ivanovic, whose mother came fron the Voivodina, must know, the Serbs had no such wish to share their guardianship of Yugoslavia with any- one else. The Serb King Alexander attempted to create a unified nation before the war. He failed miserably, the victims of his efforts being the children of mixed marriages like Mr Ivanovic and 'myself.
Unlike Mr Ivanovic I have the advantage of having seen what has happened here from close quarters. Yugoslavia, if it is to exist, can only do so as a loose confedera- tion. But I ask myself whether nations which differ so profoundly and regard each other with such fear and suspicion can live together except under some kind of dictatorship.
Dessa Trevisan
Palmoticeva 15, Belgrade, Yugoslavia
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