[HN Gopher] "Balkan Cosmology" by Bruce Sterling (2022)
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"Balkan Cosmology" by Bruce Sterling (2022)
Author : akkartik
Score : 59 points
Date : 2023-02-20 22:44 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (bruces.medium.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (bruces.medium.com)
| boomskats wrote:
| This is beautiful. I'm barely halfway through reading, but an
| engineer called Nikola from Serbia who took a ton of stupid risks
| but was ultimately successful, this story is the best thing I've
| ever seen posted on HN.
|
| It is extremely well written, the author clearly completely
| absorbed himself into the local culture. So many of the seemingly
| random references are actually relevant and very clever.
| dendrite9 wrote:
| It really is great. I didn't expect to read the whole thing but
| I'm glad I did even if some parts seemed a little heavy handed.
| For whatever reason the bar descriptions and characters were
| particularly effective.
| TMWNN wrote:
| Indeed, what a great story. Sterling really conveys that
| peculiar Balkan mixture of wide-eyed fanaticism, suicidal
| revanchism, genius crossed with madness, and sullen fatalism.
|
| Along such lines, here is Michael Pupin in 1914, writing about
| the assassination of Franz Ferdinand and his wife <https://arch
| ive.org/details/independen79v80newy/page/n72/mod...>:
|
| >The Pan-Serb propaganda does exist, I admit it frankly, and I
| ought to know whereof I speak, because I am a Serb and a former
| subject of the Austrian Empire. But this Pan-Serb propaganda is
| not a political conspiracy, born and bred at Belgrade or at any
| other place in the kingdom of Servia. It is a natural heritage
| of every true Serb, who is ever ready to obey the voice of the
| Serb minstrel, the gouslar, which commands him and has always
| commanded him for five hundred years to struggle for the
| "honored cross and golden liberty." This voice was always the
| supreme commander in all Serb struggles against the Turkish
| oppressor, and it is today the supreme commander in the Serb
| struggles against Austrian tyranny. The causes of the Pan-Serb
| propaganda are in Vienna and not Belgrade. The tragedy in
| Sarayevo on the 28th of June was being prepared in Vienna
| during the last thirty-six years; it was enacted on the very
| day--Vidov Dan--when every true Serb celebrates the anniversary
| of the battle of the field of Kossovo, in 1389, when the Serb
| Empire fell. Its memory always served as a reminder to the
| Serbs that they must avenge the wrongs perpetrated against the
| race, and that by united effort only can they regain the
| glories of their ancient empire which vanished at Kossovo.
|
| This is, let me repeat, Michael Pupin. He was one of the most
| famous scientists/engineers in the world in 1914, far more
| famous than Tesla, and even today is clearly the second most-
| famous Serbian scientist. A building is named for him at
| Columbia. He had lived in the US for 40 years. And yet, when a
| man and his wife are shot and killed just because they happen
| to be royalty, and the murder is likely going to start a
| general European war, Pupin's response is this rant (I can't
| think of any other way to describe it), written for a mass-
| market weekly magazine, about how such actions are the heritage
| --no, the *obligation*--of every Serb and have been for 500
| years!
| vasac wrote:
| > And yet, when a man and his wife are shot and killed just
| because they happen to be royalty
|
| It also happened that they were occupying Bosnia, where
| neither Austrians nor Hungarians lived, but Serbs did.
| boomskats wrote:
| This is also a great read, I've not seen it before.
|
| > No map can do justice to the ethnological complexity of
| this region. The Serbs, Croats and Montenegrins are of the
| same blood, tho divided by religion and nationality. The
| annexation by Austria in 1908 of Bosnia and Herzegovina, both
| racially united to Servia rather than Hungary, destroyed
| their hopes of joining in one great Servian empire, and this
| disappointment gave rise to the bitter resentment against the
| Austrian crown which is now displayed.
|
| It's quite interesting to think that even then, in the US
| press, Austrohungarian imperialism translated as 'preventing
| the Great Servian empire'.
| INTPenis wrote:
| As someone from the balkans, it's striking to me how a Texan
| named Sterling has such an intimate knowledge of balkan culture.
| Very good story.
| extra88 wrote:
| From his Wikipedia page:
|
| > He lived in Belgrade with Serbian author and film-maker
| Jasmina Tesanovic for several years, and married her in 2005.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Sterling
| patientplatypus wrote:
| [dead]
| sasakrsmanovic2 wrote:
| Great story, glad I read it!
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