A biography of Baron Mihajlo Mikasinovic, a general of Serbian
origin in the Austrian Army, provides an insight into the context
of the mid-eighteenth century lives of Serbs on the Military
Frontier ("Vojna Krajina") of Austro-Hungary and the many-sided
aspects of their struggle. The key dimension of this struggle is
found in the role of ethnic Serb officers in the military
organization and campaigns of this part of the Austro-Hungarian
empire. -Branko Mikasinovich **** Those who review books, and those
who write them, know - or hope in their core - that books can
change lives, change entire societies; change worlds. Anyone who
covered the decade of conflict in the Balkans in the 1990s, and saw
the dismemberment of Yugoslavia and its peoples, knew that the
conduct and outcomes of the wars could have - would have - been
different ... if only the right people in politics and the media in
Europe and North America had read their history. .......... The
brief and wonderfully readable Baron Mihajlo Mikasinovic by
Croatian-born Serb Djuro Zatezalo is one such book which could have
helped create more rational and understanding sentiments toward the
various peoples of what was to become Yugoslavia. It may seem
arcane to suggest that a biography of an 18th Century nobleman,
fighting on the marches of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, could have
changed 20th Century policy. But so it could. Indeed, the truly
noble Baron left a legacy thrusting into the 21st Century for that
same area where he was born and became a heroic, inspiring figure.
.......... The book on Baron Mihajlo Mikasinovic shows clearly the
underlying strand of history which destroyed the career of the
Baron - to the detriment of the Empire - and also was later to lead
to the war in Yugoslavia and cause a modern Croatia to be born in
the ignominy of Usta e misdeeds instead of in the natural flowering
of independence. Today's Croatia is attempting to re-balance the
society away from the extremists, and the fact that Croatian-born
Serb Djuro Zatezalo was able to remain in that territory and write
his brief biography of the Baron is testimony to the return of
moderation to Zagreb. The book begins with a preface entitled
"Perseverence in the Orthodox Faith," by Serbian Orthodox Bishop
Gerasim of the Upper Karlovac Diocese, and starts: The Military
Border era the "marches"; hence the origin of the noble
quasi-military rank of marquess - Ed.] is an important chapter in
the history of the Habsburg monarchy. The Krajina region of
Croatia] played a role in defending the Austro-Hungarian] state's
borders from the beginning of the 16th to the end of the 17th
century. The Krajina continued to have a stake in the Austrian wars
in the Balkans and in Central and Western Europe in the 18th and
19th centuries. The name of Mikasinovic was to live on, not only in
the residents of at least three hamlets (as the author notes) in
Donje and Gornje Dubrave areas, but in a subsequent Lt.-Gen.
Mikasinovic of the communist Yugoslav People's Army. And in Branko
Mikasinovich, now living in the United States and determined to
bring Djuro Zatezalo's book into an English-speaking world. Branko
Mikasinovich worked not only to edit the sensitive translation by
Marjorie Mikasen, but also to actually research and bring out the
appropriate meanings of the various Austrian ranks and military
terms of the period. This is an easily-digestible book which
reaches any reader who recognizes that, in the prosecution of the
wars of the 1990s in the Balkans (and, even, in World War II),
there was something missing from the international communities'
understanding of the complexities of the area and its people. It is
not yet over: the transforming Greater Black Sea region, and the
unrest within Turkey (and its present leader's anti-Ataturk dream
of a new Ottomanism), make the Balkans, and therefore Europe, still
vulnerable. So, even now, Zatezalo's book may find its mark in open
minds. - Gregory R.
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