A History of the First Bulgarian Empire by Steven RuncimanReview by: C. A. MacArtneyThe Slavonic and East European Review, Vol. 9, No. 26 (Dec., 1930), pp. 488-489Published by: the Modern Humanities Research Association and University College London, School ofSlavonic and East European StudiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4202545 .

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488 THE SLAVONIC REVIEW.

the principle of nationality than by the desire of erecting a barrier against Russia or protecting Turkey, with whom he had justly lost all patience, and some evidence is adduced (which could be supplemented from a later period) to show that for Napoleon the Principalities formed part of a larger scheme. But then he takes unnecessary alarm and expresses scepticism as to Napoleon's undoubted devotion to the cause of Rou- manian nationality. The real facts would appear to be that Napoleon was quite genuinely attached to the Roumanians as Latin kinsmen and an advance guard of French influence, but being always a little nebulous as to detail and fond of political improvisation, had not thought his Roumanian policy out to its logical conclusions and was not above using the Principalities as a pawn in his game with Austria and Italy.

In the same way Mr. East tries very hard to be fair to Stratford de Redcliffe, and ends by doing him rather more than justice. For his pages give a very clear account of how Stratford's consistent practice of stretching the bow almost to the breaking point culminated in the diplo- matic rupture of I857, and how by his extreme arrogance and even dis- regard of instructions he contrived to range the representatives of the Powers at Constantiniple in two opposing camps and brought his own country to the verge of a conflict with her recent ally in the eastern war. He has to admit (p. I35) that Stratford had a weak case against his chief rival, Thouvenel, the French Ambassador; but this is really an extreme understatement, and it is quite impossible to argue that Stratford, in his desperate campaign against union and in favour of the corrupt Vogorides, was guided by the interests of the Principalities themselves, even " as he conceived them" (p. I37). That Thouvenel and Benedetti were also guilty of intrigue does not absolve Stratford and cannot blind us to the fact that he could tolerate no equal near him and fell no less foul of many others, British as well as French, notably Sir Henry Bulwer and Admiral Dundas. The crowning condemnation of Stratford lies in his own admis- sion as he left Constantinople for the last time, that his mission to reform Turkey from within had failed, and in the fact that even men like Reshid and Ali felt his domination to be intolerable and secretly tried to secure his recall.

The book contains interesting appendices, on the first British-Rou- manian consular relations, on the Stuttgart interview of I857 between Napoleon III and Alexander II, and on " Napoleon and Turkey, 1857," and a useful bibliography.

R. W. SETON-WATSON.

A History of the First Bulgarian Empire. By Steven Runciman. Bell's. 1930. x plus 337 pp. i6s. net.

MR. RUNCIMAN'S book is a considerable event in British scholarship. It is the first time that any Englishman, with the rare exceptions of Bury and William Miller, has met the Slavonic and German scholars on their

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REVIEWS. 489

own ground in Balkan history; it is the only comprehensive book on its subject in any Western language except Jirecek's great but antiquated work, Zlatarski's short summary in German, and Guerin Songeon's little history (which might, perhaps, have been given a place in the bibliography). Further, it is the best work on its subject in any language -far above all others except Zlatarski's longer history, and an improve- ment even on that great work in many points of detail.

Mr. Runciman covers the period of Bulgarian history from its legendary beginnings down to the fall of the Western Empire in I029.

It is a dramatic story, and loses nothing in the telling, for Mr. Runciman relegates most of his controversy to his appendices, and tells his story in a highly-coloured and readable narrative style. There are times, indeed, when one regrets the amount of " writing up " which has been thought necessary; to the reviewer's mind, Theopanes' short picture of Krum before the Golden Gate of Constantinople is far more dramatic than the modernised version of it given here. In the main, however, Mr. Runciman's method is remarkably successful, and should attract a much wider circle of readers than can normally venture into the obscurity of Balkan history.

Practically all the available sources and literature have been used. For sources, the single, and rather curious, exception noted was the account of the early Bulgars given by Al-Bekri and in the Abrege des Alerveilles. More use of the work of Hungarian scholars would have enabled the writer to treat more fully the interesting subject of the Bulgarian trans-Danubian Empire, and perhaps to attack with greater determination the obscurities of the early Bulgarian legend. In the elucidation of uncertain points of detail, Mr. Runciman has gone con- siderably furthler than his predecessors, although there are still a number of minor points on which his interpretation might be questioned. We also miss an account of ethnographical and other conditions in the northern Balkans on the arrival of the Bulgars, and in the territories which they afterwards brought under their rule. Particularly, the ethnography of the Western Empire calls for much fuller treatment than it has received. These are, however, minor blemishes in what is, taken as a whole, a very fine piece of work. C. A. MAcARTNEY.

Die Serbo-Kroatische Literatur. By Dr. Gerhard Gesemann (Handbuch der Literatitrwissenschaft, ed. Dr. Oskar Walzel), Wildpark-Potsdam. (Akademische Verlagsgesellschaft Athenaion), I930. 46 pages.

IN the introduction to this brief survey, entitled " Kulturzonen und Stamme," Professor Gesemann distinguishes between five cultural zones on Serbo-Croat territory and lays stress on two, that of the " Balkan- Byzantine" culture, which had found its way from Macedonia into Serbia proper, down the valley of the Morava, and that of the " patriarchal

I I*

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