Travels in Southeastern Europe

The burden of the Balkans / by M. Edith Durham.

44 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS. literatures were beginning. Judging by the buildings that remain and the frescoes that adorn them, the people of the great Servian Empire were very little behind the average of the rest of Europe, were full of vitality and growing. The Turks when they came to Europe were a great people-a great military people. In manners and customs they were probably not more cruel or barbarous than the peoples they conquered; in the Middle Ages everywhere folk were cruel beyond belief. In point of power of organization and military skill, however, they were very greatly superior, and they were led by Sultans who, in many cases, had a genius for generalship. But beyond conquest they had no ideas. They camped on vanquished territory, and forced the people to feed them; and they have pursued this policy up to the present day. I have travelled from village to village, and town to town, through the lands which they held and those that they yet hold, and nowhere have I ever seen one monument of Turkish greatness. They have in all these centuries done nothing for the lands which they devastated, and they remain to this day encamped. Public safety is no better where the Turks rule than it was in the Middle Ages, possibly not so good, for Dushan made strict laws on the subject. Now those who travel without an armed escort do so at their own peril, and in case of attack the Government takes no responsibility. It is a wild mediaeval land. As the Turks found it, so will they leave it.
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About this Item

Title
The burden of the Balkans / by M. Edith Durham.
Author
Durham, Mary Edith, 1863-1944.
Canvas
Page 44
Publication
London :: Nelson,
[1905]
Subject terms
Eastern question (Balkan)
Balkan Peninsula -- Description and travel.

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https://name.umdl.umich.edu/ans3900.0001.001
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https://quod.lib.umich.edu/b/bosnia/ans3900.0001.001/51

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"The burden of the Balkans / by M. Edith Durham." In the digital collection Travels in Southeastern Europe. https://name.umdl.umich.edu/ans3900.0001.001. University of Michigan Library Digital Collections. Accessed May 1, 2025.
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