Servia, the Poor Man's Paradise
Herbert Vivian
(1897. London)
As Mr. Herbert Vivian, an Englishman who has recently (1897.) published a book entitled "Servia, the Poor Man's Paradise." sums it up in his preface:
" An intelligent child in a board school may rattle off facts or fancies about Montezuma, Leonidas, or Rienzi, while the very elect of our historians may be nonplused by a reference to Dushan, or Czar Lazar, or Marko Kraljevic, or even Kara George. We waste serious thought upon the sordid squabbles of corrupt republics across the Channel and the ocean. We shed mawkish tears over the punishment of financial intrigues in Armenia and the Transvaal, and we compass seas and land to gather a precarious interest for plethoric capital amid fever swamps, wild beasts, and wilder men. Meanwhile, we do not seern to suspect that within little more than two days' rail from London there lies an undeveloped country of extraordinary fertility and potential wealth, possessing a history more wonderful than any fairy tale, and a race of heroes and patriots who may one day set Europe by the ears."
The author further states that nothing serious has been written about Servia for over thirty years, and that he has made a careful study of Servia and the Servians.
Serbia at the beginning of the twentieth century: the food at the grave for the souls of ancestors