selling souvenirs, and I stop to buy Chetnik caps for my sons.rnNeither my Serbian nor the vendor’s P]nglish are up to therntransaction, but one of his friends who had lived in Australiarntells me that the vendor is from Kosovo. “Albanian?” I ask.rn”Oh no, a Serb, and though he is my friend, I am afraid he is arnbit of a Serbian racist.” The vendor smiles and shows me hisrndocuments written partly in Albanian. I play dumb and askrn”Jeste li Shiptar?” (Are you Shiptar, i.e., Albanian?) He snortsrnangrily and explains that he and his family were driven out ofrntheir village by the Shiptars.rnKosovo-MetohiarnUpon our arrival in Prishtina, we are whisked away to thernGrand Hotel—recently refurbished after years of neglect andrnmisuse under the Albanian-controlled government, we arerntold—and then to a literary club for a late dinner, prefaced byrnrakija and accompanied by bottle after bottle of local wine. Irnam beginning to fear the recurrence of esophageal spasms.rnThree musicians (professional men in the daylight hours) gornfrom table to table playing Serbian songs. The writers at myrntable request “Ko to kazhe Srbija je mala?” a nationalist songrnthat asks the defiant question: “Who says Serbia is a smallrnIn front ofVisoki Dechani: (r-l) ‘William Mills, the Director ofrnMonuments, the Prior, Thomas Fleming, Momcilo Selic (back),rnSlobodan Kostitch, the two drivers.rncountry?” These are literary intellectuals who, if they werernAmericans, would be condemning the racism of George Washington,rnbut most Serb writers are fervent nationalists of a typernthat disappeared from the West over a century ago.rnIt is only later that I realize why we must eat in a club: Serbsrnare not welcome in Albanian restaurants. The next day, wernmust drive miles out of our way to eat in a mountain resort runrnby Serbs. We feasted on mountain lamb and jugs of wine givenrnto us by a wine-maker who showed us the 14th-century casksrnthat once had held the wine of Czar Stepan Dushan. A grouprnof young men begin to sing patriotic songs, but my Serb friendsrnare unimpressed. “Look at them boasting, and you can tellrnnone of them has been at the front.” Being at the front, for arnSerb intellectual, is something like killing a lion for a young Masai.rn”We call this sort of patriotic display ‘Serbianizing.'”rnThere are worse vices to associate with a nationality.rnDespite the fact that Serbs are an ever-dwindling minority inrnthe region, Kosovo-Metohia—Old Serbia, as it is sometimesrncalled—is the heartland of Serb nationalism. Everywherernthere are relics and memorials of the medieval kings of the Nemanyarndynasty, but no site in the world is more sacred tornSerbs than the battlefield of Kosovo, where an indecisive battlernwith the forces of Sultan Murad spelled the downfall of thernSerbian nation. According to one of the most beautiful of theirrnfolk poems, the Serb commander. Prince Lazar, was given thernchoice between a military and a spiritual victory: win the battlernand lose the soul of the people or die and secure the kingdomrnof heaven.rnThis is more than historical revisionism, more than a convenientrnrationahzation of defeat. It is the essence of the Serbianrnmind to find spiritual victory in defeat and desolation, dignityrnin subjugation, eternal life in death, and throughout therncenturies of Turkish rule the Serbian identity was made up ofrnloyalty to the Orthodox Church and celebration of Vidovdan,rnthe day of St. Vitus, on which they lost their libertiesrnat Kosovo.rnIn the cold light of dawn, Prishtina is almost frightfullyrnugly. There is an old part, but under Tito Prishtinarnswelled from a sleepy Middle Eastern town into a regionalrncenter for the socialist welfare system that helpsrnto keep the Albanians idle and resentful. I am notrnwell-acquainted with Third World countries, so thernplace reminds me of Mexico: hideous modern buildingsrnfalling into ruin, filth everywhere, and crowds on thernstreet that stare at you as if you were a bugeyed Martianrncome to harvest their babies.rnAt first I am skeptical of all the anti-Albanian propagandarnI hear from the Serbs. If a door handle is missing,rnthey blame it on the Albanians; the missing gratingrnthat allows a clumsy American to fall into a 16-inchrndeep gutter—^Albanians took it. Of course there isrnpoverty and inefficiency all over Serbia, and hideous socialistrnbuildings everywhere, but outside of an Americanrnhousing project I have never seen such massive andrnstupid vandalism as in Kosovo. Anything that can bernpried loose, it seems, will be stolen or broken. SomernSerbs, I am told, have taken to carrying around theirrnown door handle.rnThe university library is an oasis of order. On the outside,rnthe building is among the most ludicrous I’ve everrnseen. It was designed for Kuwait, someone tells mern(jokingly?), but even the Kuwaitis had better sense.rnThe mosquoid building, at first glance, seems constructedrnout of steel doormats and plastic trash bags, but inside all isrnclean and well-ordered. I was told that, until recently, most ofrnthe books written in any language but Albanian had been lyingrnin heaps, unshclved and uncatalogued.rnThe transformation was accomplished by the library’s newdirector,rnSlobodan Kostitch, a poet and man-of-letters whornknows how to hack his way through wrought-iron cobwebs ofrnYugoslav bureaucracy. His office is filled with icons and reproductionsrnof ancient Serbian art. My hrst impression is of anrn14/CHRONICLESrnrnrn