经济学人下载:巴尔干历史 书写过去

Books and arts
文艺

Balkan history
巴尔干历史

Writing the past
书写过去

Teaching children about history, nationalism, and right and wrong
教育孩子：历史，民族主义和孰是孰非

IN 1995 some 200,000 Serbs were ethnically cleansed from Croatia.
在1995年克罗地亚的种族大清洗中，大约200，000塞尔维亚人遇害。

Oh, no, actually, they fled.
哦，不不不，事实上，他们逃之夭夭了。

During the second world war Serbian royalist “Chetniks” were heroes—or were they villains?
二战中塞尔维亚的“游击战士”是忠诚的民族英雄还是无恶不作的坏蛋？

Balkan history is complicated, but there is widespread agreement on one thing.
巴尔干半岛的历史错综复杂，然而人人皆知的是。

Every nation knows what is right and how everyone else is wrong.
自己的民族知道正途；他人皆是邪路。

As one Serbian historian puts it: “There is one truth, just as there is one God.”
正如一位塞尔维亚历史学家说的那样：“只有一个上帝，也只有一个真相。”

When Yugoslavia fell apart in the 1990s the question of who did what in 1389 or 1944 played a vital part in the propaganda used to whip up hatred.
二十世纪九十年代，南斯拉夫解体。自那时起，1389年至1944年间到底发生了什么，成了宣传者煽动仇恨的重要主题。

Balkan children are still being taught wildly varying versions of history with no idea that others view the same events differently.
课堂里教授着不同版本的历史；巴尔干地区的孩子们日日学习，却是一叶障目；完全不知其他观点的存在。

Since 1999, however, a group of historians from across the region has been working to help teachers gain a broader perspective.
然而，从1999年起，该地区的一群历史学家们开始着手一个项目，为老师们提供更宽广的历史视野。

So far, they have brought out four books of source materials covering the period up to 1945.
迄今他们已利于收集到的原始资料出版了四本书，覆盖了该地区从1389年至1945年的历史。

Last month at a meeting in Belgrade of the Centre for Democracy and Reconciliation in Southeast Europe, which runs the project from Thessaloniki, the historians planned the next stage: the cold war and events since 1989. The challenge is huge.
该项目在希腊第二大城市萨洛尼卡开展。上月它在欧洲西南部贝尔格莱德的民主与和解中心召集了一场会议；与会的历史学家计划该项目的下一步骤：冷战及1989年以来的历史。

Still, by 2014 an estimated 500,000 students may have benefited.
毫无疑问，这是一项艰巨的挑战。然而，到2014年项目完成时，将有约500，000名学生从中受益。

None of this can come too soon.
然而凡事不可操之过急。

In Bosnia there are war memorials standing only a few hundred metres from each other, dedicated to young men who almost certainly went to school together shortly before they began killing one another in the 1990s.
在波斯尼亚，有两座仅相隔百余米的纪念碑，分别纪念20世纪90年代的两族年轻人，他们原是校友，却对彼此挥戈相向。

Bosniak children today are taught that their forces succeeded in defending Sarajevo during the siege of 1992-95.
波斯尼亚的孩子的历史版本是：他们的民族在1992年到1995年的围城期间成功保卫萨拉热窝。

But the Serbs, who besieged it, maintain that they successfully defended themselves against being overrun by the city's Muslim hordes.
而围困他们的塞尔维亚人则一口咬定：他们才是成功自卫赶走穆斯林侵占者的勇士。

Kosovo's history books are full of Albanian heroes and play down inconvenient truths.
科索沃的历史教授书里充斥着阿尔巴尼亚英雄，对事实真相却辟而不谈。

Serbian and Croatian books seem to have evolved out of this first phase of nationalist euphoria, but still do not offer a balanced version of events. Change takes time.
塞尔维亚和克罗地亚的历史教科书虽然摆脱了民族主义狂热，却并未公允地陈述史实。变化需要时间。

Nenad Sebek, the project's director, tells funders that if they want results next year they should take their money elsewhere.
这一项目的负责人尼内德赛伯克告诉投资者们：如果他们指望明年即获回报，最好去别处投钱。

“We are hoping for results in 10 to 20 years.”
“我们希望十年或二十年后，事情会有起色。”