Fatherland
If you dismiss history told in comic book graphic form* as the non-fiction equivalent of Classic Comics, you're missing out. At its best, graphic non-fiction uses visual elements to tell stories in new and powerful ways.**
In her graphic memoir, Fatherland: A Family History, Serbian-Canadian artist Nina Bunjevac tells the blood-soaked history of the former state of Yugoslavia through the lens of one family's story.
Fatherland centers on Bunjevac's father, whose involvement in a Canadian-based Serbian terrorist organization led her mother to flee with her daughters to Yugoslavia in 1975 and ended with his death in a bomb explosion. Moving back and forth in time and place, from modern Toronto to Yugoslavia during both the Nazi occupation and the Cold War, Bunjevac explores the steps that led to her father's extreme nationalism and its tragic consequences. Using a combination of strong lines, pointillism and cross-hatching that evokes the feeling of an old newspaper, she tells a story in which there are no heroes and every choice, personal or political, has traumatic consequences. (Bunjevac's mother is forced to make a classic "Sophie's choice": the only way she can take her daughters to Yugoslavia is to leave her son behind.) Both the country and Bunjevac's family are torn apart by the bitter divisions between Serbs and Croats, partisans and collaborators, royalists and communists.
Bunjevac makes no moral judgments about her family's choices. Instead she approaches their history from several viewpoints, introducing increasing complexity and moral ambiguity with each new layer. The only thing that is black and white in Fatherland is Bunjevac's exquisite and often grim illustrations.
*As opposed to what we call "comic book history" here at the Margins--stories that are culturally entrenched and often emotionally satisfying but untrue.
**At its worst, graphic non-fiction is garish and heavy-handed. But if we abandon entire genres of literature based only on the worst examples we'll have nothing left to read.
Much of this review first appeared in Shelf Awareness for Readers
Abandoning the Algerian Model
Tunisia and Morocco came under French control much later than Algeria, in 1883 and 1912 respectively, as part of the great “scramble for Africa” at the end of the nineteenth century.*
From the French perspective, the imperial experience in Tunisia and Morocco was very different than that in Algeria.** In both states, French investors became concerned about the security of their investments under the rule of what they perceived as a weak Muslim government. In both states an internal crisis combined with imperial rivalries with Britain in Tunisia and Germany in Morocco triggered occupation by French troops and a “now what?” response by French administrators.
Fifty years of rule in Algeria had taught French politicians that direct rule by French administrators and colonization by European settlers was expensive. Instead of being integrated into French territory as colonies, first Tunisia and then Morocco were placed under protectorate status: a ambiguous term that suggests a stronger power protecting a weaker power. The reality was the stronger power protecting its own interests in the weaker power.*** In theory, the Bey of Tunisia and the Sultan of Morocco remained the rulers of their respective states with the support of a French civil service and the French military. In fact, both rulers were puppets under the control of their French advisers--a position that was soon made clear in Morocco. When Sultan Mulay Hafid refused to cooperate with French plans for administrative, legal, educational and military reforms, he was forced to abdicate and replaced by his brother.
The bottom line: Tunisia and Morocco were possessions, but they never became part of the French identity. François Mitterand once claimed “Algeria is France.” No one ever said “Morocco is France”. As a result, in the unraveling of European empires that followed the end of the Second World War, Tunisia and Morocco were relatively easy to let go. (The key word there is relative.)
Algeria? That was another story.
*If you’re interested in the big picture on this, I strongly recommend Thomas Pakenham’s The Scramble for Africa: The White Man’s Conquest of the Dark Continent from 1876 to 1912: a Big Fat History Book that's well worth the time.
**My guess is that the experience from the perspective of the colonized looked much the same.
***The phrase "protection racket" comes to mind. Or is that just me?
In These Times: Living in Britain Through Napoleon’s Wars
Even the most eclectic history buff has periods that draw her back time and time again. if you've spent much time here at the Margins you know the late eighteenth century is one of those times for me. Regency England and Revolutionary France, colonial expansion in India and losses in North American, Enlightenment thought and the roots of Romanticism--all call my name.
Since this is the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo, I'll be spending more time than usual thinking/reading/talking about the long eighteenth century.* I suspect I won't be the only one. In fact, I'll bet the on-line discussion this July will equal that surrounding last year's centennial anniversary of the assassination of the Grand Duke Ferdinand at Sarajevo.**
Jenny Uglow's In These Times: Living in Britain Through Napoleon's Wars, 1793-1815 is a good place to start the discussion.
Uglow describes In These Times as "a crowd biography". For much of her career, Uglow has looked at the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries through the lens of individual lives. With In These Times, she expands her talent for biography into a broader account of how the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars affected those who remained at home. The big names of British history--William Pitt and Willaim Cobbett, Nelson and Wellington, Sir Walter Scott and Jane Austen--appear in their proper places. But Uglow focuses on less celebrated lives from all levels of society, from factory boy to aristocratic lady, as recorded in letters, memoirs, diaries, and parish records.
In This Times is not another version of "daily life in the time of".*** Instead Uglow looks at how twenty-two years of constant warfare shaped society in fundamental ways. She not only describes direct effects of war such as enlistment practices and the economic impact of government military contracts; she also places events that are normally described in terms of their domestic impact, such as the social disruptions caused by the Industrial Revolution, within the context of war. She looks at newspaper distribution, shoe manufacturing, the impact of war loans on private banking and the ethical dilemmas of Quaker gun manufacturers,
Depicting a society in which war is as pervasive as permanent bad weather, In These Times combines social and military history in a manner that will appeal to readers of both.
*Roughly 1688 to 1815, or 1832 depending on which historian you talk to. Sometimes centuries are an awkward time division when you’re talking about historical events instead of the calendar. .
** Normally I'd link to my own post on the subject. But this one is much better: Two Bullets, Eight Million Dead.
*** If that's what you're looking for, may I recommend Jane Austen's England?
The heart of this post previously appeared in Shelf Awareness for Readers.