評論
打印
Books and arts
文藝
Balkan history
巴爾干歷史
Writing the past
書寫過去
Teaching children about history, nationalism, and right and wrong
教育孩子：歷史，民族主義和孰是孰非
IN 1995 some 200,000 Serbs were ethnically cleansed from Croatia.
在1995年克羅地亞的種族大清洗中，大約200，000塞爾維亞人遇害。
Oh, no, actually, they fled.
哦，不不不，事實上，他們逃之夭夭了。
During the second world war Serbian royalist “Chetniks” were heroes—or were they villains?
二戰中塞爾維亞的“游擊戰士”是忠誠的民族英雄還是無惡不作的壞蛋？
Balkan history is complicated, but there is widespread agreement on one thing.
巴爾干半島的歷史錯綜復雜，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.”
正如一位塞爾維亞歷史學家說的那樣：“只有一個上帝，也只有一個真相。”
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.
二十世紀九十年代，南斯拉夫解體。自那時起，1389年至1944年間到底發生了什么，成了宣傳者煽動仇恨的重要主題。
Balkan children are still being taught wildly varying versions of history with no idea that others view the same events differently.
課堂里教授著不同版本的歷史；巴爾干地區的孩子們日日學習，卻是一葉障目；完全不知其他觀點的存在。
Since 1999, however, a group of historians from across the region has been working to help teachers gain a broader perspective.
然而，從1999年起，該地區的一群歷史學家們開始著手一個項目，為老師們提供更寬廣的歷史視野。
So far, they have brought out four books of source materials covering the period up to 1945.
迄今他們已利于收集到的原始資料出版了四本書，覆蓋了該地區從1389年至1945年的歷史。
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.
該項目在希臘第二大城市薩洛尼卡開展。上月它在歐洲西南部貝爾格萊德的民主與和解中心召集了一場會議；與會的歷史學家計劃該項目的下一步驟：冷戰及1989年以來的歷史。
Still, by 2014 an estimated 500,000 students may have benefited.
毫無疑問，這是一項艱巨的挑戰。然而，到2014年項目完成時，將有約500，000名學生從中受益。
None of this can come too soon.
然而凡事不可操之過急。
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.
在波斯尼亞，有兩座僅相隔百余米的紀念碑，分別紀念20世紀90年代的兩族年輕人，他們原是校友，卻對彼此揮戈相向。
Bosniak children today are taught that their forces succeeded in defending Sarajevo during the siege of 1992-95.
波斯尼亞的孩子的歷史版本是：他們的民族在1992年到1995年的圍城期間成功保衛薩拉熱窩。
But the Serbs, who besieged it, maintain that they successfully defended themselves against being overrun by the city's Muslim hordes.
而圍困他們的塞爾維亞人則一口咬定：他們才是成功自衛趕走穆斯林侵占者的勇士。
Kosovo's history books are full of Albanian heroes and play down inconvenient truths.
科索沃的歷史教授書里充斥著阿爾巴尼亞英雄，對事實真相卻辟而不談。
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.
塞爾維亞和克羅地亞的歷史教科書雖然擺脫了民族主義狂熱，卻并未公允地陳述史實。變化需要時間。
Nenad Sebek, the project's director, tells funders that if they want results next year they should take their money elsewhere.
這一項目的負責人尼內德賽伯克告訴投資者們：如果他們指望明年即獲回報，最好去別處投錢。
“We are hoping for results in 10 to 20 years.”
“我們希望十年或二十年后，事情會有起色。”
