Serbian Krajina's breakaway republic

Serbian Krajina's breakaway republic is presented as a self-proclaimed Serbian entity in an enclave not far from the Adriatic, recognized only by Serbs and caught in the renewed fighting between Serbs and Croats. Its significance in the narrative lies in the distance between its claim to political existence and its precarious reality: access can be cut, authority changes hands, and the people living there are ultimately left to face death, imprisonment, or flight. For Eduard Limonov, it becomes both a destination he seeks as a volunteer soldier and a place where war’s confused allegiances resist any simple account.

Territory and Political Position

The narrative situates the enclave within a conflict that already involves Serbs and Bosnians and has now spread again between Serbs and Croats. Control of this other Serbian enclave, near the Adriatic, is contested. The account emphasizes that there are several parties to the fighting, as well as outside forces trying to separate them; an enemy may become a temporary ally when both oppose a third party. The resulting political map is not a stable division into clearly bounded camps.

The republic’s position is insecure even at the level of recognition. The book describes it as a self-proclaimed entity that only the Serbs recognize. In Belgrade, Limonov approaches an improvised embassy representing the republic, hoping to travel there and join its forces. The embassy gives the enclave a point of contact beyond the battlefield, but not a reliable route into it: he is told that reaching Krajina is difficult and that he must wait to be contacted.

Access and the Shifting Front

The route to the enclave passes through a war zone whose boundaries are hard to read from the ground. Traveling with men disguised as peasants, Limonov crosses Herzegovina in a minibus carrying weapons. Villages are divided by front lines, while alphabets, official languages, monetary systems, religions, and national loyalties seem to change from one stretch of road to the next. Roadblocks may belong to Serbian, Croatian, or Bosnian militias, and the vehicle’s passage without incident seems surprising rather than assured.

The access corridor between Belgrade and Krajina is repeatedly cut, one day by Croats, another by Bosnian forces, and also by the United Nations peacekeeping force. This makes the enclave’s connection to its supporters contingent: the journey is not simply a matter of distance but of which armed group controls the way through. In the narrative, the road itself exposes the limits of political labels. The parties can be named, but on the ground it is not always clear who holds a particular position or what the next stretch of territory will mean for the travelers.

A Battleground and a Political Bargain

After three days waiting in Belgrade, Limonov learns that Arkan has heard of his presence. Arkan tells him that a group is leaving for Krajina the next day, despite the corridor’s repeated closures. On the journey, the radio reports a coup-like upheaval in the republic and the imprisonment of the defense minister to whom Arkan had recommended Limonov. Posters then appear showing Arkan with a price on his head. The route into Krajina is thus shadowed by a contest over who controls the enclave as well as by the fighting around it.

The account links this upheaval to Slobodan Milošević’s preparations for negotiations. In a deal with his adversary Franjo Tuđman, he is preparing to abandon Krajina to the Croats in exchange for Serbian territory in Bosnia and an end to the embargo. The narrative presents this as a political reshuffling that makes a hard-line figure such as Arkan an obstacle. Yet the consequences do not unfold as a cleanly coordinated plan: delays and short circuits in the information leave Limonov separated from his traveling companions, and local officials pass him from office to office before sending him to a remote garrison.

Military Life and Disappearance

At the garrison, Limonov receives a uniform, the rank of captain, and a room. The rank and room follow a practical rotation: the previous captain was killed by a land mine, and another captain will take the room after him. He is issued a Kalashnikov and assigned a Serbian officer as a guide. When that officer threatens a subordinate’s Croat wife, Limonov is told that the officer’s family had been killed the year before. A few days later, the subordinate kills the officer. The episode makes the local violence intimate and recursive, with past losses invoked to explain present threats and fresh violence following close behind.

Limonov remains in the mountainous region for two months and takes part, by his own account, in guerrilla actions that include village raids, ambushes, and skirmishes. He says that he fired often and saw men fall but could not say whether he had hit them. The narrator raises, without resolving, the possibility that he killed someone. That uncertainty belongs to the book’s account of a conflict in which combat is dangerous but difficult to reconstruct with certainty, especially where witnesses are scarce.

The republic does not survive. The narrative says that one year later it will no longer exist, and gives the possible fates of its inhabitants starkly: dead, imprisoned, or—if fortunate—refugees in Serbia. Its disappearance completes the contrast between the political calculations made over the enclave and the exposure of the people who lived there. For Limonov, the place marks a consequential passage into combat; for its inhabitants, the end of the republic means the loss of the territory on which their lives depended.