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NEWS STORY: CUP case (fwd)lanclos@GARNET.BERKELEY.EDUMon, 19 Feb 1996 09:56:06 -0800
Here's the second article of two I'm forwarding to the list about the CUP --- Advisers to Publishing House Protest Rejection of Macedonia Book WASHINGTON POST: A SECTION, 02/03/96 Copyright (c) 1996 The Washington Post Co.; Fair use reprint for nonprofit scholarly use only By Fred Barbash Washington Post Foreign Service LONDON, Feb. 2 -- One of the world's most prestigious book publishers confronted a rebellion today among some of its academic advisers for canceling publication of a study about Greece because of fear of reprisals from nationalist extremists there. The manuscript -- "Fields of Wheat, Rivers of Blood" by Anastasia Karakasidou -- is a scholarly study of ethnicity in the Greek province of Macedonia and had been enthusiastically endorsed for publication by the panel of experts to which Cambridge University Press had submitted it. But a spokesman for Cambridge Press said that after consulting, among others, British diplomats in Greece, the publisher decided that the author and the subject were too controversial and could put at risk "life and limb" of Cambridge Press employees in Greece. Three academics -- Cambridge Press editorial board members and manuscript reviewers -- have resigned or disassociated themselves from the publishing house in protest over the decision, first reported this morning in the Guardian newspaper here. A fourth is reportedly threatening to quit the editorial board unless the decision is rescinded. Among the protesting academics was Michael Herzfeld, a Harvard anthropology professor, specialist on Greece and Cambridge Press editorial board member. "From the perspective of academic freedom, this is a serious matter of literary preemptive appeasement," Herzfeld said in an interview. Apart from that, he said he took strong exception to the notion that there was any serious potential for violence from publishing the book, saying the idea reflected ignorance of Greek affairs and represented an "insult" to Greece itself. He said he believes Cambridge Press was acting to protect Cambridge University's commercial interests in Greece, which include English- language book sales, language schools and a flourishing English proficiency examination sponsored by the university. Richard Fisher, a Cambridge University Press spokesman, strenuously denied that. He said while "there was no doubt the manuscript was extremely high quality," Cambridge Press had not formally contracted to publish it. When considering late last year whether to do so, he said, the board of academics that runs Cambridge Press decided that "as responsible employers, the potential risk to life and limb" did not "justify publication." It was "an incredibly difficult decision." Fisher said Cambridge had four or five employees in Greece. "None of us can remember a similar case," said Charles Stewart, a British anthropologist who was on the reviewing panel that recommended publication to Cambridge Press. The Cambridge Press controversy strikes a particularly sensitive chord in Britain because of the plight of British author Salman Rushdie, who still lives in semi-hiding under police protection because his novel "The Satanic Verses" provoked a death sentence from Iranian Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. The very name Macedonia is extremely sensitive in Greece. Macedonia is a region of the Balkans that has been claimed in whole or part by Greece, Bulgaria and Serbia. It was divided after World War I between Greece and the nation that ultimately became Yugoslavia. But in 1991, the Yugoslav republic of Macedonia declared independence, calling itself the Republic of Macedonia. Its population is 61 percent Slavic and 21 percent Albanian. The country borders on the Greek province bearing the same name, and Greece bitterly disputes the right of independent Macedonia to use the name, which it claims exclusively for its own region. Greece, as a matter of policy, has denied the existence of Slavic Macedonian minorities in that region and has sought to "Hellenize" it, linguistically and culturally. As described by Stewart, "Fields of Wheat, Hills of Blood" challenges the Greek position, based in part on interviews with elderly residents of Greek Macedonia who identify themselves and their roots as Slavic. The Greek-born author, Karakasidou, who now teaches at the State University of New York at Stonybrook, received death threats in 1993, reportedly from Greek nationalist extremists, after presenting her research. Stewart said he and others made this known to Cambridge Press when they first reviewed the manuscript a year ago. The company nonetheless moved toward publication, putting the author through conventional academic rigors of rewrite and revision as recommended by Stewart and University of Sussex historian Mark Mazower, also a Cambridge Press manuscript reviewer. Though Fisher said Cambridge Press received no threats as it progressed with the editing, Cambridge's sales representative in Athens consulted the British Embassy in Athens and became concerned, Fisher said. According to a Jan. 12 letter sent to Stewart and others by the Cambridge Press editor in charge of the book, Jessica Kuper, "the senior officers of the Press were in no doubt that the manuscript was of high quality, as attested by the enthusiastic reviews, but, understandably, they judged it necessary to make further inquiries on the security question, for Greek nationalist feelings were running high on the Macedonian question." British officials did not read the manuscript. But, according to a spokesman for the Foreign Office here, "we made it clear that the subject" of Macedonian ethnicity "arouses emotions in Greece and that the author faces problems as a result of her research; that the possibility existed of critical or perhaps violent reaction to the book. We did not say there would be such a reaction." Nor did the British Embassy advise for or against publication. "They did not ask us about publication of the book," said the spokesman. "The embassy faced a difficult question and gave an honest answer." As a result of the decision not to publish, Herzfeld and University of Minnesota professor Stephen Gudeman have resigned from the editorial board of the Cambridge Press's anthropology series. Cambridge professor Jack Goody -- the founder of the series -- has threatened to quit if the decision is not reversed, the Guardian reported this morning. And Mazower said in an interview today that he has told Cambridge Press "I can't have anything more to do with them. I'm a historian" of the Balkans. "Virtually all my work makes someone or the other pretty angry. Most people who work on the Balkans get used to that." Stewart, a lecturer at University College, London, is furious: "To my knowledge there hasn't been any terrorism on account of Macedonia in the 1990s. . . . If anything, Macedonia is progressively being put on the back burner" as an issue in Greece. Last September, Greece and Macedonia agreed to establish diplomatic relations, and Athens reopened its border and hence its ports to the landlocked neighbor. Macedonia's president, Kiro Gligorov, who was seriously injured in a car-bomb blast in October, agreed to change Macedonia's flag and modify its constitution. The issue of Macedonia's name, however, remains to be settled. -----------------------------------
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