The Balkan jigsaw

摘要

It was hard, at first, to work out who had prevailed in the election on April 22nd that was meant to settle the future of the small but strategically placed republic of Montenegro—and perhaps also the fate of the shrivelling, decrepit federation of Yugoslavia. Were the victors those who wanted this rocky but magnificent stretch of Adriatic coastline to become an independent state, or those who wanted Montenegro to stay on as Serbia's last, albeit tiny, partner in a shrunken federation of southern Slavs?