This book was inspired by two events that took place in the Yugoslav wars in the 1990s. The first was the murder of Josip Reihl-Kir, a police chief from Osijek in Croatia. As the conflict between Serbs and Croats drifted towards war, Reihl-Kir arranged a number of ceasefires between Serbs and Croats in ethnically mixed areas. He and two companions were shot and killed by a Croat extremist during “one last negotiation” the day before Reihl-Kir was due to be transferred from the area.
The second event occurred early in the Bosnian War. In one locality, the Serb and Moslem commanders were old friends, who tried to keep the conflict “clean” by protecting civilians and respecting the rights of POWs. Tragically, the Moslem commander was badly injured by a landmine, and I don’t know what happened to the two men after that.
I originally planned to write the story of a “good” Bosnian Serb, torn between loyalty to his community and horror at what his fellow Serbs were doing. But I eventually decided an imaginary country would give me more creative freedom.
The idea of making my central character a sporting hero came from something I had observed while living in Thailand in the 1980s, when Dhawee Umponmaha won that country’s first ever Olympic silver medal. The hero’s reception he was given on his return home made a great impression on me. Crowds lined the streets to catch a glimpse of him, and I remember all the country’s political leaders falling over themselves to be photographed next to him.
Ksordia-Akhtaria
This is a very simplified version of Yugoslavia. The Ksords are the Serbs, the Akhtarians are the Croats and the Tatars are the Bosnian Moslems, which is in fact inaccurate as Bosnian Moslems were ethnically and linguistically indistinguishable from Serbs and Croats.
The Akhtarian Rebels
They are based on the Ustaše (“Insurgents”), murderous Croat ultra-nationalists who persuaded the Nazis that the Croats were an offshoot of the Master Race. The Nazis helped them to set up a puppet state in Croatia and Bosnia, and they promptly launched a campaign of genocide against the Serbs in their new republic. Between 1941 and 1945, they butchered at least 270,000 Serbs (possibly many more), expelled 300,000 and forcibly converted 200,000 to Catholicism.
The Great Repression
When Tito’s Communist Partizans took control of Yugoslavia, they extracted bloody revenge on the Ustaše and other anti-Yugoslav ethnic minorities, with more than 30,000 people massacred in the space of a month.
The deportation of the Akhtarians parallels Stalin’s mass deportation of ethnic minorities during World War II, among them the Chechens, who Khrushchev eventually allowed to return home, and the Crimean Tatars, who remained in exile until after the fall of the Soviet Union.
Political leaders
Many are loosely based on real figures, mostly from Yugoslavia in the 1990s, though none of the characterisations are accurate, and they are not intended to be.
Ksords
- Comrade Zikladza – Ivan Stambolic
- Korgay – Slobodan Milosevic, with a dash of Vladimir Meciar
- Alavidza – a composite character loosely based on Franko Simatovic and Radmilo Bogdanovic
- Mingrelsky – loosely based on gangster turned paramilitary warlord Zeljko Raznatovic, popularly known as Arkan
- Bogiani – a composite character partly based on Milan Babic and Milan Martic
- Qipiani – a composite character loosely based on Dragoslav Avramovic and David Lloyd George
Akhtarians
- Eristov – Franjo Tudman
- Sulkavidza – Gojko Susak
- Dawa Tetradza – Josip Reihl-Kir
Tatars
- Yakub Bovin – a composite character very loosely based on Alija Izetbegovic and Haris Silajdic
- Sultanov – Fikret Abdic
The War of the Customs Posts
This is loosely based on the Slovenian War of Independence.
The Onchi’Aketi massacre
This is based on the Vukovar massacre of November 1991, by far the worst massacre of the Croatian War of Independence.
Russian recognition of Akhtarian independence making the spread of the war to Central Kubania almost inevitable
This is based on the view expressed by many (including UN Secretary General Perez de Cuellar) that by pushing for international recognition of Croatia’s independence, German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher made the spread of war to Bosnia more likely.
The Central Kuban independence referendum
The Bosnian independence referendum of February-March 1992, which was boycotted by Serbs and resulted in a 99% vote for independence. The war started a month later, leading to over 100,000 deaths.
If you enjoyed A Long Night of Chaos, read Day of the Long Knives, the final volume of the trilogy.
Ruslan sets out on his most ambitious undertaking, leading a campaign to unseat Ksordia’s strongman ruler, Shakman Korgay.
Ruslan assembles a fractious coalition of rivals and former enemies. But they must confront some very dangerous men, who have so much blood on their hands that they can never allow their grip on power to slip.
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Paul Clark 