Evening star., 1936-08-05
NEW BOOKS
AT RANDOM
BALKAN MONASTERY. BY Stephen
Graham. New York: Frederick A.
Stokes Co,
BY MARGARET GERMOND.

BALKAN MONASTERY. BY stephen
Graham. New York: Frederick A.
Stokes Co.
What was the fate Of the countless
children in Central Europe when, in
1914, invading armies took possession
Of towns and villages in their path, pill
Laying, destroying, driving hordes OF
bewildered human beings from their
homes, separating families and showing
little mercy toward those too aged or
inflrm to join the ranks of the refugees?
Occasionally dispatches in the news COL
umns in this country recount the dra-
matte story of the reunion of members
of families separated and lost to each
other since the early days of the Great
War, and it is likely that such stories
appear more frequently in the news
papers Of those countries in which the
events occur. Many novels based upon
the war have utilized the circumstance
OF long-lOSt individuals; not much has
been made of the opportunity offered
by the plight of the orphans and chill
dren lost or deserted in the confusion
of escape.
Four years Of existence with a group
OF such children is the theme of Mr..
Graham's new novel, in which Desa, a
valiant little Bosnian worthy of the
heritage of her race, is the central figure
Desa is neither orphan, lost nor de-
serted. She is the victim of a jealous
stepmother She is the idol of her father
and her two brothers, but because the
Stepmother wants all of her husbands
devotion DeSa has been sent to Bel
grade to school. When, in the Fall of
1914, enemy armies converge upon Ser
bia from three sides and Belgrade is
ordered evacuated, the children of the
House of st. Helen, in which Desa lives,
are among the last of the population to
leave the threatened city. With these
children are gathered up the orphans
and the lost or deserted children who
swarm the streets because they have no
homes.
More than eight little girls, some older
and many younger than Desa, are moved
by slow and uncertain stages to the
Monastery of st. Roman, which has nei-
ther the equipment to care for so many
children nor enough food to keep them
nourished. And besides the children
there is an old Russian, unable to re-
turn to his own country, who smuggles
the children. Cruelty, privation and
disease mark the early days of their life
at st. Roman but these evils are even
tually overcome with changes in admin
istration and the aptness with which the
children, under Desas leadership, learn
to forage for food. War does not reach
the monastery for so long a time that
hope begins to grow that the enemy will
be crushed before the sacred grounds are
invaded. But war does come, and the
pinch of starvation becomes familiar to
the children, who have created their own
means of hiding from the soldiers when
the monastery is raided and every scrap
of metal and food is seized and borne
away.
How did these children live through
the four years of bloodshed? How did
these and others withstand the hard
those who survived and those who were
taken by enemy troops and installed in
alien lands and homes? Desa is among
the fortunate. Possessed of a greater
courage and more persistent deter
mination than most of her associates,
she eventually is returned to her own
people. But of the others? Mr.. Graham
has essayed, in an intensely human and
vivid story of another side of war, to
give the answers. And these answers
add conviction to the growing belief that
in future wars the front ranks of bat
tling armies should be occupied by the
statesmen, politicians and militariSts
whose thirst for power and dominions is
Unsuitable.