Terrorist
Gavrilo Princip, the Assassin Who Ignited World War I
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
"I am not a criminal, because I destroyed that which was evil. I think that I'm good."—Gavrilo Princip, October 23, 1914.
This much we know: On June 28, 1914, a young man stood on a street corner in Sarajevo, aimed a pistol into a stalled car carrying Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, and pulled the trigger. Within a few minutes, the archduke was dead, and Europe would not know peace again for five years. More than 16 million people would die in the fighting that came to be known as World War I.
Little else is known about the young man named Gavrilo Princip. How could a poor student from a tiny Serbian village turn the wheel of history and alter the face of a continent for generations? Henrik Rehr's dark and riveting graphic novel fills the gaps in the historical record and imagines in insightful detail the events that led a boy from Obljaj to become one of history's most significant terrorist.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Witnessing the 9/11 attacks in New York City made author-illustrator Rehr wish "to better understand what drives people to become terrorists," he explains in an afterword. In this he succeeds brilliantly, following Serbian nationalist Gavrilo Princip's long journey toward the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand with penetrating sensitivity, without glorifying his deed. The tale begins in Bosnia, then a poverty-stricken region filled with despair. When Princip, at his brother's dinner table, calls the fear of God a power wielded by the ruling class, his sister-in-law remonstrates. "Talking like that, you'll end up in hell," she says. "I'm a Bosnian Serb," Princip retorts. "I already am." In panels overhung with shadows, Rehr lays out the development of Princip's ideological convictions and contrasts his life with sunny pictures of the Archduke's. Not even a love affair imagined with credible warmth and passion turns Princip from his goal. Just as ably, Rehr follows the train of events that led to the Archduke's vulnerability in Sarajevo. All of these threads combine to form a work of power and force, one that will stay with readers long after they finish it. Ages 13 up.
