The Balkans

Abstract

The Balkans have long served as a place of encounters among different peoples, religions, and civilizations, resulting in a rich cultural tapestry and mosaic of nationalities. But the Balkans have also been burdened by a traumatic post-colonial experience; the transition from failed empires to modern nation-states has been accompanied by large-scale political violence that has resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands and the permanent displacement of millions more. This book examines the origins of conflict in the Balkans, focusing on a number of interrelated themes, including the role of nationalism and national ideologies; modernity and state-building; the relationship between relative socio-economic backwardness and violence; and Great Power involvement. Treating the Balkan experiment as an integral part of the history of modern Europe, the book suggests that, when viewed in this comparative framework, political violence and ethnic cleansing were hardly unique to or fundamental characteristics of the Balkans. Political violence stemmed from modernity and the ideology of integral nationalism, employed by states dominated by democratizing and later authoritarian elites which were committed to national homogeneity. The political history of the Balkans since 1878 consists of democratizing states succumbing in the interwar era to dictatorships of the right, which in turn submitted at the end of the Second World War to dictatorships of the left. Throughout these successive periods the Balkan proponents of democratic governance, civil society, and multiculturalism were progressively marginalized. The history of revolution, war, political violence, and ethnic cleansing in the modern Balkans is therefore a narration on the travails of this marginalization.

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