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Balkanlar Tarihi
Tarihsel bağlamda bakıldığında, Balkanlar tam olarak tanımlanamayan, ürkütücü bir bölge olarak hafızalara kazınmış ve çoğu zaman olumsuz noktaları ile değerlendirilen, etnik çatışmaların olduğu, her daim yeni çatışmalara gebe olan küçük bir bölge olarak görülmüştür. Balkanlar Tarihi, Balkanları olumlu yönleri ile ele alarak kültürel, tarihsel ve sosyal özellikleri ön plana çıkartıyor ve bölgedeki uyumu bizlere göstermeyi amaçlıyor. Ünlü tarihçi Andrew Wachtel bölgeyi dünyanın en büyük dört medeniyetinin birbiri ardına yerleştiği, karmaşık, dinamik, bazen kolayca alev alan, çok katmanlı yerel bir medeniyet olarak tanımlıyor. Balkanlar, Antik Yunan ve Roma, Bizans İmparatorluğu, Osmanlı İmparatorluğu ve Katolik Avrupa kültürlerinin birbirleriyle karşılaştığı, çatıştığı, bazen de iç içe geçtiği bir bölgedir. Balkan tarihi, yerel halkın bölgeye daha sonra gelen çeşitli medeniyetlerden ödünç aldıkları geleneklerin toplamından oluştuğu için dünyadaki en ilginç ve karmaşık bölgelerden biridir.
- GenresHistoryNonfiction
160 pages, Paperback
First published November 5, 2008
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
March 22, 2017
O sinteză incredibilă a istoriei Balcanilor, o incursiune în trecutul acestei regiuni pestrițe, dar fascinante...
March 5, 2017
O istorie a Balcanilor pentru publicul larg, fără pretenții de a intra în amănunte, o simplă carte de popularizare a științei.
Desigur, este necesară, mai ales pentru publicul din Occident, care știe prea puține despre țări precum Bosnia, Bulgaria, România sau Slovenia. Chiar despre Grecia modernă, Serbia sau Turcia. Autorul trece cronologic din preistorie până în epoca aderării din 2007 la UE a Bulgariei și României, aducând informații generale, dar și inedite.
Cu toate acestea, prea multe erori: dacă redactorul a identificat doar câteva cu privire la istoriei României, iar eu altele, oare câte vor fi fiind cu privire la celelalte țări. Așa se întâmplă dacă scrii generalități despre țări pe care le știi doar de la TV. Rămân la părerea că un istoric nu ar trebui să scrie decât despre ținuturile și istoriile pe care le-a vizitat și cunoscut personal.
Desigur, este necesară, mai ales pentru publicul din Occident, care știe prea puține despre țări precum Bosnia, Bulgaria, România sau Slovenia. Chiar despre Grecia modernă, Serbia sau Turcia. Autorul trece cronologic din preistorie până în epoca aderării din 2007 la UE a Bulgariei și României, aducând informații generale, dar și inedite.
Cu toate acestea, prea multe erori: dacă redactorul a identificat doar câteva cu privire la istoriei României, iar eu altele, oare câte vor fi fiind cu privire la celelalte țări. Așa se întâmplă dacă scrii generalități despre țări pe care le știi doar de la TV. Rămân la părerea că un istoric nu ar trebui să scrie decât despre ținuturile și istoriile pe care le-a vizitat și cunoscut personal.
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February 9, 2016Andrew Watchel’s goal was to write a short introduction to the history of the Balkans, beginning in prehistoric times and ending with the Bosnian conflict. His narrative is organized in a chronological manner over the course of five chapters following an introduction. Instead of repeating a period in history of the region, he seeks to find the elements of diversity in each era in the region as it demonstrates his thesis. Watchel approaches the history of the Balkans from a perspective that aims at the heart of the nationalist discourse of the region by positing that heterogeneity and many cultures are the true nature of the region.
In his first chapter, Watchel discusses the earliest areas of human settlement to the end of the Eastern Roman Empire. This chapter properly focuses on the interactions of the various peoples that came to dominate and contribute in the region. The author highlights the earliest evidence of Minoans, the later Greek and Hellenic influence. Watchel also mentions the role of Thracians as an important people in the region, began through Hellenization, by the Macedonians. It is at the point of King Phillip’s achievements that Watchel demonstrates that while often the Macedonians are seen as being a derivative peoples of Greece, in reality they were there to continue Greek culture, especially in regard to Alexander the Great and his expansion across the known world. The tension of whether or not the Macedonians are truly Greek or not find their origins in the ambivalent attitudes in this era regarding the “authenticity” of their claimed Hellenic identity, however, this claim is anachronistic, projecting admitted modern notions of identity far into the past, presumably well before the modern nationalist notions existed. After the Romans came, political stability arrived in the region, and the various peoples existed in a heterogeneous society. The Romans eventually came to bring a distinctive feature of the Balkans and that is assisting in the promulgation of Christianity, as Emperor Constantine became a supporter of the Church. Here Wachtel makes some errors. He describes the Ecumenical Patriarch as the leader of several national churches; however, this is an explicitly anachronistic definition, and currently refers to a one particular view of the Eastern Orthodox Church in the modern world. Moreover, it dampens his approach to trying to refer to the premodern era as typically heterogeneous and multicultural by suggesting the Orthodox world was divided by nation. He ends the chapter by highlighting how the Slavic invaders to the region converted to Orthodox Christianity as well.
The next chapter looks at the medieval Balkan states other than the Eastern Roman Empire, and Wachtel contrasts the later modern nationalist states with their medieval predecessors by emphasizing that the medieval states were not based on a common language or common religious views and customs, but because of the ambitions of rulers seeking to expand their state. Additionally, these states were generally “byzantine” in practice in that they imitated the socio-political structure of their Roman neighbors, and used their coinage. The author covers the expansion and conflicts of the Balkan states, but chooses to demonstrate that the choice of Christianity (especially Orthodoxy) had much to do with the politics of trying to play Constantinople off against Rome, and gain a level of respect with other kingdoms and empires in much of the known world, because they were Christian. Wachtel’s next example of heterogeneity is that the process of Christianization clearly illustrated a mixture of byzantine and indigenous styles to create something unique yet rooted in multiple histories. Here, the work of Saints Cyril and Methodius bequeathed to the Slavic world an alphabet that became the norm of Slavic writing, mostly in a liturgical context. The author’s choice in emphasis is helpful in showing the reader that Orthodoxy acted as a unifying element in an increasingly politically and ethnically diverse Balkan region.
The arrival of the Ottoman Empire and the incorporation of the former Roman ruled areas saw as many changes as it did see continuity. Wachtel makes a point of explaining that there were few forced conversions to Islam, and that the devshirme became a practice where many Ottoman subjects viewed it as an honor to elevate the status of their sons. This last point is to the author’s detriment in that while it is accurate as he states the situation, it also glosses over the oftentimes harsh reality that did accompany the Christian families. The next point the author highlights is that the cities took on a multicultural face, as cities became administrative centers for Ottoman officials. It is this “cosmopolitan” contrast to the more homogenous countryside that Wachtel identifies as true “Balkan civilization”. Wachtel even concludes it was Ottoman rule over the centuries that brought the right amount of cultural elements to define Balkan civilization. The millet system also helped to codify the religious diversity of the region. Where Islam did not engender many conversions, Christians and Jews were left to their affairs for the most part. In fact, the primary source of identity under the Ottomans stemmed from the religious, and less the ethnic source. Ethnic identity was a primarily local matter, while that of religious was more all-encompassing. Despite the political changes and economic static reality, diversity was not only maintained, but also increased.
The fourth chapter is important where Wachtel explicitly states the alignment of nation and state as it has become the accepted standard in modern times, and developed beginning in the late 1700s, was not identifiable with Balkan life even up until the end of World War I. Over one thousand years of a multiethnic society did not prepare the Balkans for the shift revolutionary ideas brought to the region. Here Wachtel also informs the reader than despite discussion of a “national awakening” for the various peoples, the term is misleading in that until the introduction of revolutionary ideals there was barely a concept of “nation” to be understood. The author underscores the process was an artificial one. Wachtel emphasizes that even In Western Europe where the process of the development of the nation-state was more gradual and organic than in the Balkans it still involved violence and a level of artificial imposition. The difference with the Balkans is that the process was compressed into a shorter of time. This violence was not just with the Ottoman government, but also with other states, or emerging states that usually were competing with the others for the same territory. Tied with the issue of claimed territory was a concept of an identity that often was reserve of the intellectual elite educated in the West. This is in contrast with the peasant who considered his or her identity in a more local fashion. It was one that had been the standard expression of identity for the majority of the Balkan peoples until the injection of Western concepts born from the Enlightenment and nationalism. The successful creation of these new nation-states produced an elite culture consistent with their freshly created identities, but these countries suffered political immaturity and the majority of the populations were illiterate. The reliance on Vienna and other Western locations for elite education, and the inability to attract foreign investment in addition to their territorial disputes plagued the new states. These states were only secured through European arbitration where the Balkans from the nineteenth century onwards became a place where the Great Powers fought diplomatic and political battles to further their goals. In this way, the argument of identity became the basis for the coming of World War I, especially after the Treaty of Berlin in 1878. In the wake of the Great War, the Tsarist Russian Empire disappeared, the Ottoman Empire ended, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire fell apart, ending the power structure that had dominated the Balkans as it had been defined for a century. The war saw the creation of a Serbian dominated Yugoslavia, an emergent nationalist Turkish state formed and in the wake of Greece attempting to take advantage of the Ottoman collapse by major population transfers between Greece and Turkey. Wachtel discusses how despite the slow movement towards homogeneity in the region, and the uprooting of Greeks who had lived in Turkey for over a thousand years, the region remained highly heterogeneous and diverse, because the developing nation-state was an element foreign to the cosmopolitan region.
The fifth chapter details how, according to Wachtel, the post-World War I Balkans demonstrated modernization, secularization, and the destruction of peasant cultures; where the Balkans went from appearing to be an exotic and diverse “third world” location to an integrated European area of homogenous nation-states. The newly formed states following World War I lived under the shadow of the rising fascist threat in Germany and Italy, while the later point, until 1991; they were completely governed by a communist context. The leaders of these countries in the post-World War I era governed in a pre-Great War mindset, which meant they were for the most part unable to successfully navigate the complexities of the emerging twentieth century. Economic policies throughout the Balkans proved difficult to implement as successful as their Western European neighbors, while population transfers from the Great War caused short-term disruptions. Due to Romania’s oil industry, it was one of the few Balkan countries to develop of burgeoning industrial sector, but the global depression compounded the economic issues in a part of the world centered on agriculture. With not enough industrial jobs absorbing the rural surplus of workers, farmlands became ever divided, smaller, and less productive, while political instability moved most of the countries in the region towards operating under some form of dictatorship. World War II brought the Balkans into the war through the Italian and German economic and to a lesser extent, political entanglement. Ethnic tensions flared across southeast Europe, and as in previous centuries, great powers dictated the future of the Balkans. The Yalta Conference in 1945 ceded much of Eastern Europe to the Soviet Union. In Greece the presence of British, and later, American troops, kept the communists from gaining power, which sent Greece into a civil war that ended in 1948. Under Soviet influence, the Balkan states were able to industrialize much faster than previous attempts and literacy increased significantly, while gender relations became more equalized. One of the reasons for success is that communist governments took up the mantle of nationalism where, with the exception of Yugoslavia, national consolidation efforts rendered minority ethnicities second-class citizens. Through education, most of the Balkan countries had successfully minimized the diversity that characterized the Balkans throughout history. Additionally, the political integration of the Eastern bloc ended the Balkans as a “border” region, which historically separated the “East” and “West”. By 1991 communism had fallen apart and democratic regimes took over. Economic standards lowered as political and commercial instability came to the fore. Wachtel notes that most of the countries in the region did not descend into civil conflict due to the process of nationalist homogenization with the exception of Yugoslavia, which retained much of its ethnic diversity. This diversity produced violent conflict in Bosnia, and even later, in what became the controversial state of Kosovo, a breakaway region of Serbia. Wachtel concludes with details of Yugoslavia’s post-war history, and the observation that the traditional multiethnic diversity of the Balkans was lost following the Bosnian conflict in Yugoslavia.
If one follows the themes of diversity and multicultural realities he emphasizes throughout the book, the reader will come to see that Wachtel paints the story of the “Balkans” as one of declining diversity. Unlike some, he remains ambivalent about the introduction of modernity into the “static” Balkans as, on one hand, it sought to improve the economy, living standards, and political freedoms, but on the other hand, the creation of nation-states slowly began to isolate peoples and cultures form one another. Previously, layers of cultures were evident while an assorted variety of peoples, cultures, and religions dominated and generally coexisted peacefully, but modernity brought ethnic conflict and the loss of a multicultural mosaic that predominated in earlier eras. The Roman Empire, even until the fall of the Eastern Rome in 1453 maintained a multiethnic region, even with kingdoms like Serbia and Bulgarian, not only adding to the political map, but also vying for control of the region. The Ottomans only reinforced this aspect by injecting Islam, the millet system, and establishing diverse centers of administration. The period leading up to World War I was one where diversity began to be minimized as intellectuals began to formulate an ethnic consciousness and nation-states formed as tools of Great Power geopolitical conflict. This resulted in World War I, and then post-war Balkan states attempted to modernize, but under fascist influence. The Second World War resulted in communism dominating all but Greece in the Balkans, and it was here that the nationalist program increased in all countries except Yugoslavia. The end of communism resulted in a set of European nation-states Western-oriented and more modern, but without much of its characteristic diversity that Wachtel assigns as the historic standard. While the author does not protest modernization itself, Wachtel is clearly distrustful of the nationalist narrative. He is not a reactionary either, and seems to imply, anachronistically, that the contemporary European values of “diversity” and “multiculturalism” were a staple feature of Balkan life until nationalism destroyed that heterogeneous aspect of what Wachtel assigns as an identity-defining aspect of the character of the Balkans. The one area that suggests anachronism is his seeming implied appraisal of immigrant peoples, especially the Turks. This seems to correspond to some segments of the modern political spectrum that view non-European immigration as a positive addition to diversity. The issue with the implied anachronism is precisely because it is anachronistic, but also because it potentially misrepresents the lived reality of the Balkans. This is not to say the nationalist narrative is any less anachronistic, just the opposite, but by seeming to establish the reader must accept one of the two models of Balkan history and identity, is to ask the reader to choose between either the nationalist discourse or the multicultural standpoint. Brevity prevents the author from being able to address any critique, and is only able to focus on the task of elucidating the pluralistic approach to Balkan history. Despite the clear concerns regarding anachronism, as a non-nationalist narrative about the Balkans summarizing centuries of Balkan life, Wachtel succeeds in the task of producing an introductory narrative of the Balkan’s history.
In his first chapter, Watchel discusses the earliest areas of human settlement to the end of the Eastern Roman Empire. This chapter properly focuses on the interactions of the various peoples that came to dominate and contribute in the region. The author highlights the earliest evidence of Minoans, the later Greek and Hellenic influence. Watchel also mentions the role of Thracians as an important people in the region, began through Hellenization, by the Macedonians. It is at the point of King Phillip’s achievements that Watchel demonstrates that while often the Macedonians are seen as being a derivative peoples of Greece, in reality they were there to continue Greek culture, especially in regard to Alexander the Great and his expansion across the known world. The tension of whether or not the Macedonians are truly Greek or not find their origins in the ambivalent attitudes in this era regarding the “authenticity” of their claimed Hellenic identity, however, this claim is anachronistic, projecting admitted modern notions of identity far into the past, presumably well before the modern nationalist notions existed. After the Romans came, political stability arrived in the region, and the various peoples existed in a heterogeneous society. The Romans eventually came to bring a distinctive feature of the Balkans and that is assisting in the promulgation of Christianity, as Emperor Constantine became a supporter of the Church. Here Wachtel makes some errors. He describes the Ecumenical Patriarch as the leader of several national churches; however, this is an explicitly anachronistic definition, and currently refers to a one particular view of the Eastern Orthodox Church in the modern world. Moreover, it dampens his approach to trying to refer to the premodern era as typically heterogeneous and multicultural by suggesting the Orthodox world was divided by nation. He ends the chapter by highlighting how the Slavic invaders to the region converted to Orthodox Christianity as well.
The next chapter looks at the medieval Balkan states other than the Eastern Roman Empire, and Wachtel contrasts the later modern nationalist states with their medieval predecessors by emphasizing that the medieval states were not based on a common language or common religious views and customs, but because of the ambitions of rulers seeking to expand their state. Additionally, these states were generally “byzantine” in practice in that they imitated the socio-political structure of their Roman neighbors, and used their coinage. The author covers the expansion and conflicts of the Balkan states, but chooses to demonstrate that the choice of Christianity (especially Orthodoxy) had much to do with the politics of trying to play Constantinople off against Rome, and gain a level of respect with other kingdoms and empires in much of the known world, because they were Christian. Wachtel’s next example of heterogeneity is that the process of Christianization clearly illustrated a mixture of byzantine and indigenous styles to create something unique yet rooted in multiple histories. Here, the work of Saints Cyril and Methodius bequeathed to the Slavic world an alphabet that became the norm of Slavic writing, mostly in a liturgical context. The author’s choice in emphasis is helpful in showing the reader that Orthodoxy acted as a unifying element in an increasingly politically and ethnically diverse Balkan region.
The arrival of the Ottoman Empire and the incorporation of the former Roman ruled areas saw as many changes as it did see continuity. Wachtel makes a point of explaining that there were few forced conversions to Islam, and that the devshirme became a practice where many Ottoman subjects viewed it as an honor to elevate the status of their sons. This last point is to the author’s detriment in that while it is accurate as he states the situation, it also glosses over the oftentimes harsh reality that did accompany the Christian families. The next point the author highlights is that the cities took on a multicultural face, as cities became administrative centers for Ottoman officials. It is this “cosmopolitan” contrast to the more homogenous countryside that Wachtel identifies as true “Balkan civilization”. Wachtel even concludes it was Ottoman rule over the centuries that brought the right amount of cultural elements to define Balkan civilization. The millet system also helped to codify the religious diversity of the region. Where Islam did not engender many conversions, Christians and Jews were left to their affairs for the most part. In fact, the primary source of identity under the Ottomans stemmed from the religious, and less the ethnic source. Ethnic identity was a primarily local matter, while that of religious was more all-encompassing. Despite the political changes and economic static reality, diversity was not only maintained, but also increased.
The fourth chapter is important where Wachtel explicitly states the alignment of nation and state as it has become the accepted standard in modern times, and developed beginning in the late 1700s, was not identifiable with Balkan life even up until the end of World War I. Over one thousand years of a multiethnic society did not prepare the Balkans for the shift revolutionary ideas brought to the region. Here Wachtel also informs the reader than despite discussion of a “national awakening” for the various peoples, the term is misleading in that until the introduction of revolutionary ideals there was barely a concept of “nation” to be understood. The author underscores the process was an artificial one. Wachtel emphasizes that even In Western Europe where the process of the development of the nation-state was more gradual and organic than in the Balkans it still involved violence and a level of artificial imposition. The difference with the Balkans is that the process was compressed into a shorter of time. This violence was not just with the Ottoman government, but also with other states, or emerging states that usually were competing with the others for the same territory. Tied with the issue of claimed territory was a concept of an identity that often was reserve of the intellectual elite educated in the West. This is in contrast with the peasant who considered his or her identity in a more local fashion. It was one that had been the standard expression of identity for the majority of the Balkan peoples until the injection of Western concepts born from the Enlightenment and nationalism. The successful creation of these new nation-states produced an elite culture consistent with their freshly created identities, but these countries suffered political immaturity and the majority of the populations were illiterate. The reliance on Vienna and other Western locations for elite education, and the inability to attract foreign investment in addition to their territorial disputes plagued the new states. These states were only secured through European arbitration where the Balkans from the nineteenth century onwards became a place where the Great Powers fought diplomatic and political battles to further their goals. In this way, the argument of identity became the basis for the coming of World War I, especially after the Treaty of Berlin in 1878. In the wake of the Great War, the Tsarist Russian Empire disappeared, the Ottoman Empire ended, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire fell apart, ending the power structure that had dominated the Balkans as it had been defined for a century. The war saw the creation of a Serbian dominated Yugoslavia, an emergent nationalist Turkish state formed and in the wake of Greece attempting to take advantage of the Ottoman collapse by major population transfers between Greece and Turkey. Wachtel discusses how despite the slow movement towards homogeneity in the region, and the uprooting of Greeks who had lived in Turkey for over a thousand years, the region remained highly heterogeneous and diverse, because the developing nation-state was an element foreign to the cosmopolitan region.
The fifth chapter details how, according to Wachtel, the post-World War I Balkans demonstrated modernization, secularization, and the destruction of peasant cultures; where the Balkans went from appearing to be an exotic and diverse “third world” location to an integrated European area of homogenous nation-states. The newly formed states following World War I lived under the shadow of the rising fascist threat in Germany and Italy, while the later point, until 1991; they were completely governed by a communist context. The leaders of these countries in the post-World War I era governed in a pre-Great War mindset, which meant they were for the most part unable to successfully navigate the complexities of the emerging twentieth century. Economic policies throughout the Balkans proved difficult to implement as successful as their Western European neighbors, while population transfers from the Great War caused short-term disruptions. Due to Romania’s oil industry, it was one of the few Balkan countries to develop of burgeoning industrial sector, but the global depression compounded the economic issues in a part of the world centered on agriculture. With not enough industrial jobs absorbing the rural surplus of workers, farmlands became ever divided, smaller, and less productive, while political instability moved most of the countries in the region towards operating under some form of dictatorship. World War II brought the Balkans into the war through the Italian and German economic and to a lesser extent, political entanglement. Ethnic tensions flared across southeast Europe, and as in previous centuries, great powers dictated the future of the Balkans. The Yalta Conference in 1945 ceded much of Eastern Europe to the Soviet Union. In Greece the presence of British, and later, American troops, kept the communists from gaining power, which sent Greece into a civil war that ended in 1948. Under Soviet influence, the Balkan states were able to industrialize much faster than previous attempts and literacy increased significantly, while gender relations became more equalized. One of the reasons for success is that communist governments took up the mantle of nationalism where, with the exception of Yugoslavia, national consolidation efforts rendered minority ethnicities second-class citizens. Through education, most of the Balkan countries had successfully minimized the diversity that characterized the Balkans throughout history. Additionally, the political integration of the Eastern bloc ended the Balkans as a “border” region, which historically separated the “East” and “West”. By 1991 communism had fallen apart and democratic regimes took over. Economic standards lowered as political and commercial instability came to the fore. Wachtel notes that most of the countries in the region did not descend into civil conflict due to the process of nationalist homogenization with the exception of Yugoslavia, which retained much of its ethnic diversity. This diversity produced violent conflict in Bosnia, and even later, in what became the controversial state of Kosovo, a breakaway region of Serbia. Wachtel concludes with details of Yugoslavia’s post-war history, and the observation that the traditional multiethnic diversity of the Balkans was lost following the Bosnian conflict in Yugoslavia.
If one follows the themes of diversity and multicultural realities he emphasizes throughout the book, the reader will come to see that Wachtel paints the story of the “Balkans” as one of declining diversity. Unlike some, he remains ambivalent about the introduction of modernity into the “static” Balkans as, on one hand, it sought to improve the economy, living standards, and political freedoms, but on the other hand, the creation of nation-states slowly began to isolate peoples and cultures form one another. Previously, layers of cultures were evident while an assorted variety of peoples, cultures, and religions dominated and generally coexisted peacefully, but modernity brought ethnic conflict and the loss of a multicultural mosaic that predominated in earlier eras. The Roman Empire, even until the fall of the Eastern Rome in 1453 maintained a multiethnic region, even with kingdoms like Serbia and Bulgarian, not only adding to the political map, but also vying for control of the region. The Ottomans only reinforced this aspect by injecting Islam, the millet system, and establishing diverse centers of administration. The period leading up to World War I was one where diversity began to be minimized as intellectuals began to formulate an ethnic consciousness and nation-states formed as tools of Great Power geopolitical conflict. This resulted in World War I, and then post-war Balkan states attempted to modernize, but under fascist influence. The Second World War resulted in communism dominating all but Greece in the Balkans, and it was here that the nationalist program increased in all countries except Yugoslavia. The end of communism resulted in a set of European nation-states Western-oriented and more modern, but without much of its characteristic diversity that Wachtel assigns as the historic standard. While the author does not protest modernization itself, Wachtel is clearly distrustful of the nationalist narrative. He is not a reactionary either, and seems to imply, anachronistically, that the contemporary European values of “diversity” and “multiculturalism” were a staple feature of Balkan life until nationalism destroyed that heterogeneous aspect of what Wachtel assigns as an identity-defining aspect of the character of the Balkans. The one area that suggests anachronism is his seeming implied appraisal of immigrant peoples, especially the Turks. This seems to correspond to some segments of the modern political spectrum that view non-European immigration as a positive addition to diversity. The issue with the implied anachronism is precisely because it is anachronistic, but also because it potentially misrepresents the lived reality of the Balkans. This is not to say the nationalist narrative is any less anachronistic, just the opposite, but by seeming to establish the reader must accept one of the two models of Balkan history and identity, is to ask the reader to choose between either the nationalist discourse or the multicultural standpoint. Brevity prevents the author from being able to address any critique, and is only able to focus on the task of elucidating the pluralistic approach to Balkan history. Despite the clear concerns regarding anachronism, as a non-nationalist narrative about the Balkans summarizing centuries of Balkan life, Wachtel succeeds in the task of producing an introductory narrative of the Balkan’s history.
Read
September 9, 2024considering that this book started in pre-historical times, its brevity was absolutely insane. Wachtel does make similar comparisons between the historical violence of Central/Western Europe and the irony of stereotyping the Balkans as uniquely violent, but his stance is not as direct or damning as Mazower's (keeping in mind that Mazower's real punch came with his afterword). Wachtel also does not truly show how the Balkans play into a global theater, particularly in relation to its long-held rule as a borderland and contrast to Europe. The complex geopolitical implications of the Cold War-era to the publication of his book is (naturally) extremely condensed, which seems to do a slight disservice to understanding the Balkans in world history.
August 25, 2018
My week in Slovenia made me pick this book up on my flight to Paris. It’s a relatively quick and easy read and great for understanding the big picture of Balkan history. I liked the way he developed an argument about the Balkans being a diverse (ethnically and religiously) crossroads from the time of the Roman conquest until the mid-twentieth century. The book is a great resource for world history teachers who want to integrate the Balkans a bit more into their classes. I definitely got some good individual examples and visual resources. Now back to reading about sugar.
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December 4, 2022I will resort to polemics if anyone asks me about this read
May 13, 2010
Take away: Balkans were, for thousands of years, bastions of peaceful tolerance, not only among "Serbs" "Croats" and "Bosnians"but also with significant Turkish and Spanish Jewish populations all living in relative harmony.
Then the 20th century happened.
Nationalism imported through intellectual youths from Europe taught people to think, "I am a Croat," whereas before they thought, "I'm a peasant," "I'm Dalmatian," or even "I speak Slavic." Through WWII, nationalism (and ethnic cleansing) started to take over in most countries. Strangely enough, Yugoslavia was a shining (relatively) beacon of multinationalism. Wachtel seems to think that the wars in Yugoslavia were sort of an eventuality of the nationalistic wars Greece, Albania and Bulgaria had already experienced. Now that Montenegro and Kosovo are independent, it seems strange to think how much the region has changed, cracked and homogenized so quickly.
Then the 20th century happened.
Nationalism imported through intellectual youths from Europe taught people to think, "I am a Croat," whereas before they thought, "I'm a peasant," "I'm Dalmatian," or even "I speak Slavic." Through WWII, nationalism (and ethnic cleansing) started to take over in most countries. Strangely enough, Yugoslavia was a shining (relatively) beacon of multinationalism. Wachtel seems to think that the wars in Yugoslavia were sort of an eventuality of the nationalistic wars Greece, Albania and Bulgaria had already experienced. Now that Montenegro and Kosovo are independent, it seems strange to think how much the region has changed, cracked and homogenized so quickly.
June 17, 2018
An exceptional little history; a perfect introduction to the region without focusing completely on its negative aspects. From it, I've learned that for centuries the Balkans have thrived with an incredible cultural assimilation, so often forging a middle ground between identities that so many today find incompatible––ethnicity, language, and faith. The region is incredibly diverse and has lived in a fascinating tolerance of its many differences, and yet those same differences--reimagined into the model of Western European nation states--are what caused the troubles it has today. This meeting ground of cultures was never meant to be a heterogenous set of segregated peoples, but a melting pot.
My family on my Dad's side comes from the Balkans (Croatia and Slovenia). This book was a great first step into the exploration of my own heritage.
My family on my Dad's side comes from the Balkans (Croatia and Slovenia). This book was a great first step into the exploration of my own heritage.
August 18, 2018
Short, accessible history of a complex region.
May 14, 2021
Quick and easy read on history of the Balkans from ancient times to early 21st Century. If you want something to orient you in the region, this is a good book to pick up.
April 25, 2022
exceptional. great, concise, intro with enough details to keep you interested and grounded in the context you are learning about
July 6, 2024
Very cursory and quite dry, but does exactly what it says on the tin.
April 6, 2013
Despite being short, this book is slow read because of the condensed history of multiple regions and three religions over mor than a thousand years. But bear with it, because it will disabuse you of simplified misconceptions you may have formed from news reports and books with a more short view of history that refer to long-standing ethic haters and religious intolerance. On the contrary, this author asserts, that hatred and intolerance was incited more recently when the misplaced ideal of nationalism, which arose organically in Western Europe, was artificially imposed on this previously non-nationalistic, intermingled diversity where national boundaries make no sense and require painful migrations of people's to consolidate those of one identity into the same location. This scenario created the concept of unwelcomed minorities within that location, which eventually led to ethnic cleansing. Reading this long sweep of history towards a this outcome left me sad, in the way that reading about the conquest of the Incas or the Sioux or the Congo does. Was it inevitable that Western European 'values' overtake and inflict such pain on other cultures?
September 18, 2020
Got a much better understanding on why contemporary Balkans have has been such a contentious mess - due to being part of the Ottoman then Hapsburg empires, never had the chance to go through the centuries-long process that Western Europe did in nation-building.
March 30, 2013
Good solid history -- nothing really new here if you're familiar with the region, but well-presented and thoughtful. It's really short so it breezes by a lot rather quickly.
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November 7, 2019For me a good primer on this region of the world. The book is only 125 pages long so not comprehensive by a long shot but it left me wanting to learn more so it was worthwhile.
April 29, 2017
It covers many different countries in Balkan from prehistoric till contemporary time. It gives insights as how things become as they are now.
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