For decades, we have come to accept that nationalism formed the basis of the modern history of the Balkans. In this bold and controversial study, Pavlos Hatzopoulos turns this assumption on its head. Through a ground-breaking examination of the non-nationalist ideologies in the Balkans during the interwar period, Hatzopoulos calls into question the supposedly inherent connection between the Balkans and nationalism and argues that nationalism does not form the sole ordering principle of the modern history of the Balkan region. Focusing on the ideologies of communism, liberal internationalism and agrarianism, Hatzopoulos examines how these interact with nationalist ideology. He demonstrates how non-nationalist theories challenge the nationalist view of the Balkans as the sum of several national spaces. He even questions the nationalist understanding of the very term 'the Balkans'. "The Balkans Beyond Nationalism and Identity" revisits contemporary debates on a region that is still a European crisis point and challenges the nation-centric understanding that permeates it. In proposing a description of 'the Balkans' as a contested political concept, the book argues for a completely fresh interpretation of the region's composition.

The term 'Yugoslav Wars' (or, often, 'the Balkan conflict') refers to a series of wars in the region of former Yugoslavia, which were associated with the break-up of that state. The Yugoslav Wars resulted in an unimaginable number of dead, injured and displaced people. They also had a devastating impact on the economy and on the environment. Most notably, in some of the states which emerged from the conflict, people still to this day cannot peacefully coexist with one another. Beyond the affected region itself, the military conflict also had significant implications for Europe and its member states. It destroyed the illusion that Europe had overcome war. Perhaps these recent wars have given Europe an impetus to draw lessons from them, to find out what really needs to be done to build a peaceful Europe. A particular characteristic of this publication is that it does not settle for a single precise analysis of the reasons for war and for post-war conflicts. Rather, peace efforts and peace treaties are analyzed by focusing on their function of preventing conflicts or reducing their extent. Emphasis is placed on the efforts of national actors as well as on those of actors in civil society to promote peace policies in the international sphere. This collection of articles might, for the first time, clearly display the political challenges of peace in the context of the collapse of Yugoslavia and its subsequent wars. It certainly seeks to illustrate what has been learned and what still needs to be learned for the future.

This book shows how current and future research on the social history of the Balkans can be integrated into a broader European framework. The contributions look at a range of methodological and empirical issues, and the theme that links the various studies is that of the contrasting, yet, at the same time, entangled ideas of the Balkans as a "mental map" and of Southeast Europe as an "historical region." (Series: Studies on South East Europe - Vol. 10)

The tumultuous history of the Balkans has been subject to a plethora of conflicting interpretations, both local and external. In an attempt to help overcome the stereotypes that still pervade Balkan history, Battling over the Balkans concentrates on a set of five principal controversies from the precommunist period with which the region’s history and historiography must contend: the pre-1914 Ottoman and Eastern Christian Orthodox legacies; the post-1918 struggles for state-building; the range of European economic and cultural influences across the interwar period, as opposed to diplomatic or political intervention; the role of violence and paramilitary forces in challenging the interwar political regimes in the region; and the fate of ethnic minorities into and after World War II, particularly Jews, Muslims and Roma. In an attempt to give a voice to eminent local authors, the chapters provide samples of new regional scholarship exploring these contested issues—most of them translated into English for the first time—and are prefaced with historiographical overviews addressing the state of the debate on these specific controversies. These translations help bridge the language barriers that often separate scholarly traditions within Southeast Europe, as well as scholars in Southeast Europe and English-speaking academia. This volume will enable readers to identify common patterns and influences that characterize the writing of history in the region, and will stimulate new transnational and comparative approaches to the history of the Balkans.

This authoritative reference follows the history of conflicts in the Balkan Peninsula from the 19th century through the present day. The Balkan Peninsula, which consists of Albania, Bulgaria, Romania, Moldova, and the former Yugoslavia, resides in the southeastern part of the European continent. Its strategic location as well as its long and bloody history of conflict have helped to define the Balkans' role in global affairs. This singular reference focuses on the events, individuals, organizations, and ideas that have made this region an international player and shaped warfare there for hundreds of years. Historian and author Richard C. Hall traces the sociopolitical history of the area, starting with the early internal conflicts as the Balkan states attempted to break away from the Ottoman Empire to the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand that ignited World War I to the Yugoslav Wars that erupted in the 1990s and the subsequent war crimes still being investigated today. Additional coverage focuses on how these countries continue to play an important role in global affairs and international politics.

Scaling the Balkans puts in conversation several fields that have been traditionally treated as discrete: Balkan studies, Ottoman studies, East European studies, and Habsburg and Russian studies. By looking at the complex interrelationship between countries and regions, demonstrating how different perspectives and different methodological approaches inflect interpretations and conclusions, it insists on the heuristic value of scales. The volume is a collection of published and unpublished essays, dealing with issues of modernism, backwardness, historical legacy, balkanism, post-colonialism and orientalism, nationalism, identity and alterity, society-and nation-building, historical demography and social structure, socialism and communism in memory, and historiography.

Greece and the Balkans explores the cultural relationships between Greece and other Balkan countries in the domains of language, literature, thought, translation, and music, and examines issues of identity and perception among the Balkan peoples themselves. The essays bring together scholars from across a range of disciplines: historians, anthropologists, linguists and musicologists with specialists on literature, translation, the history of ideas and religion. By raising issues of cultural hybridity, and nationalist or pre-nationalist interpretations of culture and history it lays claim to a place in the context of studies on nationalism and post-colonialism. Greece and the Balkans also contributes to a recognition of the Balkans as a site, like some postcolonial ones, where identities have become fused, orientalism and eurocentrism blurred and where religion and modernity clashed and co-existed. By approaching cultural encounters between Greece and the Balkans from a fresh and informed perspective, it makes a substantial contribution to the study of a rather neglected aspect in the history of a region which has suffered in the past from narrow-minded, nationalistic arguments.

After a decade of exclusive nationalism, violence and isolation of the 1990s, the Balkans has seen the emergence of transnational links between the former ethnic foes. Do these new cross-border links herald the era of inter-ethnic reconciliation in place of the politics of ethnic exclusion? Are they a proof of a successful transition from authoritarianism and war to democracy and peace? Drawing on substantial empirical research by regional specialists, Transnationalism in the Balkans provides a sobering insight into the nature of cross-border links in the region and their implications. Several of the authors show how transnational connections in the context of weak states and new borders in the region have been used by transnational actors – be it in the politics, economics and culture -- to undermine a democratic consolidation and keep the practice of exclusive ethnic politics and identities alive. These findings make a strong case to go beyond the region and put forth a critical argument for rethinking the theories of transition to democracy in the post-Communist and post-conflict setting to incorporate a dimension of globalisation. This book was previously published as a special issue of Ethnopolitics.

Intrepid travel historian Justin Marozzi retraces the footsteps of Herodotus through the Mediterranean and Middle East, examining Herodotus's 2,500-year-old observations about the cultures and places he visited and finding echoes of his legacy reverberating to this day. The Way of Herodotus is a lively yet thought-provoking excursion into the world of Herodotus, with the man who invented history ever present, guiding the narrative with his discursive spirit.