The Balkans

Four historians evaluate perceptions of Rome’s eastern successor beyond the piety, icons, bureaucracy and gold of Byzantium.

Talk of a Balkan federation became a hot topic at the end of the Ottoman Empire, eventually dying a death at the dawn of the Cold War. Was Europe’s ‘Little Orient’ destined to fall apart?  

In a divided country, painful memories of the Ottoman era are something that Bulgarians can agree on. 

An intriguing glimpse into the complex politics of the late 19th century Balkans.

The UDBA is probably the least known major espionage agency of the Cold War. It remains influential, despite the break-up of the country it was formed to defend. 

The Independent State of Croatia was founded on 10 April 1941.

The Yugoslav coup of 1941 marked a turning-point in the Second World War. Although the country was quickly overrun by German arms, writes A.W. Palmer, Hitler’s timetable for the invasion of Russia was seriously thrown out.

In the mid-fifteenth century, writes Anthony Bryer, George Kastriota, surnamed Skanderbeg, was acclaimed as a powerful champion of Christianity on the eastern shores of the Adriatic.

Numerous untruths have persisted about Gavrilo Princip, the man who killed Archduke Franz Ferdinand. One of them was used by Austria-Hungary as grounds for its declaration of war against Serbia in 1914.

A.W. Palmer describes how the troubled politics of Serbia played a large part in precipitating the first World War. By a policy of violence and assassination, a group of army conspirators, known as the “Black Hand,” laid a fuse to the Balkan powder-keg.