Balkans

The Balkans ( ), also known as the Balkan Peninsula, are a geographic area in southeastern

Europe

with various definitions and meanings, including geopolitical and historical. The region takes its name from the Balkan Mountains that stretch throughout the whole of

Bulgaria

. The Balkan Peninsula is bordered by the

Adriatic Sea

in the northwest, the

Ionian Sea

in the southwest, the

Aegean Sea

in the south, the Turkish Straits in the east, and the

Black Sea

in the northeast. The northern border of the

peninsula

is variously defined. The highest point of the Balkans is Mount Musala, , in the

Rila

mountain range, Bulgaria.

The concept of the Balkan Peninsula was created by the German geographer August Zeune in 1808, who mistakenly considered the Balkan Mountains the dominant mountain system of Southeast Europe spanning from the Adriatic Sea to the Black Sea. The term ''Balkan Peninsula'' was a synonym for Rumelia in the 19th century, the provinces of the Ottoman Empire in

Southeast Europe

. It had a geopolitical rather than a geographical definition, which was further promoted during the creation of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in the early 20th century. The definition of the Balkan Peninsula's natural borders do not coincide with the technical definition of a peninsula; hence modern geographers reject the idea of a Balkan peninsula, while scholars usually discuss the Balkans as a region. The term has acquired a stigmatized and pejorative meaning related to the process of Balkanization, and hence the preferred alternative term used for the region is

Southeast Europe

.

Name

Etymology

The origin of the word ''Balkan'' is obscure; it may be related to Persian ''bālk'' 'mud', and the Turkish suffix ''an'' 'swampy forest' or Persian ''balā-khāna'' 'big high house'. Related words are also found in

Turkic languages

.''Oxford English Dictionary'', 2013
''s.v.''
/ref> The term is stated for the first time in

Hungarian

sources from the 12th century. It was used mainly during the time of the Ottoman Empire. In

modern Turkish

' means 'chain of wooded mountains'.

Historical names and meaning

Classical antiquity and the early Middle Ages

From classical antiquity through the Middle Ages, the Balkan Mountains were called by the local Thracian name ''

Haemus

''. According to Greek mythology, the Thracian king

Haemus

was turned into a mountain by

Zeus

as a punishment and the mountain has remained with his name. A reverse name scheme has also been suggested. D. Dechev considers that Haemus (Αἷμος) is derived from a Thracian word ''*saimon'', 'mountain ridge'. A third possibility is that "Haemus" () derives from the Greek word "haima" () meaning 'blood'. The myth relates to a fight between

Zeus

and the monster/titan Typhon. Zeus injured Typhon with a thunder bolt and Typhon's blood fell on the mountains, from which they got their name.

Late Middle Ages and Ottoman period

The earliest mention of the name appears in an early 14th-century Arab map, in which the Haemus mountains are referred to as ''Balkan''. The first attested time the name "Balkan" was used in the West for the mountain range in

Bulgaria

was in a letter sent in 1490 to Pope Innocent VIII by Buonaccorsi Callimaco, an Italian humanist, writer and diplomat. The Ottomans first mention it in a document dated from 1565. There has been no other documented usage of the word to refer to the region before that, although other Turkic tribes had already settled in or were passing through the region. There is also a claim about an earlier Bulgar Turkic origin of the word popular in Bulgaria, however it is only an unscholarly assertion. The word was used by the Ottomans in Rumelia in its general meaning of mountain, as in ''Kod̲j̲a-Balkan'', ''Čatal-Balkan'', and ''Ungurus-Balkani̊'', but especially it was applied to the Haemus mountain. The name is still preserved in

Central Asia

with the Balkan Daglary (Balkan Mountains) and the Balkan Province of

Turkmenistan

. English traveler John Morritt introduced this term into the English literature at the end of the 18th-century, and other authors started applying the name to the wider area between the Adriatic and the Black Sea. The concept of the "Balkans" was created by the German geographer August Zeune in 1808, who mistakenly considered it as the dominant central mountain system of Southeast Europe spanning from the Adriatic Sea to the Black Sea. During the 1820s, "Balkan became the preferred although not yet exclusive term alongside Haemus among British travelers... Among Russian travelers not so burdened by classical toponymy, Balkan was the preferred term".

Evolution of meaning in 19th and 20th century

The term was not commonly used in geographical literature until the mid-19th century because already then scientists like

Carl Ritter

warned that only the part South of the Balkan Mountains can be considered as a peninsula and considered it to be renamed as "Greek peninsula". Other prominent geographers who didn't agree with Zeune were Hermann Wagner,

Theobald Fischer

, Marion Newbigin,

Albrecht Penck

, while Austrian diplomat Johann Georg von Hahn in 1869 for the same territory used the term ''Südostereuropäische Halbinsel'' ("Southeasterneuropean peninsula"). Another reason it was not commonly accepted as the definition of then European Turkey had a similar land extent. However, after the Congress of Berlin (1878) there was a political need for a new term and gradually "the Balkans" was revitalized, but in the maps, the northern border was in Serbia and Montenegro without Greece (it only depicted the Ottoman occupied parts of Europe), while Yugoslavian maps also included Croatia and Bosnia. The term Balkan Peninsula was a synonym for European Turkey, the political borders of former Ottoman Empire provinces.

The usage of the term changed in the very end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century when was embraced by Serbian geographers, most prominently by

Jovan Cvijić

. It was done with political reasoning as affirmation for Serbian nationalism on the whole territory of the South Slavs, and also included anthropological and ethnological studies of the South Slavs through which were claimed various nationalistic and racialist theories. Through such policies and Yugoslavian maps the term was elevated to the modern status of a geographical region. The term acquired political nationalistic connotations far from its initial geographic meaning, arising from political changes from the late 19th century to the creation of post–

World War I

Yugoslavia

(initially the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes in 1918). After the dissolution of Yugoslavia beginning in June 1991, the term "Balkans" acquired a negative political meaning, especially in Croatia and Slovenia, as well in worldwide casual usage for war conflicts and fragmentation of territory (see Balkanization).

Southeast Europe

In part due to the historical and political connotations of the term "Balkans", especially since the military conflicts of the 1990s in

Yugoslavia

in the western half of the region, the term "

Southeast Europe

" is becoming increasingly popular. A

European Union

initiative of 1999 is called the ''Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe'', and the online newspaper ''Balkan Times'' renamed itself ''Southeast European Times'' in 2003.

Current

In other languages of the region, the region is known as:
* Slavic languages:
**

Bulgarian

and mk, Балкански Полуостров, transliterated: '
** Montenegrin and sr, Балканско полуострво; Balkansko poluostrvo
** bs, Balkansko poluostrvo; Балканско полуострво; Balkanski poluotok
** hr, Balkanski poluotok
** sl, Balkanski polotok
* Romance languages:
**Romanian: ''Peninsula Balcanică''
* Turkic Languages:
** tr, Balkan Yarımadası or ''Balkanlar''
* Other languages:
** sq, Gadishulli Ballkanik and '
** el, Βαλκανική χερσόνησος, transliterated: '

Definitions and boundaries

Balkan Peninsula

The Balkan Peninsula is bounded by the

Adriatic Sea

to the west, the Mediterranean Sea (including the

Ionian

and

Aegean

seas) and the Marmara Sea to the south and the

Black Sea

to the east. Its northern boundary is often given as the

Danube

,

Sava

and

Kupa

Rivers. The Balkan Peninsula has a combined area of about (slightly smaller than

Spain

). It is more or less identical to the region known as

Southeast Europe

.

From 1920 until World War II, Italy included

Istria

and some

Dalmatia

n areas (like ''Zara'', today's

Zadar

) that are within the general definition of the Balkan Peninsula. The current territory of Italy includes only the small area around

Trieste

inside the Balkan Peninsula. However, the regions of Trieste and Istria are not usually considered part of the Balkans by Italian geographers, due to their definition of the Balkans that limits its western border to the Kupa River.Istituto Geografico De Agostini, ''L'Enciclopedia Geografica – Vol. I – Italia'', 2004, Ed. De Agostini p. 78

Share of total area in brackets within the Balkan Peninsula by country, by the

Danube

–

Sava

definition, with

Bulgaria

and

Greece

occupying almost the half of the territory of the Balkan Peninsula, with around 23% of the total area each:

Entirely within the Balkan Peninsula:
* : 28,749 km² (100% of total land)
* : 51,180 km² (100%)
* : 110,993.6/ according to other sources 111,002 km² (100%)
* : 10,908 km² (100%)
* : 13,810 km² (100%)
* : 25,713 km² (100%)

Mostly or partially within the Balkan Peninsula:
* ( southern mainland): 24,013 km² (46%)Geographical horizon (Scientific and Professional magazine of the Croatian Geographical Society), article; ''On the north border and confine of the Balkan Peninsula'', No1/2008, year LIV, , pp. 30–33
* (mainland): 110,496 km² (83.7%)/ according to other sources 106,247 km² (80.5%)/ 126,023 km² including islands adjacent to the

Balkan Peninsula

(95.5%)
* (

Trieste

and

Monfalcone

): 200 km² (0.1%)
* ( mainland Dobruja): 11,000 km² (5%)
* (Central Serbia) 51,000 km² (65%)
* ( southwestern part): 5,000 km² (25%)
* ( European part): 23,764 km² (3%)

Balkans

The term "the Balkans" is used more generally for the region; it includes states in the region, which may extend beyond the peninsula, and is not defined by the geography of the peninsula itself.

Historians state the Balkans comprise

Albania

,

Bosnia and Herzegovina

,

Bulgaria

,

Croatia

,

Greece

,

Kosovo

,

Montenegro

, North Macedonia,

Romania

,

Serbia

, and

Slovenia

. Its total area is usually given as and the population as 59,297,000 (est. 2002). Italy, although having a small part of its territory in the Balkan Peninsula, is not included in the term "the Balkans".

The term

Southeast Europe

is also used for the region, with various definitions. Individual Balkan states can also be considered part of other regions, including

Southern Europe

,

Eastern Europe

and

Central Europe

. Turkey, often including its European territory, is also included in

Western

or Southwestern Asia.

Western Balkans

''Western Balkans'' is a political neologism coined to refer to Albania and the territory of the former

Yugoslavia

, except

Slovenia

, since the early 1990s. The region of the ''Western Balkans'', a coinage exclusively used in Pan-European parlance, roughly corresponds to the

Dinaric Alps

territory.

The institutions of the

European Union

have generally used the term "Western Balkans" to mean the Balkan area that includes countries that are not members of the European Union, while others refer to the geographical aspects.
Each of these countries aims to be part of the future enlargement of the European Union and reach democracy and transmission scores but, until then, they will be strongly connected with the pre-EU waiting program CEFTA. Croatia, considered part of the Western Balkans, joined the EU in July 2013.

Criticism of the geographical definition

The term is criticized for having a geopolitical, rather than a geographical meaning and definition, as a multiethnic and political area in the southeastern part of Europe. The geographical term of a

peninsula

defines that the water border must be longer than land, with the land side being the shortest in the triangle, but that is not the case with the Balkan Peninsula. Both Eastern and Western water cathetus from

Odessa

to

Cape Matapan

(ca. 1230–1350 km) and from

Trieste

to Cape Matapan (ca. 1270–1285 km) are shorter than land cathetus from Trieste to Odessa (ca. 1330–1365 km). The land has a too wide line connected to the continent to be technically proclaimed as a peninsula -

Szczecin

(920 km) and

Rostock

(950 km) at the

Baltic Sea

are closer to Trieste than Odessa yet it is not considered as another European peninsula. Since the late 19th and early 20th-century literature is not known where is exactly the northern border between the peninsula and the continent, with an issue, whether the rivers are suitable for its definition. In the studies the Balkans natural borders, especially the northern border, are often avoided to be addressed, considered as a "fastidious problem" by André Blanc in ''Geography of the Balkans'' (1965), while John Lampe and Marvin Jackman in ''Balkan Economic History'' (1971) noted that "modern geographers seem agreed in rejecting the old idea of a Balkan Peninsula". Another issue is the name because the Balkan Mountains which are mostly located in Northern Bulgaria are not dominating the region by length and area like the

Dinaric Alps

. An eventual Balkan peninsula can be considered a territory South of the Balkan Mountains, with a possible name "Greek-Albanian Peninsula." The term influenced the meaning of

Southeast Europe

which again is not properly defined by geographical factors yet historical borders of the Balkans.

Croatian geographers and academics are highly critical of inclusion of Croatia within the broad geographical, social-political and historical context of the Balkans, while the neologism Western Balkans is perceived as a humiliation of Croatia by the European political powers. According to M. S. Altić, the term has two different meanings, "geographical, ultimately undefined, and cultural, extremely negative, and recently strongly motivated by the contemporary political context". In 2018, President of Croatia Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović stated that the use of the term "Western Balkans" should be avoided because it does not imply only a geographic area, but also negative connotations, and instead must be perceived as and called Southeast Europe because it is part of Europe.

As the Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek put it,

Nature and natural resources

Most of the area is covered by mountain ranges running from the northwest to southeast. The main ranges are the Balkan mountains (Stara Planina in

Bulgarian language

), running from the

Black Sea

coast in

Bulgaria

to the border with

Serbia

, the

Rila

- Rhodope massif in southern Bulgaria, the

Dinaric Alps

in

Bosnia and Herzegovina

,

Croatia

and

Montenegro

, the

Korab

-

Šar

mountains which spreads from

Kosovo

to

Albania

and North Macedonia, and the Pindus range, spanning from southern Albania into central Greece and the

Albanian Alps

, and the Alps at the northwestern border. The highest mountain of the region is

Rila

in Bulgaria, with

Musala

at 2,925 m, second being Mount Olympus in Greece, with

Mytikas

at 2,917 m, and

Pirin

mountain with

Vihren

, also in Bulgaria, being the third at 2915 m. The

karst

field or

polje

is a common feature of the landscape.

On the

Adriatic

and

Aegean

coasts the climate is Mediterranean, on the Black Sea coast the climate is humid subtropical and oceanic, and inland it is humid continental. In the northern part of the peninsula and on the mountains, winters are frosty and snowy, while summers are hot and dry. In the southern part winters are milder. The humid continental climate is predominant in Bosnia and Herzegovina, northern Croatia, Bulgaria,

Kosovo

, northern Montenegro, the Republic of North Macedonia, the interior of Albania and

Serbia

, while the other, less common climates, the humid subtropical and oceanic climates, are seen on the Black Sea coast of Bulgaria and Balkan Turkey (European Turkey); and the Mediterranean climate is seen on the coast of Albania, the coast of Croatia, Greece, southern Montenegro and the Aegean coast of Balkan Turkey (European Turkey).

Over the centuries forests have been cut down and replaced with bush. In the southern part and on the coast there is

evergreen

vegetation. Inland there are woods typical of Central Europe (

oak

and

beech

, and in the mountains,

spruce

,

fir

and

pine

). The

tree line

in the mountains lies at the height of 1800–2300 m. The land provides

habitat

s for numerous endemic species, including extraordinarily abundant insects and reptiles that serve as food for a variety of birds of prey and rare

vulture

s.

The soils are generally poor, except on the

plain

s, where areas with natural grass, fertile soils and warm summers provide an opportunity for tillage. Elsewhere, land cultivation is mostly unsuccessful because of the mountains, hot summers and poor soils, although certain cultures such as

olive

and grape flourish.

Resources of energy are scarce, except in

Kosovo

, where considerable

coal

,

lead

,

zinc

,

chromium

and

silver

deposits are located. Other deposits of

coal

, especially in Bulgaria, Serbia and Bosnia, also exist.

Lignite

deposits are widespread in Greece.

Petroleum

scarce reserves exist in Greece, Serbia and Albania. Natural gas deposits are scarce. Hydropower is in wide use, from over 1,000 dams. The often relentless bora wind is also being harnessed for power generation.

Metal ores are more usual than other raw materials. Iron ore is rare, but in some countries there is a considerable amount of copper, zinc, tin, chromite, manganese, magnesite and bauxite. Some metals are exported.

History and geopolitical significance

Antiquity

The Balkan region was the first area in Europe to experience the arrival of farming cultures in the Neolithic era. The Balkans have been inhabited since the Paleolithic and are the route by which farming from the Middle East spread to

Europe

during the Neolithic (7th millennium BC). The practices of growing grain and raising livestock arrived in the Balkans from the Fertile Crescent by way of Anatolia and spread west and north into Central Europe, particularly through Pannonia. Two early culture-complexes have developed in the region, Starčevo culture and Vinča culture. The Balkans are also the location of the first advanced civilizations. Vinča culture developed a form of proto-writing before the Sumerians and Minoans, known as the Old European script, while the bulk of the symbols had been created in the period between 4500 and 4000 BC, with the ones on the Tărtăria clay tablets even dating back to around 5300 BC.

The identity of the Balkans is dominated by its geographical position; historically the area was known as a crossroads of cultures. It has been a juncture between the Latin and Greek language, Greek bodies of the Roman Empire, the destination of a massive influx of pagan Bulgars and Slavs, an area where Eastern Orthodox Church, Orthodox and Catholic Christianity met, as well as the meeting point between Islam and Christianity.

In pre-classical and classical antiquity, this region was home to Greeks, Illyrians, Paeonians, Thracians, Dacians, and other ancient groups. The Achaemenid Empire, Achaemenid Persian Empire incorporated parts of the Balkans comprising Macedonia (region), Macedonia, Thrace,

Bulgaria

, and the

Black Sea

coastal region of

Romania

between the late 6th and the first half of the 5th-century BC into its territories. Later the Roman Empire conquered most of the region and spread Roman culture and the Latin language, but significant parts still remained under Ancient Greece, classical Greek influence. The Roman Empire, Romans considered the Rhodope Mountains to be the northern limit of the Peninsula of Haemus and the same limit applied approximately to the border between Greek and Latin use in the region (later called the Jireček Line). However large spaces south of Jireček Line were and are inhabited by Vlachs (Aromanians), the Romance-speaking heirs of Roman Empire. The Bulgars and Southern Slavs, Slavs arrived in the 6th-century and began assimilating and displacing already-assimilated (through Romanization and Hellenization) older inhabitants of the northern and central Balkans, forming the Bulgarian Empire. During the Middle Ages, the Balkans became the stage for a series of wars between the Byzantine Empire, Byzantine Roman and the Bulgarian Empire, Bulgarian Empires.

Early modern period

By the end of the 16th-century, the Ottoman Empire had become the controlling force in the region after expanding from Anatolia through Thrace to the Balkans. Many people in the Balkans place their greatest folk heroes in the era of either the onslaught or the retreat of the Ottoman Empire. As examples, for Greeks, Constantine XI Palaiologos and Kolokotronis; and for Serbs, Miloš Obilić and Lazar Hrebeljanović, Tzar Lazar; for Montenegrins (ethnic group), Montenegrins, Đurađ I Balšić and Ivan Crnojević; for Albanians, George Kastrioti Skanderbeg; for ethnic Macedonians, Nikola KarevConsidered a Bulgarian in Bulgaria and Goce Delčev; for Bulgarians, Vasil Levski, Georgi Sava Rakovski and Hristo Botev and for Croats, Nikola Šubić Zrinjski.

In the past several centuries, because of the frequent Ottoman wars in Europe fought in and around the Balkans and the comparative Ottoman isolation from the mainstream of economic advance (reflecting the shift of Europe's commercial and political centre of gravity towards the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic), the Balkans have been the least developed part of Europe. According to Halil İnalcık, "The population of the Balkans, according to one estimate, Population decline, fell from a high of 8 million in the late 16th-century to only 3 million by the mid-eighteenth. This estimate is based on Ottoman documentary evidence."

Most of the Balkan nation-states emerged during the 19th and early 20th centuries as they gained independence from the Ottoman Empire or the Austro-Hungarian empire: Greece in 1821, Serbia, and Montenegro in 1878, Romania in 1881, Bulgaria in 1908 and Albania in 1912.

Recent history

World Wars

In 1912–1913 the First Balkan War broke out when the nation-states of Kingdom of Bulgaria, Bulgaria, Kingdom of Serbia, Serbia, Kingdom of Greece (Glücksburg), Greece and Kingdom of Montenegro, Montenegro united in an Balkan League, alliance against the Ottoman Empire. As a result of the war, almost all remaining European territories of the Ottoman Empire were captured and partitioned among the allies. Ensuing events also led to the creation of an independent

Albania

n state. Bulgaria insisted on its status quo territorial integrity, divided and shared by the Great Powers next to the Russo-Turkish War (1877–78) in other boundaries and on the pre-war Bulgarian-Serbian agreement. Bulgaria was provoked by the backstage deals between its former allies, Serbia and Greece, on the allocation of the spoils at the end of the First Balkan War. At the time, Bulgaria was fighting at the main Thracian Front. Bulgaria marks the beginning of Second Balkan War when it attacked them. The Serbs and the Greeks repulsed single attacks, but when the Greek army invaded Bulgaria together with an unprovoked Romanian intervention in the back, Bulgaria collapsed. The Ottoman Empire used the opportunity to recapture Eastern Thrace, establishing its new western borders that still stand today as part of modern Turkey.

The First World War was sparked in the Balkans in 1914 when members of Young Bosnia, a revolutionary organization with predominantly Serb and pro-Yugoslav members, assassination in Sarajevo, assassinated the Austro-Hungarian heir Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria in Bosnia and Herzegovina's capital, Sarajevo. That caused a war between Austria-Hungary and Serbia, which—through the existing Allies of World War I, chains of alliances—led to the First World War. The Ottoman Empire soon joined the Central Powers becoming one of the three empires participating in that alliance. The next year Bulgaria joined the Central Powers attacking Serbia, which was successfully fighting Austro-Hungary to the north for a year. That led to Serbia's defeat and the intervention of the Allies of World War I, Entente in the Balkans which sent an expeditionary force to establish a new Macedonian front, front, the third one of that war, which soon also became static. The participation of Greece in the war three years later, in 1918, on the part of the Entente finally altered the balance between the opponents leading to the collapse of the common German-Bulgarian front there, which caused the exit of Bulgaria from the war, and in turn, the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, ending the First World War.

With the start of the Second World War, all Balkan countries, with the exception of Greece, were allies of Nazi Germany, having bilateral military agreements or being part of the Axis Pact. Kingdom of Italy, Fascist Italy expanded the war in the Balkans by using its protectorate Albania to Greco-Italian War, invade Greece. After repelling the attack, the Greeks counterattacked, invading Italy-held Albania and causing Nazi Germany's intervention in the Balkans to help its ally. Days before the German invasion, a successful coup d'état in Belgrade by neutral military personnel seized power.

Although the new government reaffirmed Serbia's intentions to fulfil its obligations as a member of the Axis, Germany, with Bulgaria, invaded both Greece and Yugoslavia. Yugoslavia immediately disintegrated when those loyal to the Serbian King and the Croatian units mutinied. Greece resisted, but, after two months of fighting, collapsed and was occupied. The two countries were partitioned between the three Axis allies, Bulgaria, Germany and Italy, and the Independent State of Croatia, a puppet state of Italy and Germany.

During the occupation, the population suffered considerable hardship due to repression and starvation, to which the population reacted by creating a mass resistance movement. Together with the early and extremely heavy winter of that year (which caused hundreds of thousands of deaths among the poorly fed population), the German invasion had disastrous effects in the timetable of the Operation Barbarossa, planned invasion in Russia causing a significant delay, which had major consequences during the course of the war.

Finally, at the end of 1944, the Soviets entered Romania and Bulgaria forcing the Germans out of the Balkans. They left behind a region largely ruined as a result of wartime exploitation.

Cold War

During the Cold War, most of the countries on the Balkans were governed by communist governments. Greece became the first battleground of the emerging Cold War. The Truman Doctrine was the US response to the Greek Civil War, civil war, which raged from 1944 to 1949. This civil war, unleashed by the Communist Party of Greece, backed by communist volunteers from neighboring countries (Albania, Bulgaria and Yugoslavia), led to massive American assistance for the non-communist Greek government. With this backing, Greece managed to defeat the partisans and, ultimately, remained the only non-communist country in the region.

However, despite being under communist governments, Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Yugoslavia (1948) and People's Socialist Republic of Albania, Albania (1961) fell out with the Soviet Union. Yugoslavia, led by Marshal Josip Broz Tito (1892–1980), first propped up then rejected the idea of merging with

Bulgaria

and instead sought closer relations with the West, later even spearheaded, together with India and Egypt the Non-Aligned Movement. Albania on the other hand gravitated toward People's Republic of China, Communist China, later adopting an isolationism, isolationist position.

As the only non-communist countries,

Greece

and Turkey were (and still are) part of NATO composing the southeastern wing of the alliance.

Post–Cold War

In the 1990s, the transition of the regions' ex-Eastern bloc countries towards democratic free-market societies went peacefully. While in the non-aligned

Yugoslavia

, Yugoslav Wars, Wars between the former Yugoslav republics broke out after Slovenia and Croatia held free elections and their people voted for independence on their respective countries' referenda. Serbia, in turn, declared the dissolution of the union as unconstitutional and the Yugoslav People's Army, Yugoslavian army unsuccessfully tried to maintain the status quo. Slovenia and Croatia declared independence on 25 June 1991, followed by the Ten-Day War in Slovenia. Till October 1991, the Army withdrew from Slovenia, and in Croatia, the Croatian War of Independence would continue Operation Storm, until 1995. In the ensuing 10 years armed confrontation, gradually all the other Republics declared independence, with Bosnian War, Bosnia being the most affected by the fighting. The long-lasting wars resulted in a United Nations intervention and NATO intervention in Bosnia, NATO ground and air forces 1995 NATO bombing campaign in Bosnia and Herzegovina, took action against Serb forces in Bosnia and Herzegovina and 1999 NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, Serbia.

From the dissolution of Yugoslavia six republics achieved international recognition as sovereign republics, but these are traditionally included in Balkans:

Slovenia

,

Croatia

,

Bosnia and Herzegovina

, North Macedonia,

Montenegro

and

Serbia

. In 2008, while under UN administration, Kosovo 2008 Kosovo declaration of independence, declared independence (according to the official Serbian policy, Kosovo is still an internal autonomous region). In July 2010, the International Court of Justice, ruled that the declaration of independence was legal. Most UN member states recognise Kosovo. After the end of the wars a Overthrow of Slobodan Milošević, revolution broke in Serbia and Slobodan Milošević, the Serbian communist leader (elected president between 1989 and 2000), was overthrown and handed for a trial to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, International Criminal Tribunal for crimes against the International Humanitarian Law during the Yugoslav wars. Milošević died of a heart attack in 2006 before a verdict could have been released. Ιn 2001 an Insurgency in the Republic of Macedonia, Albanian uprising in North Macedonia forced the country to give local autonomy to the Albanians in Macedonia, ethnic Albanians in the areas where they predominate.

With the dissolution of

Yugoslavia

, an issue emerged over the name under which the former (federated) republic of Macedonia would internationally be recognized, between the new country and Greece. Being the Macedonia (region), Macedonian part of Yugoslavia (see Vardar Macedonia), the federated Republic under the Yugoslav identity had the name Socialist Republic of Macedonia, Republic of Macedonia on which it declared its sovereignty in 1991. Greece, having a large region (see Macedonia (Greece), Macedonia) also under the same name opposed to the usage of this name as an indication of a nationality. The Macedonia naming dispute, issue was resolved under UN mediation and the Prespa agreement was reached, which saw the country's renaming into North Macedonia.

Balkan countries control the direct European route, land routes between Western Europe and South-West Asia (Asia Minor and the Middle East). Since 2000, all Balkan countries are friendly towards the EU and the US.

Greece

has been a member of the

European Union

since 1981, while

Slovenia

is a member since 2004,

Bulgaria

and

Romania

are members since 2007, and

Croatia

is a member since 2013. In 2005, the European Union decided to start accession negotiations with candidate countries; Turkey, and North Macedonia were accepted as candidates for EU membership. In 2012, Montenegro started Accession of Montenegro to the European Union, accession negotiations with the EU. In 2014,

Albania

is an Accession of Albania to the European Union, official candidate for accession to the EU. In 2015,

Serbia

was expected to start Accession of Serbia to the European Union, accession negotiations with the EU, however this process has been stalled over the recognition of

Kosovo

as an independent state by existing EU member states.

Greece

and Turkey have been NATO members since 1952. In March 2004,

Bulgaria

,

Romania

and

Slovenia

have become members of NATO. As of April 2009,

Albania

and

Croatia

are members of NATO.

Montenegro

joined in June 2017.

All other countries have expressed a desire to join the EU or NATO at some point in the future.

Politics and economy

Currently, all of the states are republics, but until World War II all countries were monarchies. Most of the republics are Parliamentary republic, parliamentary, excluding Romania and Bosnia which are semi-presidential system, semi-presidential. All the states have open economy, open market economy, market economies, most of which are in the upper-middle-income range ($4,000–12,000 p.c.), except

Croatia

,

Romania

,

Greece

and

Slovenia

that have High income economy, high income economies (over $12,000 p.c.), and are classified with very high Human Development Index, HDI, along with Bulgaria, in contrast to the remaining states, which are classified with high HDI. The states from the former Eastern Bloc that formerly had planned economy system and Turkey mark gradual economic growth each year, only the economy of Greece drops for 2012 and meanwhile, it was expected to grow in 2013. The Gross domestic product (Purchasing power parity) per capita is highest in Slovenia (over $36,000), followed by Greece (over $30,000), Croatia, Bulgaria and Romania (over $23,000), Turkey, Montenegro, Serbia, North Macedonia ($10,000–15,000) and Bosnia, Albania and Kosovo (below $10,000). The Gini coefficient, which indicates the level of difference by monetary welfare of the layers, is on the second level at the highest monetary equality in Albania,

Bulgaria

and Serbia, on the third level in Greece, Montenegro and Romania, on the fourth level in North Macedonia, on the fifth level in Turkey, and the most unequal by Gini coefficient is Bosnia at the eighth level which is the penultimate level and one of the highest in the world. The unemployment is lowest in Romania (below 5%), followed by Bulgaria, Serbia (5–10%), Albania, Turkey (10–15%), Greece, Bosnia, Montenegro (15–20%), North Macedonia (over 20%) and Kosovo (over 25%).
* On political, social and economic criteria the divisions are as follows:
** Territories Member state of the European Union, members of the

European Union

: Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Romania and Slovenia
** Territories currently in Future enlargement of the European Union#Current agenda, negotiation process for EU membership: Albania, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Turkey
** Territories with "Future enlargement of the European Union#Current agenda, potential candidates" status for EU membership: Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo
* On border control and trade criteria the divisions are as follows:
** Territories in the Schengen Area: Greece and Slovenia
** Territories that are legally bound to join the Schengen Area: Bulgaria, Croatia and Romania
** Territories in a European Union Customs Union, customs union with the EU: Turkey
** Territories members of the Central European Free Trade Agreement: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia.
* On currency criteria, the divisions are as follows:
** Territories members of the Eurozone: Greece and Slovenia
** Territories using the Euro without authorization by the EU: Kosovo and Montenegro
** Territories using national currencies and are Enlargement of the eurozone, candidates for the Eurozone: Bulgaria (Bulgarian lev, lev), Croatia (Croatian kuna, kuna), Romania (Romanian leu, leu)
** Territories using national currencies: Albania (Albanian lek, lek), Bosnia and Herzegovina (Bosnia and Herzegovina convertible mark, convertible mark), North Macedonia (Macedonian denar, denar), Serbia (Serbian dinar, dinar) and Turkey (Turkish lira, lira).
* On military criteria the divisions are as follows:
** Member states of NATO, Member territories of NATO: Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Romania, Slovenia and Turkey
** Member territories of the Partnership for Peace with Individual Partnership Action Plan and Membership Action Plan for joining NATO: Bosnia and Herzegovina
** Member territories of the Partnership for Peace: Serbia
* On the recent political, social and economic criteria there are two groups of countries:
** Former communist territories: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Romania, Serbia and Slovenia
** Capitalist and aligned to the West during the Cold War: Greece and Turkey
** During the Cold War the Balkans were disputed between the two blocks. Greece and Turkey were members of NATO, Bulgaria and Romania of the Warsaw Pact, while Yugoslavia was a proponent of a third way and was a founding member of the Non-Aligned Movement. After the dissolution of Yugoslavia, Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina kept an observer status within the organisation.

Regional organizations

See also the Black Sea#Trans-sea cooperation, Black Sea regional organizations

Statistics

Demographics

The region is inhabited by Albanians, Aromanians, Bulgarians, Bosniaks, Croats, Gorani people, Gorani, Greeks, Macedonians (ethnic group), Macedonians, Montenegrins, Serbs, Slovenes, Romanians, Turkish people, Turks, and other ethnic groups which present minorities in certain countries like the Romani People, Romani and Ashkali.

Religion

The region is a meeting point of Eastern Orthodox Church, Orthodox Christianity, Islam and Roman Catholic Christianity. Eastern Orthodoxy is the majority religion in both the Balkan Peninsula and the Balkan region, The Eastern Orthodox Church has played a prominent role in the history and culture of Eastern and Southeastern Europe. A variety of different traditions of each faith are practiced, with each of the Eastern Orthodox countries having its own national church. A part of the population in the Balkans defines itself as irreligious.

The Jewish communities of the Balkans were some of the oldest in Europe and date back to ancient times. These communities were Sephardi Jews, except in Transylvania,

Croatia

and

Slovenia

, where the Jewish communities were mainly Ashkenazi Jews. In

Bosnia and Herzegovina

, the small and close-knit Jewish community is 90% Sephardic, and Judeo-Spanish, Ladino is still spoken among the elderly. The Sephardi Jewish cemetery in Sarajevo has tombstones of a unique shape and inscribed in ancient Ladino. Sephardi Jews used to have a large presence in the city of Thessaloniki, and by 1900, some 80,000, or more than half of the population, were Jews. The Jewish communities in the Balkans suffered immensely during World War II, and the vast majority were killed during the The Holocaust, Holocaust. An exception was the Bulgarian Jews, most of whom were saved by Boris III of Bulgaria, who resisted Adolf Hitler, opposing their deportation to Nazi concentration camps. Almost all of the few survivors have emigrated to the (then) newly founded state of Israel and elsewhere. Almost no Balkan country today has a significant Jewish minority.

Languages

The Balkan region today is a very diverse ethnolinguistic region, being home to multiple Slavic languages, Slavic and Romance languages, as well as Albanian language, Albanian, Greek language, Greek, Turkic languages, Turkish, and others. Romani language, Romani is spoken by a large portion of the Romani people, Romanis living throughout the Balkan countries. Throughout history, many other ethnic groups with their own languages lived in the area, among them Thracians, Illyrians, Ancient Rome, Romans, Celts and various Germanic peoples, Germanic tribes. All of the aforementioned languages from the present and from the past belong to the wider Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family, with the exception of the Turkic languages (e.g., Turkish language, Turkish and Gagauz language, Gagauz).

Urbanization

Most of the states in the Balkans are predominantly urbanized, with the lowest number of urban population as % of the total population found in Kosovo at under 40%, Bosnia and Herzegovina at 40% and Slovenia at 50%.

A list of largest cities:

Only the European part of Istanbul is a part of the Balkans. It is home to two-thirds of the city's 15,519,267 inhabitants.

Time zones

The time zones in the Balkans are defined as the following:
* Territories in the time zone of UTC+01:00: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia and Slovenia
* Territories in the time zone of UTC+02:00: Bulgaria, Greece, Romania and Turkey

Culture

* Balkan cuisine, Cuisine of the Balkans
* Balkan music

See also

* Balkan Insight
* Balkan Universities Network
* Balkanization
* History of the Balkans
** Balkan Wars
* Languages of the Balkans
** Balkan sprachbund
* List of Roman Catholic dioceses in the Balkans
* Balkan music
* Orient Express

Notes

References

Further reading

*
*
*
*
* Carter, Francis W., ed. (1977). ''An Historical Geography of the Balkans'' Academic Press.
* Francis Dvornik, Dvornik, Francis (1962). ''The Slavs in European History and Civilization'' Rutgers University Press.
* John V. A. Fine, Jr., Fine, John V. A., Jr. ''The Early Medieval Balkans: A Critical Survey from the Sixth to the Late Twelfth Century'' [1983]; ''The Late Medieval Balkans: A Critical Survey from the Late Twelfth Century to the Ottoman Conquest.'' Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, [1987].
* Forbes, Nevill (1915). ''The Balkans: A History of Bulgaria, Serbia, Greece, Rumania, Turkey '' Clarendon Press
online
*
*
*
*
* Lampe, John R., and Marvin R. Jackson (1982). ''Balkan Economic History, 1550–1950: From Imperial Borderlands to Developing Nations'' Indiana University Press.
* Király, Béla K., ed. (1984). ''East Central European Society in the Era of Revolutions, 1775–1856.''
*
*
*
*
online free to borrow
*
* Zametica, John (2017). ''Folly and malice: the Habsburg empire, the Balkans and the start of World War One'' London: Shepheard–Walwyn. 416 pp.

External links

Balkan Insight – Analysis from Balkans

Balkanalysis, in-depth research on Balkan geopolitics

Western Balkans Photo impression

''Shared Pasts in Central and Southeast Europe, 17th–21st Centuries''
Eds. G. Demeter, P. Peykovska. 2015.

{{Authority control

Balkans,
Geography of Southeastern Europe
Peninsulas of Europe
Regions of Europe
Southeastern Europe
Turkish words and phrases