Balkan peninsula with northwest border
Soča-
Krka-
Sava
The Balkans is the historic and geographic name used to describe a region of
southeastern Europe. The region has a combined area of 550,000 km² and an approximate population
of 55 million people. The archaic Greek name for the Balkan Peninsula is the
Peninsula of Haemus (Χερσόνησος του Αίμου, Chersónisos tou Aímou). The region takes its
name from the Balkan Mountains which run through the centre of Bulgaria into eastern Serbia.
Definitions and boundaries
Balkan Peninsula
Line stretching from the northernmost point of the Adriatic to the northernmost point of the Black Sea
The Balkans are adjoined by water on three sides: the Black Sea to the east and branches of
the Mediterranean Sea to the south and west (including the Adriatic, Ionian, Aegean and
Marmara seas).
The Balkans
The identity of the Balkans is dominated by its geographical position; historically the area was known as a crossroads of
various cultures. It has been a juncture between the Latin and Greek bodies of the Roman Empire, the destination of a massive
influx of pagan Slavs, an area where Orthodox and
Catholic Christianity met, as well as the meeting point between Islam and Christianity. It was also a destination for
Jewish refugees of Inquisition.
The Balkans today is a very diverse ethno-linguistic region, being home to multiple Slavic, Romance, and Turkic languages, as well as Greek, Albanian, and others. Through its history many other ethnic groups with own their languages lived in
the area, among them Celts, Illyrians, Romans, Avars, Vlachs,
Germans and various Germanic tribes.
Possibly the historical event that left the biggest mark on the collective memories of the peoples of the Balkans was the
expansion and later fall of the Ottoman Empire. There is not a people in the Balkans that
doesn't place its greatest folk heroes in the era of either the onslaught or the retreat of the Ottoman Empire. For
Croats it is Nikola Zrinski, for Serbs Miloš Obilić, for Albanians
Skanderbeg, for Bulgarians Vasil Levski, and for ethnic Macedonians -
Gotse Delchev.
In the 20th century, the Balkan nations—except Greece and Yugoslavia—were made part of the Warsaw pact (as a result of Soviet hegemony after the ending of
World War II). Following the pact's collapse and the breakup of Yugoslavia, the Balkan states have acceded to the European Union, or are in the process of doing so.
Etymology and evolving meaning
The region takes its name from the "Balkan" mountain range in Bulgaria (from the
Turkish balkan meaning "a chain of wooded mountains").[1] The name is still preserved in Central Asia
where there exist the Balkhan Mountains[2] and the
Balkan Province of Turkmenistan.
The region, however, takes its name from the "Balkan" mountain range, a name brought into the area by the Turks. On a larger
scale, one long continuous chain of mountains crosses the region in the form of a reversed letter S, from the Carpathians south to the Balkan range proper, before it marches away east into Anatolian Turkey. On the west coast, an offshoot of the Dinaric Alps
follows the coast south through Dalmatia and Albania, crosses
Greece and continues into the sea in the form of various islands. The word was based on Turkish balakan 'stone, cliff', which confirms the pure 'technical' meaning of the term. The
mountain range that runs across Bulgaria from west to east (Stara Planina) is still commonly known as the Balkan Mountains.
The first time the name "Balkan" was used in the West for the mountain range in Bulgaria was in a letter by Buonaccorsi
Callimarco, an Italian humanist, writer and diplomat in 1490. An 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 “Balkan peninsula” was created by the German geographer August Zeune in 1808
[1]. As time
passed, the term gradually obtained political connotations far from its initial geographic meaning, arising from political
changes from the late 1800s to the creation of post-World War I Yugoslavia (initially the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes). Zeune's goal was to have a geographical
parallel term to the Italic and Iberian
Peninsula, and seemingly nothing more. The gradually acquired political connotations are newer, and, to a large extent,
due to oscillating political circumstances. The term Balkans includes areas that remained under Turkish rule after 1699., namely:
Bulgaria, Serbia (except for Vojvodina), Macedonia, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro (except for the Boka Bay and
Budva), Kosovo, and continental Greece. Croatia, Vojvodina and Transylvania (in Romania) do
not belong to Balkans. After the split of Yugoslavia beginning in June 1991, the term 'Balkans' again received a negative
meaning, even in casual usage. Over the last decade, in the wake of the former Yugoslav split, Croatians and especially Slovenians have rejected their former label as
'Balkan nations'. This is in part due to the pejorative connotation of the term 'Balkans' in the 1990s, and continuation of this
meaning until now. Today, the term 'Southeast Europe' is preferred or, in the case of Slovenia and sometimes Croatia,
'Central Europe'.
Southeastern Europe
Due to the aforementioned connotations of the term 'Balkan', many people prefer the term Southeastern Europe instead.
The use of this term is slowly growing; 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.
The use of this term to mean the Balkan peninsula (and only that) technically ignores the geographical presence of northern
Romania, Moldova, Ukraine, and
Ciscaucasus, which are also located in the southeastern part of the European continent.
Ambiguities and controversies
The northern border of the Balkan peninsula is usually considered to be the line formed by the Danube, Sava and Kupa rivers and a
segment connecting the spring of the Kupa with the Kvarner Bay.
Some other definitions of the northern border of the Balkans have been proposed:
Balkan peninsula (as defined by the Danube-Sava-Kupa line)
The most commonly used Danube-Sava-Kupa northern boundary is arbitrarily set as to the physiographical characteristics,
however it can be easily recognized on the map. It has a historical and cultural substantiation. The region so defined (excluding
Montenegro, Dalmatia, and the Ionian Islands)
constituted most of the European territory of the Ottoman Empire from the late
15th to the 19th century. Kupa forms a natural
boundary between south-eastern Slovenia and Croatia and has been a political frontier since the 12th century, separating Carniola (belonging to Austria) from Croatia (belonging to Hungary).
The Danube-Sava-Krka-Postojnska Vrata-Vipava-Isonzo line ignores some historical and cultural characteristics, but can be seen
as a rational delimitation of the Balkan peninsula from a geographical point of view. It assigns all the Karstic and Dinaric area
to the Balkan region.
The Sava bisects Croatia and Serbia and the Danube, which is the second largest European river (after Volga), forms a natural boundary between both Bulgaria and Serbia and Romania. North of that line lies the
Pannonian plain and (in the case of Romania) the Carpathian mountains.
Although Romania (with the exception of Dobrudja) is not geographically a part of the
Balkans, it is often included in the Balkans in public discourse.
According to the most commonly used border, Slovenia lies to the north of the Balkans and is considered a part of
Central Europe. Historically and culturally, it is also more related to Central Europe,
although the Slovenian culture also incorporates some elements of Balkan culture.
However, as already stated, the northern boundary of the Balkan peninsula can also be drawn otherwise, in which case at least
a part of Slovenia and a small part of Italy (Province of
Trieste) may be included in the Balkans.
Slovenia is also sometimes regarded as a Balkan country due to its association with the former Yugoslavia. When the Balkans are described as a twentieth-century geopolitical region, the whole Yugoslavia
is included (so, Slovenia, Istria, islands of Dalmatia,
northern Croatia and Vojvodina too).
The aforementioned historical justification for the Sava-Kupa northern boundary would exclude a big part of Croatia (whose territories were by and large part of the Habsburg
Monarchy and Venetian Republic during the Ottoman conquest). Other factors
such as prior history and culture also bind Croatia to Central Europe and the Mediterranean region more than they bind it to the
Balkans. Nevertheless, its peculiar geographic shape (as well as its recent history with Yugoslavia) inherently associates it
with the region Bosnia and Herzegovina is part of.
Current common definition
Current political map of the Balkans. Countries firmly considered part of the region are in green; countries sometimes considered
part of the region are in turquoise.
In most of the English-speaking, western world, the countries commonly included in the Balkan region are:
Some other countries are sometimes included in the list as well:
Related countries
Other countries not included in the Balkan region that are close to it and/or play or have played an important role in the
region's geopolitics, culture and history:
Regional organizations
See also the Black Sea Regional organizations
Nature and natural resources
Southeastern Europe seen from NASA's Terra Satellite
Most of the area is covered by mountain ranges running from north-west to south-east. The main ranges are the Dinaric Alps in Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia, the Šar massif which
spreads from Albania to Republic of Macedonia and the Pindus range, spanning from southern
Albania into central Greece. In Bulgaria there are ranges running from east to west: the Balkan mountains and the Rhodope mountains at the border
with Greece. The highest mountain of the region is Musala in Bulgaria at 2925 m, with Mount Olympus in Greece, the throne of Zeus,
being second at 2919 m and Vihren in Bulgaria being the third at 2914.
On the coasts the climate is Mediterranean, in the inland it is moderate
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.
During the centuries many woods have been cut down and replaced with bush and brush. In the southern part and on the coast
there is evergreen vegetation. In the 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 soils are generally poor, except on the plains 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 olives and grapes flourish.
Resources of energy are scarce. There are some deposits of coal, especially in Romania,
Bulgaria, Serbia and Bosnia. Lignite deposits are widespread in Greece. Petroleum is most notably present in Romania, although scarce reserves exist in Greece, Serbia, Albania and
Croatia. Natural gas deposits are scarce. Hydropower stations are largely used in
energetics.
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
- Main article: History of the Balkans
Animated history of the Balkans from 1800 to the 2006
The Balkan region was the first area of Europe to experience the arrival of farming
cultures in the Neolithic era. 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 Pannonia and Central Europe.
In pre-classical and classical antiquity, this region was home to
Greek city-states, Illyrians, Paeonians, Thracians, Macedonians, Epirotes, Mollosians, Thessalians, Dacians and other
ancient groups. Later the Roman Empire conquered most of the region and spread Roman
culture and the Latin language but significant parts still remained under classical Greek influence. During the Middle Ages, the Balkans
became the stage for a series of wars between the Byzantine, Bulgarian and Serbian Empires.
By the end of the 16th century, the Ottoman
Empire became the controlling force in the region, although it was centered around Anatolia. In the past 550 years, 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), the Balkans has been the least developed part of Europe.
The Balkan nations began to regain their independence in the 19th century (Greece,
Serbia, Bulgaria, Montenegro), and in 1912-1913 a Balkan League reduced Turkey's territory to its present extent in the Balkan
Wars. The First World War was sparked in 1914 by the
assassination in Sarajevo (the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina) of the Archduke
Franz Ferdinand of Austria.
After the Second World War, the Soviet Union and
communism played a very important role in the Balkans. During the Cold War, most of the countries in the Balkans were ruled by Soviet-supported communist governments.
However, despite being under communist governments, Yugoslavia (1948) and 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 joining many third
world countries in the Non-Aligned Movement. Albania on the other hand
gravitated toward Communist China, later adopting an isolationist position.
The only non-communist countries were Greece and Turkey, which
were (and still are) part of NATO.
In the 1990s, the region was gravely affected by armed conflict
in the former Yugoslav republics, resulting in intervention by
NATO forces in Bosnia and Herzegovina,
Kosovo and the Republic of Macedonia. The status
of Kosovo and ethnic Albanians in general is still mostly
unresolved.
Balkan countries control the direct 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 USA.
Greece has been a member of the European Union since
1981; Slovenia and Cyprus since
2004. Bulgaria and Romania
became members in 2007. In 2005 the European Union decided to start
accession negotiations with candidate countries Croatia and Turkey and the Republic of Macedonia was accepted as a candidate
for the European Union membership. As of 2004, Bulgaria, Romania and Slovenia are also members of NATO.
Bosnia and Herzegovina and what was then Serbia and Montenegro started negotiations with the EU over the Stabilisation and Accession
Agreements, although shortly after they started, negotiations with Serbia and Montenegro were suspended for lack of co-operation
with the International Criminal Tribunal for the
Former Yugoslavia.
All other countries have expressed a desire to join the EU but at some date in the future.
Population composition by nationality and religion
The region's principal nationalities include:
The region's principal religions are (Eastern Orthodox and Catholic) Christianity and Islam. A variety of different traditions of each faith are practiced, with each of the Eastern Orthodox
countries having its own national church.
Eastern Orthodoxy is the principal religion in the following countries:
Roman Catholicism is the principal religion in the following countries:
Islam is the principal religion in the following countries:
- Albania
- Bosnia and Herzegovina
- Turkey
The following countries have many religious groups which exceed 10% of the total population:
- Albania: Eastern Orthodoxy, Catholicism.
- Bosnia and Herzegovina: Bosniacs are mostly Muslim, Serbs are mostly Serbian (Eastern) Orthodox and Croats are mostly
Catholic.
- Bulgaria: Islam.
- Croatia: Serbs are Orthodox.
- Republic of Macedonia: Albanian population is mostly Muslim.
- Montenegro: Albanians and Bosniacs are Muslims.
- Serbia: Albanians and Bosniacs are mostly Muslim, Hungarians, Slovaks and Croats are mostly Catholic.
For more detailed information and a precise ethnic breakdown see articles about particular states:
- Albania, Demographics of Albania
- Croatia, (4 million Croats, 0.2 million Serbs)
- Bosnia and Herzegovina (1.8 million Bosniacs, 1.5 million Serbs, 0.5 million
Croats)
- Bulgaria, Demographics of Bulgaria
- Greece, Demographics of Greece
- Montenegro, (0.3 million Montenegrins, 0.2 million Serbs)
- Republic of Macedonia, Demographics of the Republic of Macedonia
- Serbia, (6.5 million Serbs, 2 million Albanians, 0.3 million Hungarians)
- Turkey, Demographics of Turkey
References
- Banac, Ivo. Historiography of the Countries of Eastern Europe: Yugoslavia, American Historical Review, v 97 #4
(October 1992), 1084-1104.
- Banac, Ivo. The National Question in Yugoslavia: Origins, History, Politics Cornell University Press, [1984].
- Carter, Francis W., ed. An Historical Geography of the Balkans Academic Press, 1977.
- Dvornik, Francis. The Slavs in European History and Civilization Rutgers University Press, 1962.
- 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].
- John R. Lampe and Marvin R. Jackson; Balkan Economic History, 1550-1950: From Imperial Borderlands to Developing
Nations Indiana University Press, 1982
- Jelavich, Barbara. History of the Balkans, 2 vols. Cambridge University Press, [1983].
- Jelavich, Charles, and Jelavich, Barbara, eds. The Balkans in Transition: Essays on the Development of Balkan Life and
Politics since the Eighteenth Century University of California Press, 1963.
- Király, Béla K., ed. East Central European Society in the Era of Revolutions, 1775-1856. 1984
- Komlos, John, ed. Economic Development in the Habsburg Monarchy and in the Successor States: Essays 1990.
- Mazower, Mark, The Balkans: A Short History, 2000
- Traian Stoianovich; Balkan Worlds: The First and Last Europe 1994.
See also
External links
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