Im not from Europe. Can someone explain what are the Balkans exactly and why there’s “beef” between them?
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Several people here have well explained the thousand-year history of cultural mixing and conflict in the Balkans, but I don’t see any account of the contemporary, proximate cause of conflict there.
After World War 2, a war hero named Tito managed to unite the Balkan states into a single country, “Yugoslavia.” It turned out to be a surprisingly successful nation, despite its communism (note: it wasn’t in the USSR).
When Tito died, a power struggle broke out among the regional states within Yugoslavia. Two of them successfully declared independence. But trouble emerged among three others: Serbia, Croatia, and Bosnia.
Serbia, which was the most powerful, contained mainly an ethnicity called Serbs. Bosnia contained a lot of Serbs, but also many Muslims (of European descent, to be clear).
When Bosnia declared independence, the Serbs living there were not pleased. They wanted to be part of Serbia, so they began a civil war. Serbia didn’t *officially* join in the fight, but it did send soldiers, arms, and other support to the Bosnian Serbs.
This became a messy and awful conflict in which Croatia at times changed its stance, atrocities were committed, and the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo, endured a brutal siege for years. The United Nations sent troops to try and keep the peace, but they turned out to be worse than useless. At the city of Gorazde, a massacre happened under their watch.
At Srebrenica, there occurred the worst genocidal elimination in Europe since the second world war.
Eventually, the international community got all sides together to broker a tenuous peace. The map of Bosnia, and the ethnic distribution of its population, ended up very different from before the war. Many refugees never returned.
Several Serbian and Bosnian Serb military leaders were eventually convicted of war crimes in international court. And this wasn’t the last conflict in the Balkans – in particular, tension increased between Serbia and its neighbor Kosovo.
Having said all this, if you ever get a chance to visit the Balkans, don’t hesitate. It has the most beautiful cultural sites, breathtaking landscapes, and friendly people you will ever encounter in Europe.
Several people here have well explained the thousand-year history of cultural mixing and conflict in the Balkans, but I don’t see any account of the contemporary, proximate cause of conflict there.
After World War 2, a war hero named Tito managed to unite the Balkan states into a single country, “Yugoslavia.” It turned out to be a surprisingly successful nation, despite its communism (note: it wasn’t in the USSR).
When Tito died, a power struggle broke out among the regional states within Yugoslavia. Two of them successfully declared independence. But trouble emerged among three others: Serbia, Croatia, and Bosnia.
Serbia, which was the most powerful, contained mainly an ethnicity called Serbs. Bosnia contained a lot of Serbs, but also many Muslims (of European descent, to be clear).
When Bosnia declared independence, the Serbs living there were not pleased. They wanted to be part of Serbia, so they began a civil war. Serbia didn’t *officially* join in the fight, but it did send soldiers, arms, and other support to the Bosnian Serbs.
This became a messy and awful conflict in which Croatia at times changed its stance, atrocities were committed, and the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo, endured a brutal siege for years. The United Nations sent troops to try and keep the peace, but they turned out to be worse than useless. At the city of Gorazde, a massacre happened under their watch.
At Srebrenica, there occurred the worst genocidal elimination in Europe since the second world war.
Eventually, the international community got all sides together to broker a tenuous peace. The map of Bosnia, and the ethnic distribution of its population, ended up very different from before the war. Many refugees never returned.
Several Serbian and Bosnian Serb military leaders were eventually convicted of war crimes in international court. And this wasn’t the last conflict in the Balkans – in particular, tension increased between Serbia and its neighbor Kosovo.
Having said all this, if you ever get a chance to visit the Balkans, don’t hesitate. It has the most beautiful cultural sites, breathtaking landscapes, and friendly people you will ever encounter in Europe.
“One day the great European War will come out of some damned foolish thing in the Balkans.”– Otto von Bismarck (1888)
“One day the great European War will come out of some damned foolish thing in the Balkans.”– Otto von Bismarck (1888)
After reading all the responses down here, I’m left wondering how this Balkan thing is so similar to the history of the peoples of the Iberian peninsula.
Yes, because Spain is not a country but a kingdom (Castile and Leon) that was forcing the other peoples of the peninsula to join by force (Galicians, Andalusians, Catalans…).
We, the Portuguese, always managed to escape their yoke, definitely after 1640, because Castile preferred to let Portugal fall and keep Catalonia (they also lost some important battles, but that’s for another day :-D)
Anyway, we have learned to be good neighbors, we have very good relations and, if you think about the villages near the border, it is easy to see that there are more things that unite us than those that separate us.
I really enjoyed reading all of you and I learned a lot, excellent “conversation”, cheers to you all 😉
After reading all the responses down here, I’m left wondering how this Balkan thing is so similar to the history of the peoples of the Iberian peninsula.
Yes, because Spain is not a country but a kingdom (Castile and Leon) that was forcing the other peoples of the peninsula to join by force (Galicians, Andalusians, Catalans…).
We, the Portuguese, always managed to escape their yoke, definitely after 1640, because Castile preferred to let Portugal fall and keep Catalonia (they also lost some important battles, but that’s for another day :-D)
Anyway, we have learned to be good neighbors, we have very good relations and, if you think about the villages near the border, it is easy to see that there are more things that unite us than those that separate us.
I really enjoyed reading all of you and I learned a lot, excellent “conversation”, cheers to you all 😉
Many different peoples lived in the Balkans – different ethnic groups with different religions and different languages. There are a lot of mountains and valleys, so it was easy for each “pocket” to develop and live its own way. Then they fought a lot of wars against each other as the Age of Empires broke up in the early 1900s trying to figure out their borders, which involved many local atrocities. In WW2 they were invaded again and the Nazis empowered fascists in certain ethnic groups to be their local rulers who committed far more atrocities. And then Allied sponsored guerilla armies drove out the Nazis. Hooray! And were ready for revenge and committed lots of atrocities against the local fascist groups (and often their affiliated ethnic groups). Not Hooray. Then the Cold War froze things in place (plus exhaustion from WW2). The Cold War ends, and then Yugoslavia, a major Balkan state that was the location of so many battles and atrocities, fractures in the face of Serbian nationalism and leads to a Yugoslavian civil war involving Serbia, Bosnia, Croatia, and later Kosovo. Slovenia was in the civil war briefly, but beat the Serbs in a 10 day war and the Serbs decided to focus on Croatia and Bosnia instead.
There’s your short answer. Long answer:
The Ottoman Empire basically conquered all these areas and ruled them for several hundred years. In the 1800s, the Ottoman Empire was fading, and begin to lose control over the areas in the Balkans (both due to revolutions and foreign invasions, like from the Austria-Hungarian empire). As new nations emerged from this, they fought over who got what (with several wars between Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria, and the Ottoman Empire right before World War I, which redrew borders.
Then World War I redrew borders yet again. So the area is 1) newly independent, politically, and 2) keeps getting the borders changed through wars fought by newly nationalist states, which often leads to a number of atrocities against the losing / conquered ethnic groups – 3 major wars in just 8 years.
So by the time WW2 rolls around, there’s been plenty of recent bloodshed.
Then when WW2 arrives, it’s another opportunity to settle scores from the prior 25 years. When the Germans show up, it uses these divisions to play sides against the other and quickly conquers Yugoslavia with the help of invasions from Hungary and Italy (which had recently invaded Albania) join, and Romania and Bulgaria allow the Nazis to attack from their territory, so the attack is basically on all sides.
The Nazis then empowered a fascist group based in Croatia, the Ustase. These guys are so fascist that even the Nazis are like “hey, calm it down some.” Anyway, they start to engage in lots of genocide and ethnic cleansing while in charge, primarily against Serbs. They consider Bosnian Muslims “Croatian” so they aren’t targeted the same. They primarily targeted “Serbs, Freemasons, and Jews”. The Ustase and the Nazis were fought by the Partisans led by Tito; after he eventually beat these groups in Yugoslavia, the Allies turned away fleeing Yugoslavians and Ustase, directing them to surrender to the Partisans. The Partisans then killed tens of thousands.
Tito then ruled Yugoslavia until his death. He created a federared and decentralized state, with each part of Yugoslavia (Croatia, Bosnia, Montenegro, Serbia, Slovenia) having substantial autonomy and also military forces (so that if there was a Soviet invasion, they had the supplies and ability to operate independently). But above it all was Tito.
After he died, the rule of the country became factionalized, and the local Serbian leaders under Slobodan Milosevic decided to try and increase Serbian power in Yugoslavia at the expense of everyone else. The other parts of the coutnry grew more and more uneasy, until Milosevic tried to “federalize” – under his control – all the military assets. So the other states realized that if they didn’t try to break away from serb domination now, they might not ever be able to in the future, declared independence, and that kicked off the Yugoslavian civil war / Balkan conflict of the 90s.
For the same reason, other countries fought for centuries. Because the borders of Europe were written like [this](https://youtu.be/c-WO73Dh7rY)
Many different peoples lived in the Balkans – different ethnic groups with different religions and different languages. There are a lot of mountains and valleys, so it was easy for each “pocket” to develop and live its own way. Then they fought a lot of wars against each other as the Age of Empires broke up in the early 1900s trying to figure out their borders, which involved many local atrocities. In WW2 they were invaded again and the Nazis empowered fascists in certain ethnic groups to be their local rulers who committed far more atrocities. And then Allied sponsored guerilla armies drove out the Nazis. Hooray! And were ready for revenge and committed lots of atrocities against the local fascist groups (and often their affiliated ethnic groups). Not Hooray. Then the Cold War froze things in place (plus exhaustion from WW2). The Cold War ends, and then Yugoslavia, a major Balkan state that was the location of so many battles and atrocities, fractures in the face of Serbian nationalism and leads to a Yugoslavian civil war involving Serbia, Bosnia, Croatia, and later Kosovo. Slovenia was in the civil war briefly, but beat the Serbs in a 10 day war and the Serbs decided to focus on Croatia and Bosnia instead.
There’s your short answer. Long answer:
The Ottoman Empire basically conquered all these areas and ruled them for several hundred years. In the 1800s, the Ottoman Empire was fading, and begin to lose control over the areas in the Balkans (both due to revolutions and foreign invasions, like from the Austria-Hungarian empire). As new nations emerged from this, they fought over who got what (with several wars between Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria, and the Ottoman Empire right before World War I, which redrew borders.
Then World War I redrew borders yet again. So the area is 1) newly independent, politically, and 2) keeps getting the borders changed through wars fought by newly nationalist states, which often leads to a number of atrocities against the losing / conquered ethnic groups – 3 major wars in just 8 years.
So by the time WW2 rolls around, there’s been plenty of recent bloodshed.
Then when WW2 arrives, it’s another opportunity to settle scores from the prior 25 years. When the Germans show up, it uses these divisions to play sides against the other and quickly conquers Yugoslavia with the help of invasions from Hungary and Italy (which had recently invaded Albania) join, and Romania and Bulgaria allow the Nazis to attack from their territory, so the attack is basically on all sides.
The Nazis then empowered a fascist group based in Croatia, the Ustase. These guys are so fascist that even the Nazis are like “hey, calm it down some.” Anyway, they start to engage in lots of genocide and ethnic cleansing while in charge, primarily against Serbs. They consider Bosnian Muslims “Croatian” so they aren’t targeted the same. They primarily targeted “Serbs, Freemasons, and Jews”. The Ustase and the Nazis were fought by the Partisans led by Tito; after he eventually beat these groups in Yugoslavia, the Allies turned away fleeing Yugoslavians and Ustase, directing them to surrender to the Partisans. The Partisans then killed tens of thousands.
Tito then ruled Yugoslavia until his death. He created a federared and decentralized state, with each part of Yugoslavia (Croatia, Bosnia, Montenegro, Serbia, Slovenia) having substantial autonomy and also military forces (so that if there was a Soviet invasion, they had the supplies and ability to operate independently). But above it all was Tito.
After he died, the rule of the country became factionalized, and the local Serbian leaders under Slobodan Milosevic decided to try and increase Serbian power in Yugoslavia at the expense of everyone else. The other parts of the coutnry grew more and more uneasy, until Milosevic tried to “federalize” – under his control – all the military assets. So the other states realized that if they didn’t try to break away from serb domination now, they might not ever be able to in the future, declared independence, and that kicked off the Yugoslavian civil war / Balkan conflict of the 90s.
For the same reason, other countries fought for centuries. Because the borders of Europe were written like [this](https://youtu.be/c-WO73Dh7rY)
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