The Balkans. Between the Cross and the Crescent

The Balkans. Between the Cross and the Crescent




DOI: 10.17976/jpps/2022.03.04

For citation:

Vishnyakov Ya.V., Smirnova P.E. The Balkans. Between the Cross and the Crescent. – Polis. Political Studies. 2022. No. 3. P. 38-49. (In Russ.). https://doi.org/10.17976/jpps/2022.03.04



Abstract

Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries the Eastern Question and the ways to resolve it were placed at the top of the international political agenda both in Russia and in other European states. Thus the Balkans and its place in international relations should be considered as a multidimensional issue. On the one hand they are at a geopolitical collision point of the Powers’ interests associated with the decline of the Ottoman Empire and its transformation into a “sick man of Europe”. On the other hand, when studying the concept of the “Eastern Question”, one should take into account the internal processes taking place in the region, which in the twentieth century became both the source of bloody clashes between the young Balkan countries and the cause of the civil war of 1991-1995 on the territory of the former SFRY, as well as the unresolved Kosovo issue, which brought about an open aggression of Western countries against Yugoslavia. What is more, the accumulated research material allows us to single out in relation to the region the concept of “Balkan civilizational contact zone” as a place of both centuries-old neighborhood and a clash of the Romano-Germanic, Eastern Christian and Islamic worlds. At the same time, starting from the 18th century, a split into two parts – the West and the East – was starting on the European continent, and in the middle of the 19th century, the concept of the “Orthodox East” was taking shape in Southeastern Europe. In addition, the polysemantic concept of “friend or foe” brought the concept of “political antiquity” into the public and political discourse of the elites of the Balkan countries, associated with attempts to give a simple and understandable explanation of the role and place of one’s own, small “compact” people in the new world order. This study attempts to generalize the concept of the Balkans in terms of a “different image”, which had a significant impact on the political processes of the region, as well as on the relations of the Balkan countries, both among themselves and with the “great” European powers. 

Keywords
Balkan civilizational contact zone, Serbia, Balkans, Eastern Question, Ottoman Empire, nationalism, Versailles System, neo-Ottomanism.


References

Anatomija konfliktov. Central’naja i Jugo-Vostocnaja Evropa. Vol 1. Nachalo 1970-kh – pervaya polovi­na 1980-kh godov [Anatomy of conflicts. Central and South-Eastern Europe: documents and materials of the last third of the 20th century. Vol. I. The beginning of the 1970s – the first half of the 1980s]. (2012). St. Petersburg: Aletheia, 736 p. (In Russ.)

Braudel, F. (2008). Grammaire des civilisations. (Russ. ed.: Braudel, F. Grammatika tsivilizatsii. Moscow: Ves’ mir. 552 p.).

Edemskii, A.B. (2012). Neo-Ottomanism as a reality of modern geopolitics. Problems of the National Strategy, 2, 204-208. (In Russ.)

Efremenko, D.V. (2021). Skeletons in a Slavic closet. Controversies of historical memory and na­tion-building in Serbia and Croatia after the collapse of the SFRY. Polis. Political Studies, 5, 127-145. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.17976/jpps/2021.05.09

Entina, E.G. (2020). EEC and Yugoslav сooperation in the frames of modern international relations in Europe. MGIMO Review of International Relations, 13(1), 39-55. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.24833/2071-8160-2020-1-70-39-55

Freidzon, V.I. (1999). Natsiya do natsional’nogo gosudarstva. Istoriko-sotsiologicheskii ocherk Tsentral’noi Evropy XVIII v. – nachala XX v. [Nation before the nation state: a historical and sociological essay on Central Europe in the 18th – Early 20th Centuries]. Dubna: Feniks. 96 p. (In Russ.)

Hobsbawm, E.J.E. (1999). The Age of Empire: 1875-1914. (Russ. ed.: Hobsbawm, E. Vek imperii 1875-1914. Rostov on Don: Feniks. 512 p.).

Jezernik, B. (2003). Wild Europe: the Balkans in the gaze of Western travellers. (Russ. ed.: Jezernik, B. Dikaya Evropa. Balkany glazami zapadnykh puteshestvennikov. Moscow: Lingvistika. 358 p.).

Kedourie, E. (2010). Nationalism. (Russ. ed.: Kedourie, E. Nationalism. St. Petersburg: Aletheia. 136 p.).

Koloskov, E.A. (2011). Alexander the Great in the context of the Greek-Macedonian naming dispute. Vestnik of Saint-Petersburg University. History, 4, 102-107. (In Russ.)

Koloskov, E.A. (2013). Strana bez nazvaniya: vneshnepoliticheskii aspekt stanovleniya makedonskogo gosudarstva (1991-2001) [The country is unnamed: the foreign policy aspect of the formation of the Macedonian State (1991-2001)]. Moscow: Institute of Slavic Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences. 276 p. (In Russ.)

Kosik, V.I. (2002). Balkany: odin tezis Iozefa Gebbel’sa i odinnadtsat’ moikh [Balkans: one thesis of Joseph Goebbels and eleven of mine]. In Yugoslavyanskaya istoriya v novoe i noveishee vremya. Materialy nauchnykh chtenii, posvyashchennykh 80-letiyu so dnya rozhdeniya professora V.G. Karaseva (1922-1991) [Yugoslav history in modern and contemporary times. Materials of scientific readings dedicated to the 80th anniversary of the birth of Professor V.G. Karasev (1922-1991)]. Moscow: Mosgorarchiv. P. 249-251. (In Russ.)

Kosik, V.I. (2017). Zaminirovannaya kul’tura [Mined culture]. Moscow: Probel-2000. 224 p. (In Russ.)

Kuprianov, P.S. (2004). In Search of Ethnos: the study of early 19th-century Russian foreign travel accounts. Ethnographic Review, 2, 21-37. (In Russ.)

Lamanskii, V.I. (1892). Tri mira Aziisko-Evropeiskogo materika [Three universes of the Asian-European continent]. St. Petersburg: Tipo-chromo-lit. A. Transhel’. 132 p. (In Russ.)

Leontovich, O.A. (2003). Rossiya i USA: vvedenie v mezhkul’turnuyu kommunikatsiyu: Uchebnoe posobie [Russia and USA: an introduction to intercultural communication]. Volgograd: Peremena. 399 p. (In Russ.)

Leshchilovskaya, I.I. (2013). Khorvatiya v XVII–XIX vekakh: kul’turnye aspekty istoricheskogo razvitiya [Croatia in the 17th-19th centuries: cultural aspects of historical development]. Moscow: Institute for Slavic Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences. 460 p. (In Russ.)

Mamedov, I.M. (2021). The ideological dimension of Turkey’s policy in the 20th – early 21st centuries. Slavianovedenie, 1, 44-54. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.31857/S0869544X0012825-0

Martynova, M.Yu. (1998). Balkanskii krizis: narody i politika [Balkan crisis: peoples and politics]. Moscow: Staryi sad. 466 p. (In Russ.)

Mehdiyev, E.T. (2016). “Neo-Ottomanism” in the regional policy of Turkey. MGIMO Review of International Relations, 2, 32-39. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.24833/2071-8160-2016-2-47-32-39

Myl’nikov, A.S. (1991). Kartina slavyanskogo mira: Vzglyad iz Vostochnoi Evropy: Predstavleniya ob ehtnicheskoi nominatsii i ehtnichnosti XVI – nachala XVIII veka [A picture of the Slavic World: a view from Eastern Europe: ideas about ethnic nomination and ethnicity of the 16th – early 18th centuries]. St. Petersburg: Peterburgskoe vostokovedenie. 400 p. (In Russ.)

Neumann, I.B. (2003). Uses of the other. The ‘East’ in European identity formation. (Russ. ed.: Neumann, I.B. Ispol’zovanie “Drugogo”. Obrazy Vostoka v formirovanii evropeiskikh identichnostei. Moscow: Novoe izdatel’stvo. 336 p.)

Nikiforov, K.V. (Ed.) (2011). Yugoslaviya v XX veke. Ocherki politicheskoi istorii [Yugoslavia in the 20th century. Essays on political history]. Moscow: Indrik. 888 p. (In Russ.)

Otkrytie “brat’ev slavyan”: russkie puteshestvenniki na Balkanakh v pervoi polovine ХIX veka [Discovery of the “Brothers of the Slavs”: Russian travelers in the Balkans in the first half of the 19th century]. (2018). Compiled by M.V. Belov. St. Petersburg: Nestor-Istoriya. 672 p. (In Russ.)

Ponomareva, E.G. (2013). Actual discoure about tipes and development tendencies national state. MGIMO Review of International Relations, 4, 195-204. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.24833/2071-8160-2013-4-31-195-203

Popadeva, T.I. (2021). The Politics of Language in Constructing Civil Identity: Case of Bosnia and Herzegovina. MGIMO Review of International Relations, 14 (4), 91-106. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.24833/2071-8160-2021-4-79-91-106

Said, E.W. (2006). Orientalism. (Russ. ed.: Said, E.W. Orientalizm. Zapadnye kontseptsii Vostoka. St. Petersburg: Russkij mir. 640 p.)

Sheremet, V.I. Kuzmin, I.A. (1998). O tsivilizatsionnoi roli balkanskoi kontaktnoi zony [On the civi­lizational role of the Balkan contact zone]. In Susret ili sukob civilizacija na Balkanu [Meeting or clash of civilizations in the Balkans] (pp. 59-67). Beograd: Istorijski institut SANU; Srpska zadruga cijevna. (In Russ.)

Svistunova, I.A. (2020). Turkey’s Policy in the Balkans: the role of ethnic and religious minorities. Contemporary Europe, 4, 61-71. (In Russ.) https://dx.doi.org/10.15211/soveurope420206171

Taki, V. (2017). Tsar and sultan. Russian encounters with the Ottoman Empire. (Russ. ed.: Taki, V. Tsar’ i sultan. Osmanskaya imperiya glazami rossiyan. Moscow: Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie. 320 p.)

Tanaskovic, D. (2011). Neo-Ottomanism: doctrine and foreign policy practice. Belgrade: Sluzhbeni glasnik. 160 p. (In Serb.)

Toleva, T. (2018). Uticaj Austrougarske imperije na stvaranje albanske nacije 1896-1908. (Russ. ed.: Toleva T. Avstro-Vengriya i stanovlenie albanskoi natsii. Moscow: Institute for Slavic Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences. 504 p.)

Ulunyan, A.A. (2019). Balkany i “arkhaichno-antichnoe” prostranstvo: istoricheskie otrazheniya v ideo­logicheskoi srede natsional’nykh diskursov [Balkans and “archaic-antique” space: historical reflections in the ideological environment of national discourses]. In M.S. Bobkova (Ed.), Konstruirovanie istorii. Kto my? [History Construction. Who are we?] (pp. 205-236). St. Petersburg: Evraziya. (In Russ.)

Wolff, L. (2003). Inventing Eastern Europe. The map of civilization on the mind of the enlightenment. (Russ. ed.: Wolff, L. Izobretaya Vostochnuyu Evropu: karta tsivilizatsii v soznanii ehpokhi Prosveshcheniya. Moscow: Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie. 560 p.). 

Content No. 3, 2022

See also:


Lavrenov S.Ya., Slizovsky D.E.,
Central zone of traditional values of society. – Polis. Political Studies. 2013. No1

Avksentyev V.A., Aksyumov B.V.,
«Clash of Civilizations» in regional aspect: the Caucasus and the Balkans. – Polis. Political Studies. 2007. No4


Laboratory: Eastern perspective of global politics. – Polis. Political Studies. 2013. No6

Barsukova S.Yu.,
«Empire», or Farewell to Modernity. – Polis. Political Studies. 2007. No3

Lapkin V.V.,
Nation vs Empire in the Modern World Order. – Polis. Political Studies. 2018. No4


Screen version