Balkans

Balkans, easternmost of Europe’s three great southern peninsulas. There is not universal agreement on the region’s components. The Balkans are usually characterized as comprising Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Romania, Serbia, and Slovenia—with all or part of each of those countries located within the peninsula. Portions of Greece and Turkey are also located within the geographic region generally defined as the Balkan Peninsula, and many descriptions of the Balkans include those countries too. Some define the region in cultural and historical terms and others geographically, though there are even different interpretations among historians and geographers. Moreover, for some observers, the term “Balkans” is freighted with negative connotations associated with the region’s history of ethnic divisiveness and political upheaval. Increasingly in the early 21st century, another pair of definitional terms has gained currency: South East (also styled South-East, Southeast, South-Eastern, or Southeastern) Europe, which has been employed to describe the region in broad terms (though, again, without universal agreement on its component states) and the Western Balkans, which are usually said to comprise Albania, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, North Macedonia, and Serbia.

Generally, the Balkans are bordered on the northwest by Italy, on the north by Hungary, on the north and northeast by Moldova and Ukraine, and on the south by Greece and Turkey or the Aegean Sea (depending on how the region is defined). The Balkans are washed by the Adriatic Sea in the west, the Ionian Sea in the southwest, and the Black Sea in the east. In the north, clear geographic delimitation of the Balkans becomes difficult because the Pannonian Basin of the Great Alfold (Great Hungarian Plain) extends from central Europe into parts of Croatia, Serbia, and Romania.

Moldova—although located north of the Danube River, which is frequently cited as the region’s northeastern geographic dividing line—is included in the Balkans under some definitions by virtue of its long-standing historical and cultural connections with Romania. However, Moldova is politically and economically oriented more toward other onetime republics of the former Soviet Union than it is to the Balkan states. More often than not, Slovenia is included as a member of the Balkans because of its long historical ties with its neighbours to the southeast and because of its former incorporation in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes and federal Yugoslavia. Greece, because its northern regions of Epirus and Macedonia are often considered parts of the Balkans, also appears on many lists of Balkan states, but it is arguably better characterized as primarily a Mediterranean country. Turkey, too, is sometimes numbered among Balkan countries, as a result of Anatolia’s presence on the peninsula, and the Ottoman Turks cast a long shadow of political dominance over the region for centuries (earning it the sobriquet “Turkey in Europe” or “European Turkey”).

The word Balkan is Turkish and means “mountain,” and the peninsula is certainly dominated by this type of landform, especially in the west. The Balkan Mountains lie east-west across Bulgaria, the Rhodope Mountains extend along the Greek-Bulgarian border, and the Dinaric range extends down the Adriatic coast to Albania. By some definitions the region’s northern boundary extends to the Julian Alps and the Carpathians. Among these ranges extensive areas of good arable land are relatively scarce, though the valleys of the Danube, Sava, and Vardar rivers, eastern Bulgaria, parts of the Aegean Sea coast, and especially the Danubian Plain are exceptions. The mountains have a significant impact on the climate of the peninsula. The northern and central parts of the Balkans have a central European climate, characterized by cold winters, warm summers, and well-distributed rainfall. The southern and coastal areas, however, have a Mediterranean type of climate, with hot, dry summers and mild, relatively rainy winters.

Ethnic diversity is one of the region’s most characteristic social and political features. The most numerous of the groups is the South Slavs, who form the majority of the population in Bulgaria, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Slovenia, North Macedonia, and Montenegro. The Bulgarians, North Macedonians, and Slovenes speak their own Slavic languages, while the Slavs of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro all speak dialects of Serbo-Croatian.

The peculiar nature identified with “Balkanization”—that is, fragmentation of ethnic groups—derives in part from the compartmentalization brought about by the mountainous relief. But size is also an important determinant of the region’s character, for its area is large enough to have provided important bases of occupation for the Byzantine and Turkish civilizations. Subjection to Eastern imperial forces isolated most Balkan societies from Western developments for almost two millennia and created feudal characteristics that persisted until World War I. After this war the viability of the relatively new Balkan states was threatened by political instability, ethnic division, worldwide economic depression, and the rise of the fascist states of Germany and Italy. After World War II, communism brought greater political stability to the Balkans—but at the cost of individual freedom, social and economic problems connected with rapid industrialization, and varying degrees of dominance by yet another outside power, the Soviet Union.

At no point in history has it been easy to define the Balkans in any other than geographic terms (and, again, even that approach can be problematic). At times the peninsula has been divided along north-south lines, and at other times the divisions have been east-west; what constitutes the Balkans has varied with time as have the forces operating within the area. There are, however, some features of Balkan history that have remained consistent. These include the fluidity of ethnic groups, the inability of the peoples of the region to agree and cooperate among themselves, a tendency on the part of political authority to devolve to local levels as soon as central power is weakened, the influence of foreign powers, and the difficulty of introducing into the area concepts that have evolved in a different political and social context.

This article covers the history of the region as first defined above from antiquity to the early 21st century. An overview of the region’s physical and human geography and of the history can be found in the article Europe. For discussion of physical and human geography, along with the history of individual countries in the region, see Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia, and Turkey. Area 257,400 square miles (666,700 square km). Pop. (2002 est.) 59,297,000.

Antiquity