The process of Europeanization has been traditionally associated with an economic and political transformation, often undermining the value‑based residual effects such as the state’s or group’s acquiescence to take on a European identity. This dual nature of Europeanization is particularly important in the Balkans, where a highly established sense of self is deeply embedded in the fiber of its people. The goal of a unified Europe, and the Balkan ability or even willingness to become “European” is central to this paper’s analytical approach. A key facet of Europeanization is to create, promote and, more importantly, sustain a sense of a pan‑European identity. However, within multi‑ ethnic and conflicting environments the idea of a national identity is often irresolute, as in the case of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo. The paper tries to conceptualize the notion of Europeanization from a firmly identity‑based framework, discrediting the essentialist approach to identity formation in favor of a more constructivist model. It argues that the notion of a European identity is in fact a shared social value, rather than a tangible idea easily applicable to every situation, and with the Balkans being a particularly difficult case study. In essence, the underlying question is what does the process of Europeanization really mean and how viable is it in the context of a complex environment such as the Balkans?
The basis for this contribution is the archival document Přínos Čechů Bulharsku (The Contribution of Czechs to Bulgaria), composed in 1968 by an unknown Czech. The manuscript was filed in the archives of the Czechoslovak Club of T. G. Masaryk in Sofia when it was discovered by the author of this edition in 2019. In keeping with the title, or rather the overall intention of his study, the unknown author of the document attempts to create a complex overview of positive cases of “contributions of Czechs to Bulgaria”, with emphasis on mentioning as many as possible of the Czechs who had been active in Bulgarian territory and in some way excelled and contributed to the country’s development. Owing to the extraordinary (and personal) familiarity of the author with the issue of Czechs living in Bulgaria, his work contains an abundance of references to the activities of Czechs in this country, including a great deal of information about people and facts that had previously only been partially known of, or had been entirely unknown. The text is supplemented with introductory comments by the editor on the question of the identity of the author of the text, an editorial commentary on the process of rendering the manuscript into a published format, and continuous explanatory footnotes.
The text highlights features of Turkish policy towards the Balkans and areas of possible cooperation with Poland. Ankara is pursuing an independent policy of deepening it is so-called strategic depth, i.e., policies towards its immediate neighbourhood, including the Southern Caucasus, Middle East, North Africa and the Balkans. Poland, on the other hand, is relying on Euro-Atlantic structures and focusing on securing its eastern flank, which as the 2014 crisis in Ukraine illustrates is far from stabilisation. Warsaw’s foreign policy priorities and Ankara’s vision of Turkey’s international role diverge, leaving little space for pointing at specific forms of cooperation on a larger scale. Nevertheless, both countries share similar strategic goals, enabling us to highlight potential areas for further collaboration—namely society, security and economy—that could pave the way for partnership.
In the Balkans, apart from NATO and the UN, the European Union has become the subject of security and building, maintaining and enforcing peace. The EU’s goals are taken through two instruments: military and civilian crisis management missions under the Common Security and Defense Policy (CSDP) and enlargement policy. The issue of this article is centered around EUFOR Althea’s operation in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which undoubtedly belongs to the peacebuilding catalogue. The authors analyzed the conditions of the operation, the legal basis, the objectives, the tasks, the funding and the composition of the mission. It was also important to indicate successes and failures, and to outline the prospects for the crisis management mission development.
The Republic of Macedonia, especially at the turn of the the 20th century, is an excellent example of the ethnic manipulation phenomena which can be understood as a tendentious attempt of proving that a given area is inhabited by a large number of people belonging to a certain ethic group or nationality in order to justify one’s territorial demands. A number of such attempts was conducted in many different ways over the years. Nevertheless, the main idea of this work is to look for arguments found in history or rather to look on the tendentiously rewritten history, to be precise, which was supposed to suit current political programmes. Serbs, Greeks, Bulgarians but also, in a lesser extent, Romanians, Turks, Albanians and Montenegrins tried to prove their rights to the Macedonian lands by propagating, among other things, national and political myths. Sometimes, the search for justification of the territorial demands in the freely interpreted history could be described as a grotesque process. People were willing to accept such implausible stories as a truth, because a myth is not something to discuss but rather something to believe in. One has to remember that in that time history was treated freely, as a set of stories that could be freely modified in accordance with actual needs. The scientific value and the act of reaching towards the truth was considerably less important than a skilful shaping of a given story. The intellectuals of Romanticism emphasised that history has a certain mission to fulfil, that is has to guard the national interest.
Since the Balkan Wars in the 1990s, Serbia has been perceived by Europe as its enfant terrible. This is an effect of Serbian war crimes, of an unwillingness to cooperate with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, and general reluctance towards Western political structures in Serbian society. The tension between the West and Serbia grew particularly high in 1999 during the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, and in 2008 when Kosovo proclaimed independence. In spite of these tensions, within last few years Serbia has been successfully involved in a normalisation process with Kosovo as a part of its rapprochement with the EU. Serbia has opened itself to the West but it still maintains good relations with Russia, regardless of the Kremlin’s foreign policy activities. Hence, the author argues that rethinking relations and cutting certain ties with Russia should be among the key conditions for Serbia to join the EU, no less important than normalisation with Kosovo.
IntroductionThe text presents the leading subject of the issue, and discusses the question of cultural dis-contiuity, with special interest to its Balkan context.
In a synthetic manner, the author presents participation of Polish soldiers in peace mission in the Balkans. The timeline and the concept of the article have been designed to demonstrate the role of the missions in Polish bid for NATO membership. In this perspective, the missions served Polish Armed Forces as a source of necessary experi-ence and knowledge of NATO procedures
Although all the Western Balkan countries have been offered the prospect of European Union (EU) membership, the accession process still constitutes a complicated and multi-aspect challenge. EU support and engagement in the region have resulted in a few successes, nonetheless, describing them as major breakthroughs is far from the reality. Since the establishment of the Dayton Agreement in 1995, ending the conflict in Bosnia and Herzegovina, most of the Balkan states have not managed to accomplish their political, ideological and civic transformations yet. However, the difficult situation and frequent negotiation stalemates are not only the outcomes of the unsatisfactory progress made by the Peninsular countries. Ambiguous and unethical (in some cases) behaviour can also be noticed from the EU decision-makers’ side. The following article aims to present concrete examples of EU external policy actions in Bosnia and Herzegovina which can be described as controversial. However, the author attempts to prove the thesis that unethical external policy is not always a zero-sum game, and in particular circumstances it can be paradoxically perceived as the best solution. Taking into consideration the comprehensiveness of the problem and editorial limitations, the analysis focuses on activities of the High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina, who used to be (during four out of seven tenures) the EU Special Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina.
During the formation of the Ottoman Empire, the Ottoman rulers, similarly to the European rulers pursued a policy of the matrimonial contract, when entering into political marriages with the daughters of the Christian rulers. Christian wives were not forced to convert to Islam. Their status was clearly defined by a marriage settlement signed by the parents or brothers of a future husband. This contract provided females with the right to retain their religion, their means of sustenance to maintain their homes and mansions, as well as high status. Initially, these marriages and the related family relationships were treated very seriously, and one should not consider them to be only a manifestation of vassalization, they usually brought mutual political benefits. With time, with growing disproportions in the military capabilities of the Ottoman Empire and the Christian states in the Balkans, they became a part of political pressure. This did not mean, though, a departure from the principles of marriage contracts. The abolition of the Byzantine Empire and the Balkan countries caused a withdrawal from the policy of the sultans’ marriage contracts with Christian females, and later, a complete resignation from marriage settlements. After the conquest of the Balkans and Asia Minor, they lost their purpose.
Using a simple narrative technique, Panaït Istrati is an excellent painter of the Balkans and, above all, he is the friendship seeker. Our study starts from an interrogation: What makes the main character, Adrien Zograffi, wander from one place to another? Is there his taste of adventure or any ideal? The two parts of the work describe several important moments from the volume The Youth of Adrien Zograffi, where Romanians, Greeks and other nations from a Romanian town near the Danube share their happiness and their sadness.
In 1999 the NATO intervention in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia took place. During 78 days NATO bombed Yugoslavia in order to halt Slobodan Milosevic’s policy against Albanians living in Kosovo. By the end of the intervention, more than 850 000 people from Kosovo had become refugees. They predominantly spread across the Balkan states but some of them also were taken outside the region – to Germany, Turkey, Norway, Italy, Canada, the US and to Poland as well. The aim of this paper is to investigate the situation of Kosovo refugees in Poland in 1999. I begin by explaining the situation of people living in Kosovo during the NATO intervention. Next, I will present the issue of refugees in Polish law at the time of the Kosovo crisis. After that, I will also examine the attitude of Poles towards these refugees. What is more, understanding the official narrative about them is crucial in explaining the country’s policy too. Finally, I will summarize my paper with some conclusions regarding the need for further research.
The article presents the French edition-printed in The Hague in 1723- of a significant example of travel literature from the end of the 17th century: A Journey into Greece (1682) by Sir George Wheler (1651–1724). The book made a profound mark on the studies of archeology, epigraphy, and the numismatics of the Balkans, Greece, and the Byzantine world. The article illustrates the significant data collected by the English traveler, botanist, scholar of classical antiquity, and clergyman, relating to the cultural and confessional mosaic in the space of southeastern Europe. His descriptions should be interpreted as a representative portrait of the remains of the ancient Euro‑Mediterranean ecumene. The traveler-churchman’s spirit of observation and sensitivity made Wheler a model author in the scholarly travel literature of the 17th century.
This article aims to present the main trends in the Bulgarian research conducted after 1989 into the history of the Southern Slavs (Serbs, Croats, Slovenians, Bosnian Muslims, and Montenegrins) and the Western Slavs (Poles, Czechs, and Slovaks) as well as various forms of cooperation between Slavs as Yugoslavism, pan-Slavism, and Neo-Slavism in 1848–1908. The review allows to recognize trends that have been developing after the fall of communism (Bulgarian relations with Serbs, Croats, and Czechs) and those that have been neglected to a greater or lesser extent1(Polish, Slovak, Slovenian, Bosniak, and Montenegrin issues). While we can easily explain this regress in Slovak, Bosnian, and Slovenian topics – after all, Bulgarians have only limited relationships with these nations – this cannot be said of Polish and Montenegrin issues, with which Bulgarians had strong relationships in the second half of the 19th century.
Bulgarian affairs in the second half of the 19th c. in Polish historiography since 1989In this article, we present an overview of research topics concerning the history of Bulgaria in the second half of the 19th c. and early 20th c. that have appeared in Polish historiography since 1989. We adopted the timeframe of 1848–1908. The two dates are not only of key importance for the history of Europe and Slavdom, but also for Bulgarians. 1848 was the year which saw the birth of Hristo Botev, one of the most prominent Bulgarian poets and national revival activists, while in 1908 Bulgaria officially declared its independence and the beginning of the third empire. We wanted to avoid writing historiographical overview articles which consist only of dry bibliographical lists and focus on the most important research trends which can be observed in the field of Polish studies on Bulgaria in the second half of the 19th c. Sprawy bułgarskie w drugiej połowie XIX wieku w polskiej historiografii po 1989 rokuW niniejszym artykule zostanie przeprowadzony przegląd tematów badawczych dotyczących historii Bułgarii w drugiej połowie XIX i na początku XX wieku, pojawiający się w polskiej historiografii po 1989 roku. Jako cezurę czasową przyjęto lata 1848–1908. Obie te daty mają nie tylko kluczowe znaczenie dla dziejów Europy i Słowiańszczyzny, ale także Bułgarów. W 1848 roku urodził się Christo Botew, jeden z czołowych bułgarskich poetów oraz działaczy odrodzeniowych, w 1908 roku zaś Bułgaria oficjalnie ogłosiła niepodległość i początek trzeciego carstwa. Autorzy chcieli zerwać z historiograficznymi artykułami przeglądowymi opartymi na suchym wymienianiu pozycji bibliograficznych, a skupić się na najważniejszych nurtach badawczych, tendencjach oraz zjawiskach, widocznych na polu polskich badań nad Bułgarią w drugiej połowie XIX wieku.
The Influence of Ancient Greek Culture on Macedonian Literature of the 19th CenturyIn Macedonia under the Ottoman rule during the nineteenth century, the Macedonian people-the nation is subject to political pressure and the cultural influence of Turkey and other countries. Under the influence of propaganda leading by Athens and education politics in the area of contemporary Republic of Macedonia, some Macedonian militant intellectuals embraced, at the same time, were influenced by romanticism and the Old-Greek culture, which strongly affect their literary works. In this context, two authors are viewed as the most significant-Jordan Hadji Murad Konstantinov Džinot and Grigor Prlichev. Džinot is the author of dramatized dialogue inspired by the classic Greek mythology, at the school, where he is a teacher. On the pages of the press he announces the publication of its ancient-themed dramas, however, for unknown reasons, none of them does not appear in print. Prlichev well knew the Old-Greek and is an admirer of the works of Homer. Influenced by the poetry of Homer writes in an epic poem in the archaized Greek. Wpływ starogreckiej kultury na literaturę macedońską w XIX wiekuW ramach imperium osmańskiego, którego częścią jest Macedonia w ciągu XIX wieku, macedoński lud-naród podlega politycznej presji i wpływom kulturowym ze strony Turcji i innych państw. Pod wpływem propagandy, którą prowadzą Ateny i która wyraża się m.in. w zakładaniu swoich szkół w Macedonii, niektórzy macedońscy intelektualiści, ogarnięci w tym samym czasie wpływami romantyzmu poznają kulturę starogrecką, co silnie wpłynie na ich twórczość literacką. W tym kontekście wybijają się dwie najbardziej znaczące postaci – Jordan Hadži Konstantinov-Džinot i Grigor Prličev. Džinot jest autorem dramatyzowanych dialogów inspirowanych klasyczną, starogrecką mitologią, wystawianych w szkole, w której sam jest nauczycielem. Na łamach prasy zapowiada publikację swoich dramatów o tematyce antycznej, jednak z niewiadomych przyczyn żaden z nich nie pojawia się w druku. Prličev dobrze zna starogrecki i jest znawcą twórczości Homera. Pod wpływem poezji Homera pisze w archaizowanym języku greckim poemat epicki zatytułowany ‛Ο 'Aρματωλός (w macedońskim przekładzie Сердарот albo Мартолозот), który przynosi mu zwycięstwo w konkursie poetyckim w Atenach w 1860 roku. Jego drugie dzieło epickie zatytułowane Σκενδέρμπεης jest napisane także w duchu poezji Homera, głównie jeśli chodzi o styl (epitety i porównania) i kompozycję (opracowanie typowych dla eposu motywów tematycznych). Obydwaj są także tłumaczami, Džinot zapowiada w prasie przekład Antygony Sofoklesa, o losach przekładu nic nam nie wiadomo, a Prličev dokonuje poetyckiego przekładu Iliady Homera na wymyślony przez siebie język, który jest w istocie mieszanką języków słowiańskich, a sam autor nazywa go "ogólnosłowiańskim". Влијанието на старогрчката култура врз македонската литература во XIX–иот векВо рамките на Турската Империја од која Македонија е дел во текот на 19-иот, македонскиот народ е изложен на политичка пресија и културното влијание и на Турција и на некои соседни држави. Под влијание на пропагандата на владата во Атина која отвора свои школи во Македонија, а во исто време и зафатени од бранот на романтизам, некои македонски интелектуалци се запознаваат со старогрчката култура што ќе остави силен печат врз нивното литературно творештво. Во тој поглед се издвојуваат две најзначајни имиња – Јордан Хаџи Константинов Џинот и Григор Прличев.Џинот се јавува со драмски дијалози инспирирани од класичната старогрчка митологија кои се изведуваат на приредбите во школите во кои тој е учител, а во печатот најавува објавување на свои драми со античка тематика кои, од непознати причини, не се појавиле.Прличев е добро образован во старогрчкиот јазик и особено добар познавач на Хомер. Под влијание на хомерската поезија, тој пишува на еден архаизиран грчки јазик епска поема под наслов ‛Ο ’Aρματωλός (во македонски превод Серадот или Мартолозот) и со неа победува на поетскиот конкурс во Атина 1860 година.Второто негово епско дело под наслов Σκενδέρμπεης исто така е напишано во духот на хомерската поезија и тоа се гледа главно во областа на стилот (епитети и споредби) и во композицијата (обработка на типични епски теми). На преведувачки план, Џинот најавува во печатот превод на трагедијата Антигона од Софокле, дело чија судбина исто така не ни е позната, а Прличев пишува препев на Хомеровата Илијада на еден посебен јазик кој претставува смеса од словенските јазици, а самиот автор го нарекува „општословенски“.
Religion-Based Cultural Communities in the Pre-Modern BalkansIntellectual life in the pre-modern Balkans was fragmented along religious lines. In the multi-ethnic religious communities (the Orthodox Christian, the Muslim and the Catholic), one particular “high code” language was used by the intellectual elites of the various ethnic groups as a shared means of communication in the field of worship, scholarship and literature. In addition, on behalf of the unschooled, who were ignorant of the high code, there existed within each community vernacular literature that was intended to instruct common people about the doctrine of their faith and keep them on the straight path. The use of a shared literary language strengthened the solidarity with each community but also increased the cultural divisiveness of the Balkans as a whole. The lack or scarcity of a high literature in a particular language is no indication of the “culturelessness” of its speakers. In fact, with their coreligionists they shared a rich high culture in one of the literary languages. Wspólnoty kulturowe oparte na religii na Bałkanach w czasach przednowoczesnychŻycie intelektualne na Bałkanach w czasach przednowoczesnych uległo rozdrobnieniu ze względu na podziały religijne. W wieloetnicznych wspólnotach wyznaniowych – prawosławnej, muzułmańskiej i katolickiej – jeden szczególny „wysoki” język był używany przez elity intelektualne różnych grup etnicznych jako wspólny środek komunikacji w dziedzinie kultu, edukacji i literatury. Obok niego, dla warstw niewykształconych, nieświadomych takiego kodu, w każdej społeczności istniała literatura w językach narodowych, mająca na celu pouczyć zwykłych ludzi o doktrynie ich wiary i właściwej drodze postępowania. Posługiwanie się wspólnym językiem literackim nie tylko wzmocniło solidarność międzywspólnotową, ale także zwiększyło kulturową różnorodność Bałkanów jako całości. Brak lub niedobór wysokiej literatury w danym języku nie świadczy o „braku kultury” u jej użytkowników. W rzeczywistości dzielili oni bowiem bogatą kulturę wysoką ze swoimi współwyznawcami za pośrednictwem innego języka literackiego.
For small, low-to-middle-income countries such as North Macedonia, the prospect of young, educated people leaving their place of residence (i.e. emigrating) can have significant negative societal-level effects. Understanding the complexity of the brain-drain phenomenon and its antecedents is critical to developing multi-level (i.e. global, societal and individual) strategic solutions. A qualitative analysis of several focus-group interviews was used to understand young, educated residents’ reasons either for emigrating or for remaining in North Macedonia. Two overarching themes served to organise the participant-identified drivers for emigration and those opposed to it. Three sub-themes emerged describing the factors for emigration: 1) a lack of professional opportunities, 2) institutional systems, and 3) cultural tightness. Likewise, three sub-themes emerged describing the factors for staying: 1) community, 2) culture and 3) social responsibility. Insights serve to contextualise some of the experiences of young, educated people in small, low-to-middle-income, countries which impact on their emigration decisions.
The question of whether a single leader type will emerge as one of the possible effects of globalization has required research on the subject. In the context of culture, Hofsthede, Brodbeck et al, and GLOBE studies, revealing that different leadership characteristics come to the fore in different geographies with cultural influences, refuting the claim that a uniform leader model will emerge with globalization. Among the aforementioned studies, GLOBE studies went a little further and claimed that leadership is actually a function of culture. Leadership research in the Balkans, which is a tangle of cultures with its complex ethnic structure, is relatively less included in the literature. The main purpose of this article is; Despite this problem arising from the Cold War period, how the leadership styles are in the Balkans is to examine the relationship between Balkan style leadership and culture. At the same time, the article has a secondary purpose that questions whether the claim that “there is not a single Balkans” is also valid for leadership practices when it comes to culture. Literature review and observation method were used in the research. The observations mainly include the observations made in Albania between the years of 2012-2015. On the other hand, the literature review is based on the data obtained primarily from local studies about each country in the Balkans. The results obtained emphasize that when it comes to leadership in the Balkan countries, the first thing is that political leadership is understood, which draws attention to autocratic leadership from the socialist administration period. In the context of business leadership, it shows that autocratic leadership was effective in the 10-year transition period after the Cold War, and that transformational leadership began to come to the fore in the 2000s at varying speed and rate according to institutions and countries. As a result of the investigations, the article shows that quite similar leadership characteristics stand out for the Balkans, the culture of democracy has not yet fully settled in this context, the avoidance of uncertainty in social codes, the autocratic administration still has an important place as a reflection of cultural dimensions such as the distance of power, on the other hand, willingness to change with new generations, more democratic leadership expectations increase and transformational leadership comes to the fore with the change in geography. Although the article has limitations in terms of containing observations specific to one country, it supports the claims in terms of including the local research results of the countries and is considered to contribute to the literature for the Balkans where limited research is available.
Nikephoros Bryennios the Younger has a place in the history of Byzantium as the author of one of the works devoted to the Komnenos family coming to power. This outstanding observer and talented leader, who was fascinated by the person of his father-in-law Alexius I Komnenos, came from a family whose ambitions were no less than the those in the one into which Nikephoros himself married. His father and grandfather, also his namesake, were those who dreamed of an imperial crown for themselves and tried to reach for it armed. Apart from defeat, they both faced punishment which was blinding. One of those who captured and ordered the father of Nikephoros the Younger to be blinded was his future father-in-law. Like the later marriage with Anna Komnene, this had an impact on the respect he had for the new dynasty. However, the question is whether this respect should be explained by the man’s reluctance to participate in a plot against his brother-in-law that his ambitious wife and her mother planned.
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