Course objectives: Lectures in this course will follow chronology and try to tackle majority of the most important events from political history (the causes and consequences of wars, the foundation and break-up of states and regimes), but the most important goal of this tour d’horizon is to show the history of Balkans over the course of 150 years through several main problems. We will try to concentrate on the long duree (long term) processes, point out who were the most relevant personalities in this region with many totalitarian leaders and events important for understanding everyday life and daily politics until today. History of the Balkans over the past 150 years will be viewed through the angle of minorities, national ideologies and specific political culture.

Enrolment requirements and/or entry competences required for the course: none.

Learning outcomes at the level of the programme to which the course contributes:

(1) Explain, analyze, and compare the main historical events, processes, and structures in Southeast Europe

(2) Analyze and compare different historical narratives and national historiographies in Southeast Europe

(3) Analyze political ideas and processes in Southeast Europe

(4) To be ethic in research and professional work

(5) To recognize, use, integrate, and document data from various sources; to be able to critically analyse historical sources

Expected learning outcomes at the level of the course:

(1) To be able to analyze confronting historical narratives in Southeast Europe

(2) To be able to to recognize the influence of political ideologies on the historical interpretations, to be able to detect layers of ideologies in historical narratives

(3) Understanding of historical development in the Balkans, to be able to independently explain turning points in histories, creation of national states and re-composition of national units. The main goal is to recognize to which extent historical development in the Balkans were part of global historical developments, and how they are interrelated.

(4) To be able to recognize what was peculiar in the Balkans over the course of 150 years.

Course content (syllabus): The lectures aim to explain the rise of nationalism among the Balkan nations and to show how Balkan societies – at different times – were influenced by the new, dominating, ideology. Different ideas of „great“ national states (the Greater Bulgaria, Megali idea of Greece, Italia Irredenta, Greater Serbia, Greater Croatia etc.) will be explained, but also the process of transformation over the course of 150 years. Nationalism is a very adaptable ideology and it was dominant and it remains dominant in the pantheon of ideas regardless of formerly dominant ideologies (like Communism).

All Balkan states lost a huge percentage of minorities over the course of the last 150 years. Why that was the case is one of the main topics of this historical overview of Balkan history (from the Congress in Berlin in 1878 until today), when most countries of the Western Balkans are aspiring to become members of the European Union.

Another goal of this course is to show which of the global events or politics emanating from the centers of the world (be it Moscow, USA, London) were directly influencing political developments in the Balkans. The goal would be to show how Western Powers were, for example, interested in preservation of the Ottoman Empire, how many of the Balkan states were client states of super-powers and how Western royal houses became ruling houses in many Balkan countries.

What was global in the history of the Balkan peninsula over the last 150 states is the third goal of this course. It should illustrate the ways by which the Balkan countries were developing, how were they influencing or were influenced by the world events during the Long 19th Century (for example Sarajevo 1914), during the interwar period, during the Second World War, Cold War or Era of Global Civilization. It should show how countries of the South Eastern Europe were receptive to world trends and how they were adapting their policies and approaches to the world events. Over the last 150 years Balkan was for most of the time on the very outskirts of European politics. Is there a possibility for the outreach, change, possibility to make a sharper move to the center, is one of the goals of this course. 

Format of instruction: lectures, multimedia and the internet.

Student responsibilities: regular class attendance, submission of the seminar paper, independent reading of literature, participation in discussions, written exam.

Monitoring student work: class attendance, research, oral exam, seminar paper

1. Jürgen Osterhammel. The Transformation of the World. A Global History of the Nineteenth Centruy. Princeton University Press. Oxford and Princeton 2007.
2. Robet Bideleux and Ian Jeffries. The Balkans. A Post-Communist History. Routledge. London 2007.
3. John Hutchinson and Anthony D. Smith (eds). Nationalism. Oxford University Press, Oxford 1994.
4. Tony Judt. Postwar. History of Europe Since 1945. Pimlico. London 2007. (also in Croatian)
5. John R. Lampe. Balkans into Southeastern Europe. Palgrave Macmillan. New York 2006.            
6. Brendan O’Malley and Ian Craig. The Cyprus Conspiracy, America, Espionage and the Turkish Invasion. I.B.Tauris, London 1999.
7. Misha Glenny. The Balkans. Nationalism, War and the Great Powers 1804-1999. Penguin. London 2001. (also in Serbian)

1. Marco Dogo and Guido Franzinetti. Disrupting and Reshaping. Early Stages of Nation-Builiding in the Balkans. Longo Editore Ravenna, 2002.
2. Jakovina, Tvrtko. “Tito’s Yugoslavia as the Pivotal State of the Non-Aligned,” 391-406. In: Tito: viđenja i tumačenja, ed. Olga Manojlović Pintar, Institut za noviju istoriju Srbije i Arhiv Jugoslavije, Belgrade 2011.
3. R.J.Crampton. The Balkans. Since the Second World War. UK: Longman 2002.
4. Paulin Kola. The Search for Greater Albania. London: Hurst, 2003. (selected chapters).
5. Andrej Mitrović. Serbia’s Great War 1914-1918. London: Hurst and Company, 2007. (also in Serbian).
6. Stevan K. Pawlovitch. Hitler’s New Disorder. The Second World War in Yugoslavia. London: Hurst and Company, 2008.
7. Marie-Janine Calic. The Great Cauldron: A History of Southeastern Europe, Cambridge – London: Harvard University Press, 2019. (also in German and Bosnian)