Bosnia Blog

Map

The Balkan border is a disputing issue as Slovenia is included on some maps and not on the other, and the part of Romania which belongs to this region is unclear.

Balkan Scissors blogs a short but fairly  detailed post describing the Balkan:

The identity of the Balkans owes as much to its fragmented and often violent common history as to its mountainous geography. The region was perennially on the edge of great empires, its history dominated by wars, rebellions, invasions and clashes between empires, from the times of the Roman Empire to the latter-day Yugoslav wars.

The author’s observation rang true during my recent travel to the mountainous region of Banat in Romania. More than twice, the word “Balkan” was sarcastically used when an unpleasant situation arose. (will be mentioned my next post about the Balkan)

Although the former characterization of the Balkans is widely used and extremely common today, it is important to note that this characterization is also widely exaggerated and may be connected to historically negative connotations the Balkans have amongst Western European nations and political elites. Recent problems and conflicts in the Balkans having to do with recent political and social divisions rather than the so-called age-old ‘tendency’ of the Balkan peoples to engage in war and conflicts.

Global Etiquette

So what should you do?

Czechs don’t like to be called Eastern Europeans because the term carries a negative connotation, implying a former, poor, screwed up Communist state. Also, in every geographical and historical senses, the Czech Republic lies in Central Europe, subjected to the rule of Austro-Hungarian empire for hundred of years and has been the culture center of Europe. Similarly, if you happen to be in contact with Slovenians or Croatians who are not your friends, you will be wise not to associate them to the Balkan as the term, for some, is not something to be proud of. Slovenia has become rightfully an EU member, converted to the EURO, and been doing economically well. Croatia has tried hard to follow its neighbor’s footsteps, thus getting rid of the Yugolsavia and Balkan past all together.

[Balkan Scissors]

The museum’s vicissitudes reflect the city’s ambiguous and ever-changing relationship with its own past. In 1917 the Austro-Hungarians erected a giant monument at the assassination site. Nearly two years later it was ripped down by the new Yugoslav authorities—though strangely a large central medallion from the monument, bearing the image of Franz Ferdinand and his wife, survives to this day in the basement of another Sarajevo gallery.

In 1930 a plaque was put up to celebrate Princip. In 1941 it was torn from the wall and given to Hitler for his 52nd birthday. After the second world war, Princip was claimed by the communists. Not only was the museum at the corner opened but the assassin’s fateful footsteps were set in the pavement. In 1992 they were destroyed and the museum shut: Princip had to go—Bosnian Muslims and Croats saw him as a Serbian hero. In 2004 a new plaque was unveiled. But it simply states the bare facts of what happened in 1914.

Continue reading the entire article from The Economist…

The Russian Empire might not have fallen, and Bolshevik-style communism would not have risen to hold sway over so much of the world. Hitler would possibly have lived out his life as a paper-hanger and failed painter. Perhaps the Austro-Hungarian Empire would have survived, being reformed along the lines of the heir apparent in 1914, Archduke Ferdinand, to become the Austro-Hungarian-Serbian Empire.

Continue reading an interesting analysis of what would have and have not happened if Gavrilo Princip had not pulled the trigger on that fateful day in Sarajevo.

[Link]

12 men were convicted for their involvement in the conspiracy and assassination of Serbia’s former Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic.

A man who:

Djindjic, Serbia’s first democratically elected premier since World War II, spearheaded Milosevic’s removal from power in 2000. He later handed Milosevic over to the U.N. tribunal to answer for his role in the 1990s wars during the breakup of Yugoslavia. Milosevic died of a heart attack in his prison cell last year.

Will write more about Zoran when I get back from my weekend trip.

[Link]