Balkan states

The Balkan states are those countries that lie within the area of the Balkans, in south-east Europe. They have varied in boundaries and names. From c.1453 until the latter half of the nineteenth century, the Balkans formed part of the Ottoman Empire. The First Balkan War (1912-1913) saw the League of Balkan nations (the Kingdoms of Bulgaria, Serbia, Greece and Montenegro) win independence from Turkey. Dissatisfaction with the apportionment of the spoils led to the Second Balkan War(1913).

In the hopes of elucidating some part of their confused history during the twentiwth and twenty-first centuries, AWE offers this limited set of notes. The Balkan States as independent territories include:

• • • Albania, q.v., (not be confused with Caucasian Albania, nor with Albion).
    • Bosnia was a successor state to the Illyrians, who ruled over several kingdoms known to the ancient Greeks. In the sixth and seventh centuries CE, the Illyrian peoples were over-run by the Southern Slavs, although apparently experiencing assimilation rather than genocide. These included the Banate of Bosnia, the Kingdom of Croatia, and the Grand Principality of Serbia, none of which made a huge impression against the Hungarian Kingdom, the Byzantine Empire and, from 1463, the Ottoman Empire. At the Congress of Berlin in 1878, sovreignty passed to the Austro-Hugarian Empire, and, after its defeat in the First World War, the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes was instituted. This was renamed Yugoslavia in 1929.

• • • Bulgaria
    • Croatia

Some writers include Greece as a Balkan country, as it is the southern end of what they call the Balkan peninsula. AWE does not.

• • • Herzogovina is a constituent part of Bosnia, formally Bosnia and Herzogovina.
    • Jugoslavia (or Yugoslavia)
    • Macedonia
    • Montenegro

Some weriters include Romania as a Balkan country. "Geographically, the Balkan region starts south of the Danube and Romania is located on the north side of the river. Many information sources tend to include, however, Romania into [sic] the Balkan Peninsula. Even if geographically this is not accurate, in many cultural aspects Romania does feel like a Balkan country." ( Diana Condrea, 2020).

• • • Serbia
    • Slovenia