Balkan - Baltic
From Hull AWE
(Redirected from Balkan)
Do not confuse - as has been done - the two geographical terms Balkan and Baltic.
- Balkan is an adjective, less often used substantively, relating to The Balkans.
- The Balkans was first used to denote the Balkan Mountain range in current Bulgaria, a watershed between the Black Sea and the Aegean Sea. The range was known as Haemus from classical Greek times till the nineteenth century.
- The Balkans is now mostly used to denote an area of south-east Europe, with no formally recognized and defined borders, though it is usually recognized as stopping in the south at Greece, in the west at the Adriatic Sea and in the east at the Black Sea (and Dardanelles). The northern border is less clear. This area contains several independent states, the Balkan states. These, too, 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). Some writers refer to the Balkan peninsula, and include Greece among the Balkan states; AWE does not.
- Etymological note: OED (2013) says the word is the Ottoman Turkish Balḳān, applied here to the Bulgarian mountain range. The Ottoman Turkish common noun balḳān means "a[ny] wooded mountain or mountain range".
- There is also a looser usage, recording a prejudiced west European view of the area. OED (2013) records sense 2.b of 'balkanic' as "esp[ecially] (with negative connotations) characterized by hostile relations between numerous neighbouring states or ethnic groups and frequent episodes of political and social unrest." This gives rise to the verb 'To balkanize' "a. transitive. To divide (a region) into a number of smaller, often mutually hostile, political or territorial units. Also intransitive: to fragment or be divided in this way", and the noun Balkanization as "The action or fact of balkanizing or dividing a region into separate political or territorial units. Also in extended use" OED, 2013).
- An illustration may be seen in Diana Condrea's response to the question "Is Romania 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." (uncover-romania.com/about-romania/romanian-people/stereotypes-romania/, 2020).
- There is also a looser usage, recording a prejudiced west European view of the area. OED (2013) records sense 2.b of 'balkanic' as "esp[ecially] (with negative connotations) characterized by hostile relations between numerous neighbouring states or ethnic groups and frequent episodes of political and social unrest." This gives rise to the verb 'To balkanize' "a. transitive. To divide (a region) into a number of smaller, often mutually hostile, political or territorial units. Also intransitive: to fragment or be divided in this way", and the noun Balkanization as "The action or fact of balkanizing or dividing a region into separate political or territorial units. Also in extended use" OED, 2013).
Since the second world war, the Balkan states have seen many changes. See AWE's article on Balkan states for an outline.
- The Balkan Trilogy is a group of three novels by Olivia Manning: The Great Fortune (1960), The Spoilt City (1962), and Friends and Heroes (1965). It forms the first half of her series Fortunes of War .
- The Baltic refers basically to the Baltic Sea, the large body of [not very] salt water (it drains fresh water from a large expanse of land) lying between, on the north-west, the Scandinavian states Denmark, Norway and Sweden; on the north-east, Finland; on the east, the Baltic states Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia; and Russia; and on the south, Germany and Poland.
- Etymological note: the region may have taken its name (in Latin Mare Balticum ('Baltic Sea')) from an imaginary island mentioned by Pliny the Elder called Baltica. The inhabitants of the region became known generically as Balts. Their languages Latvian (or Lettish) and Lithuanian, together with Old Prussian, are part of the Baltic section of the Balto-Slavic language family. The Estonians, who are ethnically Finns, are not properly Balts and speak an entirely different language, one of the Finno-Ugric language family. (It is one of the coincidences that academia is always throwing up that the two regions, Balkan and Baltic, which this article seeks to distinguish should predominantly speak languages that are in fact related.)
- The Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art (often called simply 'The Baltic') is an arts centre in Gateshead, Tyne and Wear, UK.
