Balkans and Balkanisation: Western Perceptions of the Balkans in the Carnegie Commission’S Reports on the Balkan Wars from 1914 to 1996

Balkans and Balkanisation: Western Perceptions of the Balkans in the Carnegie Commission’s Reports on the Balkan Wars from 1914 to 1996 Predrag SIMIĆ* Abstract Key Words The Yugoslav Wars broke out at a time when Balkans, Balkanisation, war, ethnic the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Velvet Revolutions conflict, the European Union, the Cold War, in Czechoslovakia and other countries in Eastern NATO. Europe and the collapse of the Eastern Bloc had instilled a sense of hope that Europe would become ‘whole and free’, and that the end of the Introduction European wars heralded a millennia of peace and democracy. The crisis and the collapse of The Yugoslav Wars broke out at a the former Yugoslavia ‘re-balkanised’ Southeast time when the fall of the Berlin Wall, Europe and revived old Western stereotypes about the Balkans and ‘Balkanisation’. The author the revolutions in Eastern Europe and attempts to determine the origin of the ideas and the dissolution of the Eastern Bloc had values that influenced Western policy towards instilled a sense of hope that Europe this crisis, through a comparative analysis of two reports on the Balkan Wars by the Carnegie would be whole and free, and that the Endowment for International Peace from 1914 history of European wars was coming and 1996, respectively. In the author’s opinion, to a close, heralding a millennium of the cause of the Balkan Wars in the 1990s was peace and democracy.1 The crisis and the not ‘old hatreds’ between the Balkan nations, but the remnants of the old communist regimes, breakup of the former Yugoslavia in the which in an effort to retain power had embraced 1990s ‘re-balkanised’ Southeast Europe nationalism as their policies, and thus came and revived old Western stereotypes into conflict with the new values that brought an end to the Cold War. The author concludes about the Balkans and Balkanisation. that the conflict between conservative (‘Balkan’) According to Western observers, the crisis and liberal (‘European’) values was the reason for in the Balkans had brought wars back to the slogan “the flight from the Balkans”, and the Europe2 and, instead of Europeanising political disputes that evolved into bitter armed conflict in the former Yugoslavia. the Balkans, threatened to ‘balkanise’ Europe. This gave rise to a proliferation * Professor at the Faculty of Political Sciences, of studies in the West about the Balkans. University of Belgrade, Serbia Some, by reinterpreting or rewriting 113 PERCEPTIONS, Summer 2013, Volume XVIII, Number 2, pp. 113-134. Predrag Simić history, proposed or justified political as ‘Savage Europe’)5 which threatens the and military solutions for the Balkan entire continent with its endless mutual crisis, while others sought to elucidate conflicts. Therefore, according to them, the history of the Balkans and to explain the task of the great powers is to impose the ‘balkanisation’ phenomenon. Among on the Balkans, by force if necessary, the the first group, the studies by Samuel rules of civilised behaviour, or else risk Huntington, Robert Kaplan, Noel seeing the Balkan conflicts spill over Malcolm and Morton Abramowitz3 stand into the entire continent, as was the case out for the influence they had on U.S. with World War I.6 Robert Kaplan, in and EU policies; the most noteworthy his book Balkan Ghosts (1993), George authors of the latter group include Maria Kennan, in the foreword to the book Todorova, Vesna Goldsworthy and Mark The Other Balkan Wars (1993), and Mazower, among others.4 the authors of the book Unfinished Peace (1996), have gone furthest in The crisis and the breakup of that direction. The conflicts between the former Yugoslavia in the the Serbs and the ethnic Albanians in 1990s ‘re-balkanised’ Southeast Kosovo gave rise to historical revisionism Europe and revived old Western by the British author Noel Malcolm in stereotypes about the Balkans his book Kosovo: A Short History.7 These and Balkanisation. books influenced strategic thinking in the United States and Europe, and Despite the differences in the motives the decision by NATO countries to and the content of their works, these intervene in the former Yugoslavia in authors largely agree that the Balkans 1995 and 1999. In contrast, the second at the end of the 20th century resembled group of authors considers the interests the Balkans at the end of the 19th and disputes of the great powers over this century, that it was and still is the area, situated on the fringe of Europe, as ‘powder keg’ that threatened and still the very causes of the conflicts in the threatens Europe, and that the Western Balkans. perception of the Balkans at the end of The stereotypes about the Balkans the 20th century resembled that at the formed at the turn of the 20th century end of the 19th century. The first group remain fundamentally unchanged even of authors considers the Balkans as a in the beginning of the 21st century. For European periphery (sometimes called many westerners the Balkans remain 114 Balkans and Balkanisation a mysterious region on the southeast – sparing Turkey, because of which there border of Europe. It is the successor are opinions nowadays that the EU of the Byzantine Empire (“opposed to development model is not appropriate the tradition of western civilisation”), for the Euro-Mediterranean region. the only part of the continent that had long been “a colony of an oriental The Balkans: Europe and its power”, from which they received a set Other of characteristics incompatible with modern European societies (oriental The name Balkan11 did not come into despotism, violence, corruption, and widespread use until the first half of the so on), and which, therefore, does 19th century, when it became necessary 8 not belong in Europe”. In her book to create a specific designation for this Imagining the Balkans, Maria Todorova region: “The choice was at least partly addresses these stereotypes, taking as due to the fact that in the first half of a starting point the works of Edward the nineteenth century the mountain Said about the myth of Orientalism in range became famous as the theatre of Western culture, which establishes the the Russo-Turkish Wars and, until 1877, ‘Orient’ as antithetical to European this natural bulwark formed the second civilisation.9 Thus, for example, the EU’s and most important line for Istanbul”.12 reluctance to admit Turkey as a member Until that time the region known today is often explained by incompatibility as the Balkans had been divided between of the Islamic tradition with the EU’s the Habsburg and Ottoman Empires Christian foundations. However, some and referred to as a part of a broader see the reasons for the EU’s rejection of area of the ‘Orient’, or the ‘European Turkey in the fear that this country, a part of Turkey’ or ‘Turkey in Europe’, rising economic power with a growing along with the use of the ancient term population, may shortly become one ‘Haemus’. The European region of the of the EU’s leading members and shift Ottoman Empire was generally referred the EU’s centre of gravity to the East.10 to as Rumelia or the Roman or Christian The financial crisis that started in the part of the Empire.13 autumn of 2008 in the United States and which spread to Europe in 2009 The Eastern Crisis, the conquests of most severely affected the southern EU the Habsburgs and the Russians in the countries – Greece, Spain and Portugal 18th century, and national revolutions 115 Predrag Simić that broke out in the Balkans in the former Albanus, Schards, Haemus, the 19th century, made the Balkans which to the northwest joins the Alps politically visible in Europe. The Age in the small Istrian Peninsula, and to of Enlightenment and the rise of the east fades away into the Black Sea in Europe made it politically incorrect to two branches”.17 The reason why Zeune associate this part of the continent with defined the Balkan Peninsula as such was a declining oriental power. For European probably the belief, present in Europe travel writers in the 18th and 19th since the Renaissance time, in the catena centuries, its land and its people “merely mundi, the chain of the world, a mountain served as a kind of mirror in which they range stretching from the Pyrenees in saw themselves and noticed, first and the west all the way to the Balkans in foremost, how advanced and civilised the east, with Mount Balkan (Stara they were. In this respect, we can argue Planina – Old Mountain in Bulgarian that there can be no Europe without the and Serbian) as its northeastern border Balkans.”14 The earliest mention of the of the peninsula. Two decades later in word ‘Balkan’ in Western Europe dates 1830, the French geographer Ami Boué back to 1490, in a memorandum the offered an accurate description of this Italian humanist and diplomat Philippus mountain. The German author Theobald Callimachus sent to Pope Innocent VIII. Fischer in the mid-19th century proposed It was Frederick Calvert who introduced Südosteuropa (Southeast Europe) as the the name ‘Balkans’ into the English name for this region, but this name language.15 This name occasionally also acquired a political connotation appeared in the notes of John Moritt16 during World War II. This explains why and other Europeans who travelled to the geographical boundaries of this region European part of the Ottoman Empire have not been clearly defined to date, but in the 16th and 17th centuries. may include, depending on the source, The German geographer Johan August the entire region of Southeast Europe, or only the region between the Danube Zeune put the term ‘Balkan Peninsula’ River and the Aegean Sea, sometimes (Balkanhalbinsel) in official use in his without Greece.

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