Balkan History

Als Deutschland und Italien 1941 den Unabhängigen Staat Kroatien (NDH) schufen und damit die faschistische Ustascha an die Macht brachten, schafften sie beste Voraussetzungen für eines der dunkelsten Kapitel der jugoslawischen Geschichte: Bis zum Ende des Krieges bestimmten Massengewalt, Verfolgungen, ethnische Säuberungen, Flucht und Bürgerkrieg den „Alltag“ der Bevölkerung. Doch sollten sich beide Länder ebenfalls in den Fallstricken ihrer eigenen Machtpolitik verfangen. Sie blieben nämlich vor Ort als Besatzer, Kriegsparteien und Politiktreibende. Der NDH bietet somit ein Brennglas, um die nationalsozialistischen und die faschistischen Vorstellungen von Imperium, Besatzung und Machtdurchsetzung zu untersuchen. Die Autorin analysiert auf einer breiten Quellenbasis aus deutschen, italienischen, serbischen und kroatischen Archiven die deutsche und die italienische Besatzungspolitik und insbesondere auch das Verhalten gegenüber der Lokalbevölkerung.

Un percorso di Fact-checking confutativo delle narrazioni nazionaliste sul confine orientale e dell'uso ideologico della storia, attraverso un percorso di analisi multiculturale ed etno-storico di longue durée sino alla recente casa comune europea.

Despite the voluminous literature on the Yugoslav question during the First World War, the views and the role of Regent Alexander in the creation of Yugoslavia have remained insufficiently known. This is, to a large extent, a result of the lack of primary sources which would reveal in no uncertain terms the attitude of Regent Alexander throughout the war, a circumstance which partly stemmed from the nature of his constitutional role in Serbia. Nevertheless, it is argued in this paper that Alexander’s handling of the Yugoslav unification was, at least to certain degree, conditioned by power relations between the Regent, Nikola Pašić, the Radical Prime Minister, and the secret officer organisation, the Black Hand, headed by Dragutin Dimitrijević-Apis. Especially after the downfall of Serbia in the winter of 1915, Alexander exhibited his autocratic ambitions, trying to put both the army and the civilian government under his control. In his attempts to remove Pašić and replace his cabinet by a politically neutral one led by a prominent military commander, Alexander seems to have played with the idea to utilise the Yugoslav programme as a political platform for promoting the envisaged new cabinet. There were indications during his official visit to Great Britain in March-April 1916 that this was the case. In particular, the remarks made by Jovan Jovanović-Pižon, Pašić’s deputy in the Foreign Ministry, who was a close friend of the Regent and a fervent supporter of Yugoslavism, and Alexander’s efforts to cultivate Robert William Seton-Watson, the leading pro-Yugoslav public figure in Britain, leave the impression that the Regent tried to present himself as the main pillar of Yugoslav unification as opposed to the allegedly exclusive Serbian approach advocated by Pašić. During the Corfu conference in the summer of 1917, Alexander made a good impression on the representatives of the émigreé Yugoslav Committee headed by Ante Trumbić, the leading Croat politician, and facilitated understanding between the Serbian and Croatian point of view. However, after the adoption of the Corfu declaration, Alexander strongly backed his Prime Minister in his conduct of the Yugoslav policy. This stemmed from the new constelation arising from the Salonica trial in which the Regent and Pašić joined forces to eliminate Apis and his Black Hand. Since this notorious affair resulted in the break-up of the Serbian coalition cabinet and the revision of the Salonica trial became the watchword of the oppostion parties, Alexander supported Pašić in both his struggle against the Yugoslav Committee, which endeavoured to impose itself as an equal partner to the Serbian government, and his refusal to yield to the demands of the opposition during the course of negotiations for the formation of a new coalition cabinet. Finally, Alexander became the dominant political factor in the concluding phase of the war when the success of the Serbian army effectively decided the matter of Yugoslav unification. His view of the situation and Serbia’s leading role in the creation of Yugoslavia was not different from that of Pašić. The Prime Minister was forced for tactical reasons to give way to the representatives of the „Yugoslavs“ at the Geneva Conference in November 1918, but that was utterly distasteful to him. The controversy surrounding Pašić’s shifting of responsibility for the refusal of the Serbian government to accept the Geneva agreement onto the Regent’s shoulders had no real foundation; it seems to have sprung from later accusations against Pašić and Alexander’s decision not to allow Pašić to become the first Prime Minister of the newly-minted Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (Yugoslavia).

В статье разбираются два эпиграфических памятника из Боснии и Герцеговины (из окрестностей Ливна и Любушкого) и группа граффити из долины реки Брегальницы, в восточной части Северной Македонии. Эти памятники объединяет то, что разные исследователи высказывали предположения о наличии в них отдельных глаголических букв. В первой части статьи дан грамматический разбор и новый перевод надписи на каменной стенке погребения попа Теходрага, обнаруженного археологами в 2003 г. в окрестностях Ливна, в 50 км на северо-восток от Сплита. Во второй части работы предложено исправленное прочтение, анализ графики и разбор текста ктиторской надписи на Хумацкой плите из окрестностей Любушкого, в 30 км на юго-запад от Мостара. В заключительном разделе дается интерпретация загадочных знаков на камнях из долины Брегальницы, к северо-востоку от Штипа. Автор статьи приходит к выводу, что все эти памятники эпиграфики не имеют в своем составе глаголических букв. Обе надписи из Боснии и Герцеговины написаны кириллицей с отдельными зеркальными буквами: в них обеих представлена повернутая на 180 градусов буква «есть», а в конце надписи на Хумацкой плите встречены также отдельные зеркальные «вѣдѣ» и «нашь». Обилие зеркальных букв подчеркивает уникальную особенность Хумацкой надписи: все три ее строки одиннадцать раз заворачивают на четырех углах плиты, превращая текст в изощренную спираль с прямыми углами. В свою очередь большинство знаков на камнях из долины реки Брегальницы при ближайшем рассмотрении оказываются тамгами, которые, по-видимому, были вырезаны носителями тюркской культурной традиции – булгарами.

Are there any Glagolitic letters in two inscriptions from Bosnia and Herzegovina and on stones from Bregalnica valley?
Two inscriptions from Bosnia and Herzegovina (from the vicinities of Livno and Ljubuški) and a group of graffiti from the Bregalnica river basin in the eastern part of North Macedonia are examined in this paper. It has been suggested by previous scholars that all of these inscriptions contain Glagolitic letters. The first part of the paper offers grammatical analysis and a new translation of the inscription on the tomb of a priest named Těhodrag. The tomb was unearthed in 2003 around Livno, 50 km northeast of Split. In the second section the author examines the graphics of the donor inscription on the Humac tablet from the vicinity of Ljubuški, 30 km southwest of Mostar, and proposes a revised reading of the text. The third part offers an interpretation of enigmatic signs on stones from the Bregalnica river basin, northeast of Štip. The author comes to the conclusion that none of the examined epigraphic sources contain Glagolitic letters. Both inscriptions from Bosnia and Herzegovina are in Cyrillic with some letters written in mirror image. The letter «есть» is turned 180 degrees in both graffiti, and there is one mirror «вѣдѣ» and two mirror «нашь» at the end of the inscription on the Humac tablet. The abundance of mirror-image letters probably stems from the unique shape of the Humac inscription itself: its tiered lines go around the fours sides of the tablet, forming something like a squared spiral. As for the supposedly «Glagolitic» signs on stones from the Bregalnica river basin, closer study reveals that they are tamgas, most likely carved by bearers of the Turkic cultural tradition, the Bulgars.

The author of the article presents the impact of the Yugoslavian-Soviet normalisation as well as normalisation between Belgrade and Warsaw on Poland’s internal situation in 1956. In particular, the article is a study of the political significance of the press and the impact of journalists on the events during the Thaw period, that is the spread in Poland of the ideas of workers’ self-governance modelled on the workers’ self-governing councils in Yugoslavia. The author argues that the press played a key role here in the period between the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the political breakthrough of October 1956. Authors of the most important articles — Irena Rybczyńska, Eligiusz Lasota, Artur Hajnicz and Tomasz Atkins — described the Yugoslavian decentralisation, decollectivisation and — especially — workers’ self-government. After the Poznań protests of June 1956 Poland’s communist government came under social pressure to introduce changes. Press articles put pressure on the leadership of the Polish United Workers’ Party, created accomplished facts, described the Yugoslavian workers’ self-government and spread information about initiatives setting up workers’ councils in order to democratise relations in factories. In October 1956 the biggest contribution in this respect was made by Express Wieczorny, which published extensive reports from Yugoslavia by Tomasz Atkins and then launched a campaign to combine isolated workers’ self-government initiatives into one movement. The power elites were interested in the Yugoslavian reports, but did not formulate a concrete programme, limiting themselves to vague announcements of “democratisation” and to an initiative to strengthen the discredited works councils. In mid-September 1956 the authorities, responding to the pressure, gave cautious approval to workers’ self-government. Transplanted to Poland, the Yugoslavian idea found in expression in the draft, prepared at the Żerań Car Factory, of the statute of the first workers’ council independent of the government, a document that served as a model for other enterprises.

This paper investigates a lexical gloss in the final recension of Photios’ Amphilochia (880s), in which the ‘barbarian’ word τῶγα is inserted into excerpts from John Lydos’ De magistratibus (c.550) as an alternative contemporary term for an animal-hair crest or tassel on a royal standard. Examination of the terminological meaning and currency takes into account also τόγα found twice in De ceremoniis (c.963–969) in reference to an elaborately crested imperial diadem. In both cases, τῶγα/τόγα is explicitly synonymous with τοῦφα (Late Latin tufa), a plume, crest, tuft or tassel. Exposing misconceptions in older scholarship, analysis of τῶγα/τόγα adduces semantic and morphological criteria in favour of the Turkic etymon tuğ (tūɣ), a royal battle standard distinguished by a horse- or yak-hair tassel(s), as widely documented among martial population-groups of the Eurasian steppe. Historical and cultural contexts tentatively point to a loanword from Danubian Bulgar, the élite linguistic superstratum of the Bulgar Khaganate, and thus a rare specimen of lexical interaction between medieval Greek and an Oğuric Turkic language in a Balkan setting.

The transformation of the image of the Serbs in the Austrian and Hungarian discourse in the 18th and "long" 19th century
The study analyses the transformation of the image of the Serbs in the Austrian and Hungarian intellectual and political discourse since the first half of the 18th century til the outbreak of World War I. Serbs, along with other ethnic groups inhabiting the Military Frontier, have been stereotyped in statistical and patriotic literature as "noble barbarians". Difficult conditions on the border with the Turks formed them into resilient, militant and brave people. The negative features of the character have been explained as a consequence of their "wildening" under Ottoman rule. Since 1870, the positive or at least ambivalent image of Serbs in the Austro-Hungarian and German discourse has changed and negative stereotyping of Serbs has prevailed. On the side of Austro-Hungarian and German propaganda and journalism, this metamorphosis was motivated by a sense of threat, fears of the growing influence of nationalism among the Balkan Slavs. The weakened Ottoman Empire could no longer play the role of the arch-enemy. In order for the "civilizational" role of the Danube monarchy in the Balkans to stand out more, it was necessary to create another enemy. The notion of Serbian inferiority, backwardness, barbarism was purposefully expanded to legitimize the foreign policy of Austria-Hungary and Germany in the Balkans.

The paper explores the ways religious grassroots actors in the borderlands contribute to the new understanding of cross border regions and religious groups in the space between the Serbian and Romanian Banat from the perspective of the anthropology of borders. The border region included in this paper was the place of interreligious and interethnic encounter, where religions and languages mixed and there was a continuous interaction between Orthodox Christians, Catholics and Protestants. By studying the region that had strong cultural, historical and religious connections, the aim is to provide new insights on the borders and religious groups that are understudied. This article explores the "liminal" character of religious identities, development of renewal movements and crossing symbolic boundaries with the examples of the "home-grown" religious movement of the Lord' s Army (Rom. Oastea Domnului) emerged in the first decades of the 20th century.

The book is the result of many years of searching, researching and comprehending the accumulated scientific literature on the language, origin, ethnicity, history, way of life and culture of the Cumans, who for three centuries dominated the Black Sea steppe area, interacting with surrounding sedentary societies before being "swept away" in the course of the Mongol invasion and their remnants being incorporated into already existing or now emerging Eastern European nations. The text is written in Bulgarian with a German summary.

Slides are here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1eM6K6X_Bbb1ZseQ4FnhCv-Duib4qw8_4/view?usp=sharing
Paper presented at the Conference of the Ukrainian Studies Association of Australia and New Zealand 5 February 2022 Conference web-site (program): http://www.ukrainianstudies.asn.au/events/conference2022/ .
An overview of the five copies of Ostrih Bible is given in the paper, those are stored in church and state book collections in Hungary, as well as a synthesis of works by previous authors who dealt with the migration of these books. In East Hungary, two copies belonged to Transcarpathian Rusyns-Ukrainians of the Greek Catholic (Uniate) confession, were described in the works of Esther Ojtozi, who took on the lion's share of the disclosure and description of old printed Cyrillic books, mainly on the eastern land of Hungary. The origin (provenance) of the further three copies relate to the Serbs. A copy of special significance is now kept in the National Library of Hungary, which belonged to various collectors (all documented), and it is maintained that the Serbian Bishop L. Brankovič received this book as a gift from the Uniate Metropolitan of Kiev Joseph Veliamin Rutsky. Instead of the lost Ostrih title, a new title was made by handwriting, written in the framework of engravings of a Romanian book had been printed in Iaşi,1646. Based on the works of previous researchers, the time has come to draw a picture about the role of the Ostrih Bible played in the confessionalization of Slavic peoples who lived on the territory of the Habsburg Empire. While Riccardo Picchio divided the Slavic cultures into “Slavia Orthodoxa” and “Slavia Romana”, it is necessary to study those Slavic enclaves of the Orthodox confession which lived in the middle of Western Christianity, too. – A previous Ukrainian version of this paper has been delivered as an opening keynote lecture in Kyiv, Ukraine: https://www.academia.edu/59617217 (accessible the full-text with references and photo-documentation).

В рецензии обозревается книга болгарского историка Христо Берова, в которой компаративному анализу подвергнуты действия правительств балканских государств в условиях глобальных экономических кризисов — «долгой депрессии» 1873–1896 гг., спада в результате Первой мировой войны и «великой депрессии». Принимаемые меры сравниваются с мировым опытом, с ранее принимавшимися решениями и действиями соседей.