THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE BALKAN NATIONAL STATES, 1804-1920

by Charles & Barbara Jelavich ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 8, 1978

A compact, industrious survey of the gradual emancipation of the Serbs, Greeks, Bulgarians, Rumanians, Slovenes, Croats, and Albanians from Turkish and Austro-Hungarian rule. The Serbs were the first to break in 1804; Greece followed by 1832; and both exemplify the authors' view that autonomy or independence never meant freedom and prosperity for the Balkan peoples during this period. For the peasantry, life grew ""more costly"" than under the Turks, and while the Serbs maintained a veneer of rule by local potentates, the Greek king was a Bavarian appointed by Britain, France, and Russia, whose names were also used to identify the three main Greek political parties. Greece quickly set the Balkan pace on the economic front as well: a gigantic foreign debt financed ""internal improvements"" to promote raw-materials exports rather than domestic development, and a burdensome army arose to advance territorial ambitions--among which the Jelaviches consider the chronic Balkan fights over Macedonia the most tragic. International watersheds like the Russo-Turkish settlement of 1878 and the Versailles settlement of 1919 are seen, however, as outweighing local upsurges and quarrels, though Balkan cultural leaders are duly surveyed with brief attention to Panslavism and the ""romantic revolutionaries"" who precipitated Sarajevo. The authors conclude that there was no real alternative to the fragmentation and backwardness of the area, given the failure of Ottoman reform and the reluctance of the great powers to aid the agrarian modernization that would have brought countries like roadless, alphabetless Albania into the 20th century. Yet viable states were created before and after World War I, and so this useful entry in the History of East Central Europe series, a study with no counterpart, ends on an upbeat.

Pub Date: Feb. 8, 1978

ISBN: 0295964138

Page Count: -

Publisher: Univ. of Washington Press

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1978

Categories: NONFICTION