Conceptual Definition of the Balkans

Conceptual Definition of the Balkans

BALKANS, a geopolitical region in the south of Europe, should not be equated with the geographical area of the Balkan Peninsula, from which it is larger in extent, differently delimited, more populous, more heterogeneous in civilizational terms, and geopolitically more complex. From the Western European and Germano-centric geopolitical standpoint, it is often referred to as Southeastern Europe (a designation that also includes Moldova), although, from the traditional geographical perspective of "Europe from the Atlantic to the Urals," it represents the southern part of Europe. The northern boundary of the Balkans does not follow the Danube and Sava rivers, but rather coincides with the northern border of the former "Second" Yugoslavia, as well as with the northern and eastern borders of Romania. Its intermediary position between Europe and Asia, the specific relationship between land and sea, and favourable natural conditions for habitation, economic activity, and spiritual development encouraged the emergence of early civilizations ("First Europe"). There are also views that it may become the place where civilizations come to an end ("Last Europe"). Ancient state structures were established here, as were powerful indigenous medieval empires (Byzantium, Bulgaria, Serbia). These qualitative characteristics also motivated external powers (Hungary, the Habsburg Monarchy, the Ottoman Empire, etc.) to compete with one another, alternately occupying and ruling all or parts of the Balkans for centuries. This resulted in mass suffering, migrations, ethnic and religious conversions of the population, and comprehensive social and spatial transformations on a large scale. In this context, the naturally predisposed Danube–Morava–Vardar axis plays the key communication, integrative, and geostrategic role, connecting the Pannonian Basin with the Aegean Basin (Belgrade–Thessaloniki–Athens), while branching into the Nišava–Maritsa route directed toward Constantinople (Via Militaris). Several additional trans-Balkan corridors are also of great importance. The Pannonian and Adriatic basins are connected by the Kupa, Una, Bosnia–Neretva, and Kolubara–Morača routes. The Wallachian and Aegean basins are linked by the Timok branch, which joins the Morava–Vardar vertical axis, as well as by the route extending from Vidin, across the Stara Planina Mountains and Sofia, through the Struma Valley to the Gulf of Thessaloniki. The Black Sea and Adriatic basins are connected by the historic Via Egnatia (Constantinople–Thessaloniki–Durrës), the Danube–Sava horizontal corridor, and the increasingly important Burgas–Sofia–Niš route, which branches into the Kosovo–Drim corridor and the Western Morava–Morača/Drina branch. Future pipeline corridors are and will continue to be of particular importance (the Adriatic Oil Pipeline, the Pan-European Oil Pipeline, and the South Stream and TurkStream gas pipelines). Their routes are not merely a matter of transport and economics; they have become instruments of geopolitical rivalry among major powers, and even factors influencing changes in regional borders and the creation or disintegration of states. The contemporary political-geographical structure of the Balkans comprises the entire territories of Greece, Albania, Bulgaria, Romania, and the post-Yugoslav states of Serbia, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, and Slovenia, as well as the European part of Turkey. A characteristic feature is the emergence of former or existing Balkan state-like entities (the Republic of Serbian Krajina, Republika Srpska, and the so-called Republic of Kosovo), which contribute to territorial fragmentation (the Balkan Kleinstaaterei). At the same time, another specific feature of the Balkan peoples is the existence of expansionist Greater State projects (the Balkan Großstaaterei). The Balkans, within its geopolitical boundaries, covers 788,770 km² (7.7% of the area of Europe and 1.1% of the area of Eurasia), with a population of approximately 73 million (9.8% of the European and 1.4% of the Eurasian population). The key geographical predisposition of its location lies in the fact that it represents a "Euro-Asian bridge," linking Central Europe with Asia Minor, the Middle East, and Central Asia. This makes it fundamentally more geopolitically attractive than the other two Southern European peninsulas—the Iberian and the Apennine Peninsulas—which terminate at broad and, for the time being, impassable straits. Moreover, their extensions beyond the Strait of Gibraltar and the Strait of Sicily, near the North African coast of the Mediterranean, end in the desert "dead end" of the vast Sahara. By contrast, from the Balkans, through the narrow and easily traversable straits of the Bosporus (660 m) and the Dardanelles (1,300 m), land communication and geostrategic routes lead toward destinations whose control brings global supremacy: toward the centers of ancient civilizations, the holy places of the great religions, the world's principal reserves of oil and natural gas, and the key points and regions in the global rivalry between thalassocratic Atlanticism and tellurocratic (Neo-)Eurasianism. This characteristic produces a continuous "geopolitical magnetism," by which the Balkans attracts the major European and global powers, motivating them to compete for its direct or indirect control. The various "bundles" of vectors representing their interests continue to multiply and increasingly crisscross the region, intersecting most intensely in Cvijić's Central Area, thereby creating the "Balkan Geopolitical Knot." The historically continuous involvement of great powers, combined with the region's ethnic heterogeneity, internal confrontations, and fragmented political-territorial structure, together produce the phenomenon of Balkanization. Consequently, the Balkans is regarded as a region "at the crossroads of worlds and epochs" and as the latent "powder keg" of Europe. This instability of the Balkans is the result of major civilizational and political "fault lines" traced across its territory: from the division of the Roman Empire in 395 into the Eastern and Western Empires (the Theodosian Division), through the Christian schism of 1054 between Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism (the Great Schism), and the centuries-long, shifting imperial frontier between the Habsburg Monarchy and the Ottoman Empire along the Sava and Danube rivers, to the more recent Iron Curtain of the Cold War, the division between the Orthodox and Western civilizations, as well as the emerging contemporary neo-bipolar dichotomy between the pro-Atlanticist and anti-Atlanticist blocs. Its geopolitical significance also derives from its position within Inter-Europe (Međuevropa), which, throughout different historical periods, functional forms, and territorial configurations, has been established as a buffer zone stretching from the Baltic Sea to the Mediterranean. Examples include the interwar Sanitary Cordon and, more recently, the China+17/14 Initiative. Following the bipolar 2+2+2 Formula, under which the regional balance was guaranteed by a division into two states belonging to the Warsaw Pact, two belonging to NATO, and two outside both military alliances, the unipolar expansion of the West from the 1990s onward first implied the dissolution of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, followed by the successive integration of the Balkan states into NATO and the European Union. By the end of the second decade of the twenty-first century, only Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia remained outside both organizations, while Albania, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Turkey were members of NATO only. The contemporary Balkans has remained synonymous with geopolitics, to such an extent that its name has been applied to other regions possessing similar characteristics (for example, "the Eurasian Balkans" as a designation for Central Asia), as well as to certain non-geopolitical phenomena (for example, the fragmentation, or "Balkanization," of large corporations for the purpose of breaking up monopolies).

Adapted from:
Milomir Stepić, Geopolitički pojmovnik Balkana, Catena mundi, Belgrade, 2023, pp. 39–42.

Map: The Balkans as a Geopolitical Region

Source: https://thisisyouth.org/2016/12/20/backpacking-the-balkans/