Britain and the Balkans

Britain and the Balkans
Author: Carole Hodge
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 321
Release: 2006-04-18
Genre: History
ISBN: 1134425570

This book traces the evolution of British policy in former Yugoslavia, from the onset of war in Croatia and Bosnia to the NATO action in Kosovo and beyond, examining the underlying factors which have governed Britain's Balkans policy.

Unionisms in Times of Change

Unionisms in Times of Change
Author: Jennifer Todd
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 197
Release: 2021-09-05
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 100043950X

Unions and unionisms are important because they offer an alternative form of politics to that of nation-states and nationalisms. They allow a wider variety of relations between a plurality of peoples, opening prospects of resolving territorial politics. But unionisms, as state- or polity-centred perspectives, are also typically power-centred, often using the resources of the polity to resist assertion by their members, thereby turning democratic challenges into secessionist ones. Unionisms in Times of Change: Brexit, Britain and the Balkans focusses on these two faces of unionisms: the flexible alternative to the nation state, and the assertor of central power. This book is particularly timely at a period when the unions of the British Isles and of Europe have been disrupted by the process of British exit from the European Union, creating new dilemmas and options for unionisms in Northern Ireland. The chapters in this volume map the conceptual structure of unionisms; the ways unions are defined and defended in Northern Ireland, the United Kingdom, the European Union, the Balkans and Moldova; the ways they deal with challenge, conflict and change; the prospects of negotiation; the ways unionisms move from flexibility and accommodation to repression and back; and the opportunities for agreement and conflict resolution. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the Irish Political Studies.

Britain and the Balkans

Britain and the Balkans
Author: Carole Hodge
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 638
Release: 2006-04-18
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1134425562

An incisive analysis of Britain's decision-making role in the Yugoslavian conflict of the 1990s and in the formation of its successor states. Tracing the evolution of British policy from the onset of war in Croatia and Bosnia to the NATO action in Kosovo, and beyond, this major work examines the underlying factors governing that policy, and its role in shaping the international 'consensus'. British policy is examined through parliamentary proceedings in the House of Commons and Lords, as well as through evidence offered at select committees, reports from political and humanitarian agencies, private interviews with protagonists and media coverage, in relation to the situation on the ground and to policy development on the part of other leading world powers and institutions.

A Small War in the Balkans

A Small War in the Balkans
Author: Michael McConville
Publisher:
Total Pages: 364
Release: 2007-12-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 9781847347138

"Much has been written about the men who served with the British Military Mission to Marshal Tito's Partisans ... Little, however, is known about the post-1943 period, when for seventeen months British commandos, gunners and special forces fought alongside the Partisans in the Dalmatian islands and in Montenegro; when the motor torpedo boats and motor gun boats of the Royal Navy ruled the waves of the Yugoslav Adriatic coast; and when the Allied air forces supplied the Partisans with massive logistic and tactical support"--P. [4] of cover.

Disraeli and the Eastern Question

Disraeli and the Eastern Question
Author: Milos Kovic
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Total Pages: 364
Release: 2010-11-04
Genre: History
ISBN: 019957460X

Benjamin Disraeli is primarily remembered as a two-time Prime Minister, founder of modern British Conservatism, and popular novelist. However, in the course of a few fateful years, he had a decisive influence on the history of the countries of the Balkan peninsula.Like all British Prime Ministers in this period, Disraeli was forced to confront the Eastern Question: what to do about the political future of the Balkans and the Levant, as the Ottoman Empire began to implode. During the 'Eastern Crisis' of 1875 to 1878, Disraeli played a key role, in the end imposing his will on the rest of Europe at the Congress of Berlin.It is a commonplace in biographies of Disraeli that his attitude to the East and the Eastern Question is essential for understanding his complex persona and the most crucial period of his career, yet until now this topic has not been researched in detail. Disraeli and the Eastern Question now fills this gap, providing the first complete reconstruction of Disraeli's attitudes towards the East and the Eastern Question as a whole, from his early youth onwards, and using a wide range ofprimary sources, from Disraeli's private papers, correspondence, and novels, the manuscript collections of Queen Victoria and the Prime Minister's closest associates, to the minutes of Parliamentary debates and the official correspondence of the Foreign Office, as well as Russian, Serbian, Bulgarian, andAlbanian documents. Blending a biographical approach with the history of ideas, Milos Kovic analyses Disraeli's role in the Eastern Crisis, at the Congress of Berlin, and after, to provide a full intellectual biography of his attitudes to the Eastern Question and how these affected the history of international relations in the late nineteenth century.

From the Baltic to the Balkans

From the Baltic to the Balkans
Author: Stuart McMillan
Publisher: Troubador Publishing Ltd
Total Pages: 128
Release: 2021-09-21
Genre: Travel
ISBN: 1800464576

Inspired by a life-long passion for travel, Stuart McMillan embarked on a journey of over 2,000km, crossing the continent from the Baltic Sea to the Balkan coast. The book provides personal observations and reflections on a fascinating world hidden for decades behind an Iron Curtain. It gives the reader a glimpse of how the history, culture, years of oppression and brutal wars have shaped these beautiful lands and the people who live there. Starting in Lithuania, a journey weaving through the beautiful and often mysterious Slavic lands all the way to Croatia - taking in Ukraine, Hungary, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina. It includes travelling in a 44-degree heatwave; taking a short-cut via Moscow; experiencing a chaotic sleeper train out of Ukraine; coping with the failure of all air-conditioning and lighting on a long-haul train down to Serbia; learning about the legacy of both Nazi and Communist oppression; and seeing first-hand the scars and re-built splendour of Sarajevo and Mostar following the recent brutal, and often forgotten, Yugoslav wars. As well as recounting the beauty of the countries and cities visited, and reflecting on the years of oppression and wars that shaped the landscapes and cultures, it also captures the emotions of travelling alone for weeks through foreign lands – the freedom to experience so much of countries hidden away from the world for so long; the reliance on internal narrative for company; and the bouts of homesickness that often conflict with the author’s love of travel.

The Balkans in the Cold War

The Balkans in the Cold War
Author: Svetozar Rajak
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 381
Release: 2017-02-02
Genre: History
ISBN: 1137439033

Positioned on the fault line between two competing Cold War ideological and military alliances, and entangled in ethnic, cultural and religious diversity, the Balkan region offers a particularly interesting case for the study of the global Cold War system. This book explores the origins, unfolding and impact of the Cold War on the Balkans on the one hand, and the importance of regional realities and pressures on the other. Fifteen contributors from history, international relations, and political science address a series of complex issues rarely covered in one volume, namely the Balkans and the creation of the Cold War order; Military alliances and the Balkans; uneasy relations with the Superpowers; Balkan dilemmas in the 1970s and 1980s and the ‘significant other’ – the EEC; and identity, culture and ideology. The book’s particular contribution to the scholarship of the Cold War is that it draws on extensive multi-archival research of both regional and American, ex-Soviet and Western European archives.

The Macedonian Question

The Macedonian Question
Author: Dimitris Livanios
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Total Pages: 292
Release: 2008-04-17
Genre: History
ISBN: 0191528722

The Macedonian Question - the struggle for control over a territory with historically ill-defined borders and conflicting national identities - is one of the most intractable problems in modern Balkan history. In this lucid and persuasive study, Dimitris Livanios explores the British dimension to the Macedonian Question from the outbreak of the Second World War to the aftermath of the Tito-Stalin split. Investigating British policy towards the Bulgar-Yugoslav controversy over Macedonia, the author assesses the impact of British actions and strategy during this period, with a particular focus on wartime planning concerning the future of Yugoslavia and Bulgaria, and attempts to prevent Tito from creating a federation of the South Slavs, both during and after the war. Making extensive use of British archives, Livanios brings to light important documentary evidence to offer a fresh perspective on the emergence of the federal Macedonian unit within Tito's Yugoslavia, and on the efforts to create a functioning Macedonian national ideology.