Journal articles on the topic 'Ethnic conflict – Balkan Peninsula – History'

The article aims to analyse Bulgaria’s provisions of the laws and international treaties that regulate the use and functioning of languages in the country since the restoration of the Bulgarian statehood at the end of the 19th century to the present day (that is, monarchical, socialist and modern periods). The evolution of this aspect of the Bulgarian national law is analysed depending on the form of government in the particular era of the state’s existence. The article examines Bulgaria’s relations with neighboring Balkan countries throughout their development, including numerous wars, which were primarily based on attempts to solve ethnic problems. Based on the results of the censuses of the population of Bulgaria and Eastern Rumelia, data are provided on the dynamics of the absolute and relative number of Bulgarians and major national minorities and on the number of those who indicated their native languages. The significance of the study is due to the fact that the Balkan Peninsula, although being on the periphery of current processes in the modern geopolitical paradigm, not being their actor and being divided into a dozen states, still played and is playing one of the leading roles in the European and world histories. The study of language legislation, as one of the key elements of language policy, makes it possible to identify a variety of aspects of interethnic relations both in the historical, retrospective and long-term perspective. In addition, the study of this issue may be in demand when considering interethnic conflict situations in other problem areas. The article concludes that the language legislation of Bulgaria is characterized by significant minimalism in comparison with similar aspects of law in many European countries, and the linguistic rights of national minorities in Bulgaria are minimally reflected in the considered laws of the state.

In response to the pull of prospective membership of the European Union (EU), the states, societies and economies of the Balkan countries are undergoing unprecedented change. Their transformation has been shaped by a double legacy of communism and ethnic conflict, distinguishing their efforts from the transitional experience of their counterparts in east central Europe. How do these legacies interact with the goal of becoming a part of the EU? Is political and economic liberalisation a sufficient foundation for the Europeanisation of the Balkan states? How can the extent of their post-communist and post-conflict transformation and European integration be gauged? To tackle these questions, the Centre for the Study of Global Governance at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), London, and the Institute for East European Studies at the Free University, Berlin, organised a two-day conference to examine the nature of transnational relations in the Balkans. With the financial support of Volkswagen Stiftung, the conference, entitled ‘Transnationalism in the Balkans: The Emergence, Nature and Impact of Cross-national Linkages on an Enarged and Enlarging Europe’, took place at the LSE in November 2004.

This article focuses on the archaeological site of Kantarodai (Tamil) or Kadurugoda (Sinhala) on the Jaffna peninsula at the northernmost tip of Sri Lanka to examine the power of spatially embodied, contested histories within postcolonial and post-war communities. The Sri Lankan military who control Kantarodai view it simply as a Sinhala Buddhist site. However, when it is viewed through the lens of international archaeological scholarship, its multi-ethnic and multi-religious history becomes clear. Its present situation speaks of a failure to affirm the narratives connected with this history. In examining this case study, I first evoke the changing political and religious landscapes of the peninsula in the recent past, drawing on my own visits to Jaffna during Sri Lanka’s ethnic war. Second, I examine one dominant imaginary that is projected onto the peninsula, from the Sinhala Buddhist community, the most powerful community in the island. Thirdly, I move to Kantarodai, focussing on two recent representations of its history and the privileging of one of these in Sri Lanka’s post-war polity. I then assess the consequences for Sri Lanka of the failure to affirm multiplicity at Kantarodai, drawing out its wider relevance for the study of post-colonial and post-war societies.

Modern Ukraine, together with the countries of the Balkan Peninsula, belongs to a group of European countries that have their own indigenous Muslim population. Islam in Ukraine has more than a thousand years of history. The first Muslims who systematically lived or roamed the lands of present-day Ukraine were the steppes (the burial of the Ossetian-Alan ancestors according to the Muslim rite archeologists date to the 7th-8th centuries). Its carriers are the Volga and Crimean Tatars (now 57% of the total number of Muslims in Ukraine), representatives of the Caucasian-Biberian language group, small diasporic associations of other Turkic-speaking peoples, and some ethnic Ukrainians, Belarussians and Russians.

On 14 December 1995, an agreement as the Elysée Treaty (earlier initialled in Dayton after weeks of difficult negotiation) was signed in Paris by the Heads of State of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Republic of Croatia, and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. One of the witnesses at the ceremony was the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Dr. Boutros Boutros-Ghali, and, in a real sense, it marked the nadir of his term of office. In June 1992, amidst the euphoria of U.S. President George Bush's articulation of hopes for a new world order, Boutros-Ghali had presented a report to U.N. members entitled An Agenda for Peace which painted an ambitious picture of the opportunities for constructive involvement of the U.N. in conflict resolution. Yet ironically, this was almost the moment at which the intensification of intergroup conflict precipitated Bosnia-Hercegovina's slide into social and political disarray. The ultimate humiliation for the U.N. came in July 1995 when the massacre of Bosnian Muslims by Bosnian Serb forces in the U.N.-declared “safe area” of Srebrenica triggered the chain of events which saw responsibility for Bosnia-Hercegovina decisively removed from the U.N.'s grasp, and assumed by the United States and its NATO allies. The U.N. may recover from the shame of its Balkan entanglement, but the scars are likely to prove permanent.

This article explores controversies provoked by the Serbian pop-folk musical style “turbofolk” which emerged in the 1990s. Turbofolk has been accused of being a lever of the Milošević regime – an inherently nationalist cultural phenomenon which developed due to the specific socio-political conditions of Serbia in the 1990s. In addition to criticism of turbofolk on the basis of nationalism and war-mongering, it is commonly claimed to be “trash,” “banal,” “pornographic,” “(semi-)rural,” “oriental” and “Balkan.” In order to better understand the socio-political dimensions of this phenomenon, I consider other Yugoslav musical styles which predate turbofolk and make reference to pop-folk musical controversies in other Balkan states to help inform upon the issues at stake with regard to turbofolk. I argue that rather than being understood as a singular phenomena specific to Serbia under Milošević, turbofolk can be understood as a Serbian manifestation of a Balkan-wide post-socialist trend. Balkan pop-folk styles can be understood as occupying a liminal space – an Ottoman cultural legacy – located between (and often in conflict with) the imagined political poles of liberal pro-European and conservative nationalist orientations. Understanding turbofolk as a value category imbued with symbolic meaning rather than a clear cut musical genre, I link discussions of it to the wider discourse of Balkanism. Turbofolk and other pop-folk styles are commonly imagined and articulated in terms of violence, eroticism, barbarity and otherness the Balkan stereotype promises. These pop-folk styles form a frame of reference often used as a discursive means of marginalisation or exclusion. An eastern “other” is represented locally by pop-folk performers due to oriental stylistics in their music and/or ethnic minority origins. For detractors, pop-folk styles pose a danger to the autochthonous national culture as well as the possibility of a “European” and cosmopolitan future. Correspondingly I demonstrate that such Balkan stereotypes are invoked and subverted by many turbofolk performers who positively mark alleged Balkan characteristics and negotiate and invert the meaning of “Balkan” in lyrical texts.

This article is devoted to the contemporary process of the ethnic mobilizing of stateless European peoples. The Aromanians, who live in all the countries of the Balkan peninsula but have never experienced lasting statehood, are an example. Currently, members of the young Aromanian intelligentsia are creating a transnational, supra-state community by evoking old symbols and new myths: the cult of symbolic places, historic events, figures, family micro-histories (genealogies), and a common language and values. Access to modern means of communication plays an important role in the process. In the author’s opinion, a modern transnational people is emerging from the politically unformed — but culturally specific — Romance-language community of the Balkans. The group could be considered a “recovered community,” which is based on an ideological construction utilizing carefully selected elements of common history and culture.

The paper deals with the special status of broom in the Balkans and its practice in different contact areas of the peninsula. It is a symbolic plant on the Adriatic coast of Croatia (Zadar), with a sacred status for the local Albanians (Arbënesh). It plays an extremely great role as a ritual plant during the celebration of Holy Virgin from Loreto. That’s what separates Arbnesh from their neighbor Croatians, who take it only for pragmatic use — weaving and manufacturing rough textile. On the Ionic coast (in Labёria, Albania) broom is used for weaving and spinning of coarse fabric. But ideal local conditions helped the Albanians to produce specific thin broom fabric. And finally, in the Albanian-Greek contact zone of Himara which is situated in the best enabling climate environment, there is lack of serious attention to broom — its role is quite insignificant. The authors analyze the mechanisms of the introduction of the plant, which is important for the traditions, into the cultural codes of the Balkan peoples, consider all local Balkan phytonyms, which makes it possible to interpret anthropological facts through linguistic material. The research is based on long-term field observations conducted in 2008—2019, as well as on the analysis of ethnological, folklore and historical materials. The historical approach makes it possible to reveal the fundamental laws of the genesis of cultural memory and the evolution of ethnic identity.

Throughout the 550 year Ottoman rule over the Balkan lands, where even today internal dynamics threaten peace and justice, how and through what means the Ottoman Empire achieved consistency, security and peace is a question to which a number of political scientists, sociologists, communication scientists and history researchers have sought an answer. The most interesting point of the question is that the peoples of the Balkans, a living museum comprising a number of different ethnic groups and religious beliefs, have reached the point where the culture of coexistence has been internalised and dynamics have moved from the conflict of identities to cultural integration. The Balkans are a bridge to the East from Europe and indeed to the West from Turkey, incorporating a patchwork political and cultural geography, the geopolitical location and a richness of culture and civilization, being one of the areas attracting the attention of researchers from different disciplines and capturing the imagination of the peoples of the world throughout history. Balkan studies are almost as difficult as climbing the peaks in the areas and meaningful answers cannot be reached by defining the area on a single parameter such as language, culture or traditions, while the phenomenon of the other can also be observed within the culture of coexistence in this intricate and significant location. Different ethnic groups with different cultures, such as the Southern Slavs (Bosniaks, Montenegrans, Serbs, Croats and Slovenes) as well as Turks, Albanians, Bulgarians, Balkan Jews, Balkan Romany and Wallachians (Romanians and Greeks). Although these peoples may have different religious beliefs, in the ethnically rich Balkan region, religion, language, political and cultural differences are vital in the formation of a mosaic, making the discourse of coexistence possible and creating common values and loyalties, breaking down differences. The Serbian and Montenegrin peoples, belonging to the Greek Orthodox Church, the Croat and Slovene peoples belonging to the Catholic Church and the Muslin Bosniaks have shared the same lands and livee in coexistence throughout the historical process, despite having different beliefs. However, in some periods the other and the perception of the other have replaced common values, leading to conflicts of interest, unrest and religion based wars. After the breakup of the Yugoslavian Federal Socialist Republic, Slovenia, Croatia, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro and Kosovo, defined by the European Union as the Western Balkans, have established themselves as nation states of the stage of history. The scope of our study is these Western Balkan Countries, and we will use the terminology Western Balkans throughout.

This review is dedicated to the monograph by Filip Škiljan, а Researcher from the Institute for Migration and Ethnic Studies (Zagreb), whose area of interest includes the position of ethnic minorities in contemporary Croatia. The book is an extremely detailed and scrupulous piece of research on the origins and history of the Italian community in Zagreb from the 12th Century to the present day. A significant part of the work is devoted to the results of field research conducted by the author, including interviews with different representatives of the Italian diaspora. As a result, this work creates a very comprehensive picture of the Italian presence in Zagreb with a broad historical perspective, which makes it a great contribution to the question of the position of the Italian minority in Croatia as a whole. It is worth emphasizing that this work is not free from different theoretical and methodological limitations which reveal a great deal about the historical and national psychology of Croatia. In this respect, it is quite interesting to look in particular at the chapter devoted to the Middle Ages regarding the methods, evaluations, and approaches used by author. According to F. Škiljan the Ottoman conquest of the Balkan peninsula led to the divide between Croatia and the Italian (and, consequently, European) civilizational space, which had a serious impact on Croatian identity.

The British overseas territory of Gibraltar situated on the southern tip of the Iberian Peninsula has a population of 30 000 people with a variety of ethnic origins, languages, history, and political affiliations. The recent upsurge in Gibraltarian literature has served not only to draw attention to the dynamic and multifaceted nature of their identity but also to help in the task of identity construction on the part of the Gibraltarians themselves; there is an observable push and pull of affiliation not only in Gibraltar’s cultural artifacts, but also in its language. This article identifies the ways in which code-switching in M.G. Sanchez’ Rock Black represents the Spanish-British conflict, and views language choice as a tool in the construction of group-identity among contemporary Gibraltarians.

Introduction. The events in Ukraine in 2013-2014 contributed to the manifestation of the Ukrainian political crisis, which led to the secession of the Crimean Peninsula, the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics. The new Ukrainian authorities, realizing the impossibility of returning the Crimea, launched a military operation against the DPR and LPR, the so-called “ATO”. The general civil confrontation between Kiev on the one hand and Donetsk and Luhansk on the other hand led to the beginning of the civil war in Ukraine, the fact of which is not recognized by the Ukrainian authorities, but is presented as “Russian aggression”. Methods. Through institutional analysis, the study identifies approaches to understanding the factor of the civil war in Ukraine. Analysis. The participants of the armed confrontation, both on the part of Ukraine, and on the part of the DPR and LPR, are Ukrainian citizens. The fact that there are a significant number of Russian citizens among the militia, primarily from among the Cossacks, is due to the historical unity of the lands of the pre-revolutionary Region of the Don Army, socio-cultural and blood-related factors. The participation of the Cossacks in the conflict is of particular importance in the context of Ukraine’s positioning itself as a “Cossack country”. An important place in the understanding of the military confrontation is occupied by the transnationalization of political elites for the post-Soviet space, which acts as an impulse for the unity of the population of the former USSR. In a civil war, there is no boundary dividing the parties on civilizational, ethnic and linguistic grounds. But at the same time, some authors highlight the factor of regional identity. Results. Approaches to the definition of the civil war in Ukraine are revealed. The reluctance of the perception of the concept of “civil war” by the Ukrainian authorities is determined. The assessment of the further development of the civil war in the country is given.

It occupies the Yemen Arab Republic, the Republic of Somalia geographical area strategy and is located on the Red Sea entrance to the southwest of the Arabian Peninsula for Yemen and South Horn of Africa for Somalia and a surface area of ​​about two hundred thousand square kilometers, which is in this way, more like the box ever great strategic importance in the chessboard the Middle East region. Yemen and Somalia's recent history, began on the shores of the Red Sea, while the evacuation of Turks from Yemen in 1919 and the Declaration of Independence of the Republic of Somalia until the conflict broke out between the clans civil where these tribes were announced after its agreement to declare its political stabilits. This period, which lasted until the establishment of the Arab League in 1945, a dispute between the three camps, vying for the leadership of the Arab world has seen, namely: the Hashemites camp who are concentrated in Jordan, Iraq, and Camp Saudis who parcels Hashemites of the peninsula, and the camp of the Egyptians who had begun showing some interest Arab affairs. Yemen and Somalia have Anzmt to the League of Arab States The context of the events and indications in the political and economic scene in Yemen and Somalia is moving towards escalation addition overshadowed by the context of the crisis on the Arab arena, helped by the absence of future strategies that the major and important events, dominated the thought of permanence Ostmraraharb against change without analytical reading closer to the reality of the local strategic environment and regional and international Vtozmt data Which contributed to the accumulation of political, economic, social, educational, health, security and other problems in the context of crises warring tribes Under palaces strategic perspective and geostrategic, limited resources, and weak of will and national administration toward reform, as well as the form of violence to the weakness of economic power and political instability that arrived in an anonymous way for the future of Yemen and Somalia so has to be the future vision analysis according to data transformations and changes geostrategic theater Yemen and Somalia, from the consequences up to the expectations and the current implications in the strategic landscape of Yemen and Somalia are the secretions of a cumulative political, ideological, social, security, ethnic, tribal, regional, factional and spatial different in Yemen and Somalia, for this to spectra to be analytical vision for the future of Arab countries about the national security of Yemen and Somalia for political and economic stability to both countries. this means safe for the Arab States.

В статье сделана попытка определить временные рамки появления на Северном Кавказе — в Кубанской и Терской обл. — гагаузов из Бессарабии и Приазовья, в настоящее время проживающих в Моздокском районе Северной Осетии — Алании и Прохладненском районе Кабардино‑Балкарии. В Малой Кабарде гагаузы появились под именем болгары. Из истории переселения гагаузов и болгар с Балканского полуострова в южные районы Бессарабии, в Буджак, во второй половине ХVIII — начале ХIХ вв. в числе задунайских переселенцев, известно, что зачастую все переселенцы по документам того времени «проходили» под общим названием «болгары». Переселение отдельных групп гагаузов из Буджака в Приазовье, на Северный Кавказ, в Казахстан, Узбекистан, т. е. отрыв от этнического «материка», произошел раньше, чем у гагаузов Бессарабии началось развитие процессов этнического самоопределения, осознания себя гагаузами. Самоназвание болгары сохраняется у значительного числа гагаузов КБР и РСО‑А до настоящего времени. Определенная часть гагаузов, еще помнящих свой родной язык, называют его болгарским. В работе определены места исхода предков гагаузов на Северный Кавказ, дается картина этнодемографической динамики, межэтнической брачности гагаузского населения одной из крупных станиц Кабардино‑Балкарии — Екатериноградской. В основу статьи положены материалы переписей населения России, данные Государственных архивов Кабардино‑Балкарии, Северной Осетии–Алании, Республики Молдова, материалы похозяйственных книг станицы Екатериноградской (КБР) за 1940–2000‑е годы и данные этнодемографических исследований автора, проведенных среди гагаузов с. Сухотское, Н. Малгобек и Екатериноградская. The article attempts to define timeframes for the appearance of the Gagauz from Bessarabia and the Azov Sea Region in the North Caucasus, more precisely in Kuban and Tersk regions. At the moment these Gagauz live in Mozdok region of North Ossetia — Alania and in Prokhladnensk district of Kabardino‑Balkaria. The Gagauz first appeared in Malaya Kabarda under the name of Bulgarians. The history of Gagauz and Bulgarian relocation from the Balkan peninsula to the southern regions of Bessarabia, Budzhak, in the second half of the 18th — the beginning of the 19th century among Transdanubian emigrants, tells us that most of the time all emigrants were officially registered in documents under the common title of “Bulgarians”. Relocation of some groups from Budzhak to the Azov Sea region, the North Caucasus, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, i. e. their separation from their ethnic “mainland” had taken place earlier than the Gagauz from Bessarabia started to develop their ethnic self‑identity and realize they were the Gagauz. Their self‑name as Bulgarians is preserved among a great number of Gagauz people in KabardinoBalkaria and North Ossetia‑Alania until today. A certain part of the Gagauz, who still remember their mother tongue, call it Bulgarian. The study identifies places from where the Gagauz ancestors emigrated to the North Caucasus, gives a detailed picture of the ethno‑demographic dynamics, interethnic marriages of the Gagauz population in one of the big stanitsas of KabardinoBalkaria –Stanitsa Ekaterinogradskaya. It is based on the materials from Russian population censuses, data from state archives of Kabardino‑Balkaria, North Ossetia — Alania, Republic of Moldova, materials of rural household registers from Stanitsa Ekaterinogradskaya (Kabardino‑Balkaria) in 1940–2000s and data from ethno‑demographic studies carried out by the author among the Gagauz in stanitsas Sukhotskoe, Nizhniy Malgobek and Ekaterinogradskaya.

Following the spectacular disintegration of the Soviet Union, popularand academic interest in nationalism and religion gathered momentum. Inaddition to recent ethnic clashes and religious conflicts in many parts of theworld, particularly the Balkans, Central Asia, the Middle East, and manyAfrican states, questions have been raised about the relation betweennationalism and religion. What, if any, is the relationship between nationalismand religion? To what extent can religion influence the emergenceand maintenance of nationalism? Can religious beliefs and sentiments legitimizea nationalist ideology? What is meant by “religious nationalism,” andhow is it related to nation-states, resistance, and violence? These questionswere addressed during a one-day conference held at the London School ofEconomics, University of London on 22 March 1996. The well-attendedconference was organized by the Association for the Study of Ethnicity andNationalism, which was established in 1990 and has published the journalNations and Nationalism since March 1995.The first paper at the Nationalism and Religion conference was presentedby Bruce Kapferer (University College of London, London, UK).In his paper “Religious and Historical Metaphors in the Context ofNationalist Violence,” he addressed political action, the force of ideologies,and the relevance of mythological schemes to religious and ritual practiceby means of a case study of Sinhalese Buddhists in Sri Lanka and theevents of 1989-90. In his own words, his focus was “the dynamics ofremythologization, or the process . . . whereby current political and economicforces are totalized within mythological schemes constructed in historicalperiods relatively independent of the circumstances of contemporarynationalism” and “the force of such ideological remythologizations, that is,how such remythologizations can became a passionate dimension of politicalactivity and give it direction.”According to Kapferer, the relation of mythologization to routine religiousbeliefs and ritual practice is significant. In his paper, he argued that“nationalism is the creation of modernism and it is of a continuous dynamicnature whose power is embedded in and sanctified by the culture that hasoriginated in the rituals of religion which provide a cosmology for nationalism.Cosmology of religion as diverse as nationalism itself that is far fromuniversal claims but exists in diversity.” Kapferer’s theorization is based onhis research in Sri Lanka where, he thinks, continuing conflict is related tonationalism based on cosmologies. The case of Sri Lanka provides anSeminars, Conferences, Addresses 425excellent example of how the construction of state ideology is influencedby religious forces, in this case Buddhism. Kapferer asserted that religionhad a deep territorialization aspect and that nationalism, in this sense, mighthave functioned as reterritorialization of a particular land and postcolonialstate. One can discern from his statements that, in the construction of stateideology in Sri Lanka, myths written by monks and religious rituals wereused to create a nationalist movement that eventually developed into a violentand destructive force in the context of Sri Lanka. Kapferer believes thatthe hierarchical order of the Sri Lankan state is embedded in the cosmologyof ancient religious chronicles.Christopher Cviic (The Royal Institute of International Affairs, London,UK) analyzed another phenomenon taking place in WesternEurope. His paper, “Chosen Peoples and Sacred Territories: TheBalkans,” discussed the relationship between religion, nation, and statein the Balkans throughout history and analyzed how these forces haveplayed themselves out in current events. According to Cviic, historicaldevelopments in the Balkans can provide important clues to understandingthe ongoing Balkan crisis, in which the Orthodox Church hasassumed the status of a nationalist institution representing the Serbiannation. The roots of these developments and the creation of a mythical“chosen” Serbian nation legitimized by religion can be traced to thedefeat and fall of medieval Serbia at Kosova by the Ottomans. Thisdefeat meant that they lost the land.However, under the Ottoman millet system, non-Muslim communitieswere allowed to organize their religious life and legal and educationalinstitutions. This allowed the Serbs to preserve and develop their ethnicand religious identities under the leadership of the Orthodox Church.Thus, religion and identity became inextricably linked, and the OrthodoxChurch assumed an extremely important role in the public life of individualBalkan nations. Cviic pointed out that “in the case of the Serbs, theirOrthodox Church played an important role in the formation of the modemSerbian nation-state by nurturing the myth of Kosova, named after theKosova Polje defeat by the Turks. Essential to that myth was the view thatby choosing to fight at Kosova Polje, the Serbs had opted for the Kingdomof Heaven. Later on the myth grew into a broader one, representing theSerbs as the martyr/victim people with a sacred mission of wresting theirHoly Territory of Kosova from the infidel Muslims to whom it had fallen.A later variant of that myth defined Serbia in terms of wherever Serbiangraves were to be found.” ...

While the first two chapters of Doucas's historical work present a meagre outline of world history - a sketch which becomes a little more detailed from 1261 on, when the narration reaches the history of the Turks and their conquests in Asia Minor - the third chapter deals with the well-known battle of Kosovo, which took place in 1389. From that point on, the Byzantine historian gives much important information on Serbia, as well as on the Ottoman advances in the Balkans, and thus embarks upon his central theme - the rise of the Turks and the decline of Byzantium. Doucas considers the battle of Kosovo a key event in the subjugation of the Balkan peoples by the Turks, and he shows that after the battle of Kosovo the Serbs were the first to suffer that fate. At the beginning, Doucas says that after the death of Orhan, the ruler (o archgos) of the Turks, his son and successor Murad conquered the Thracian towns, Adrianople and the whole Thessaly, so that he mastered almost all the lands of the Byzantines, and finally reached the Triballi (Triballous). He devastated many of their towns and villages sending the enslaved population beyond Chersonesus, until Lazar, son of King Stefan of Serbia (Serbias), who ruled (kraley?n) in Serbia at that time decided to oppose him with all the might he could muster. The Serbs were often called Triballi by Byzantine authors. For the fourteenth century writers Pachymeres, Gregoras, Metochites and Kantakouzenos the Serbs were Triballi. However, Pachymeres and Gregoras refer to the rulers of the Triballi as the rulers of Serbia. Fifteenth century writers, primarily Chalcondyles and Critobulos, use only that name. It seems, nevertheless, that Doucas makes a distinction between the Triballi and the Serbs. As it is known, the conquest of the Serbian lands by the Turks began after the battle on the river Marica in 1371. By 1387. the Turks had mastered Serres(1388) Bitola and Stip (1385), Sofia (1385), Nis (1386) and several other towns. Thus parts of Macedonia, Bulgaria and even of Serbia proper were reduced by the Turks by 1387. For Doucas, however, this is the territory inhabited by the Triballi. After the exposition of the events on Kosovo, Doucas inserts an account of the dispute of John Kantakouzenos and the regency on behalf of John V, which had taken place, as it is known, long before 1389. At the beginning of his description of the civil war, Doucas says that by dividing the empire Kantakouzenos made it possible for the Turks to devastate not only all the lands under Roman rule, but also the territories of the Triballi Moesians and Albanians and other western peoples. The author goes on to narrate that Kantakouzenos established friendly relations with the king Stefan Du{an, and reached an agreement with him concerning the fortresses towns and provinces of the unlucky Empire of the Romaioi, so that, instead of giving them over to the Roman lords, he surrendered them to barbarians, the Triballi and the Serbs (Triballoys te kai Serbous). When he speaks later how the Tatars treated the captives after the battle of Angora in 1402, Doucas points out that the Divine Law, honored from times immemorial not only among the Romaioi, but also among the Persians, the Triballi and the Scythians (as he calls Timur's Tatars), permitted only plunder, not the taking of captives or any executions outside the battlefield when the enemy belonged to the same faith. Finally, when he speaks of the conflict between Murad II and Juneid in Asia Minor, Doucas mentions a certain Kelpaxis, a man belonging to the people of the Triballi, who took over from Juneid the rule over Ephesus and Ionia. It seems, therefore, that Doucas, when he speaks of the land of the Triballi he has in mind a broad ethnical territory in the Balkans, which was obviously not settled by the Serbs only or even by the Slavs only. According to him Kelpaxis (Kelpaz?sis) also belonged to the Triballi, although the name can hardly be of Slavonic, i.e. Serbian origin. On the other hand, he is definitely aware of Serbia, a state which had left substantial traces in the works of Byzantine authors, particularly from the time when it usurped (according to the Byzantine view) the Empire. Writing a whole century after Dusan's coronation as emperor, Doucas is not willing, as we shall see later to recognize this usurpation. Although he ascribes to Serbia, in conformity with the Byzantine conception of tazis, a different rank, he considers Serbia and the Serbs, as they are generally called in his work (particularly when he describes the events after the Battle of Kosovo) an important factor in the struggle against the Turks. Therefore he makes a fairly accurate distinction between the Serbs and the other Triballi. In his case, the term may in fact serve as a geographical designation for the territory settled by many peoples, including the Serbs. When he uses specific titles and when he speaks of the degrees of authority conveyed by them in individual territories Doucas is anxious to prove himself a worthy scion of the Romaioi, who considered that they had the exclusive right to the primacy in the Christian hierarchy with the Roman emperor at its top. He makes distinctions of rank between individual rulers. The Emperor in Constantinople is for him the only emperor of the Romans (basileys t?n R?mai?n). King Sigismund of Hungary is also styled emperor, but as basileys t?n R?man?n, meaning Latin Christians. The last Byzantine emperor Constantine XI Dragas Palaleologus is not recognized as an emperor, and the author calls his rule a despotic rule (despoteia). He has a similar view of the Serbs. Thus he says, erroneously that Lazar was the son of King Stefan of Serbia (yios Stefanoy toy kral? Serbias) and that he ruled Serbia at that time (o tote t?n Serbian kraley?n). Elsewhere, Doucas explains his attitude and says that o t?n Serb?n archgos etolm?sen anadusasthai kratos kai kral?s onomazesthai. Toyto gar to barbaron onoma exell?nizomenon basileys erm?neyetai. Lazar exercises royal power (kraley?n) in Serbia, which is appropriate, for the author thinks erroneously that Lazar was the son and successor of King Stefan Du{an. It is significant that he derives the werb kraley? from the Serbian title 'kralj', i.e. from the title which never existed in the Byzantine Empire. Moreover, there is no mention of this werb in any other Byzantine text. When he narrates how Serbia fell under the Turkish rule in 1439, Doucas says that Despot Djuradj Brankovic seeing his ravaged despotate (despoteian), went to the King of Hungary hoping to get aid from him. There can be no doubt that the term despoteia here refers to the territory ruled by Despot Djuradj Brankovic. Doucas correctly styles the Serbian rulers after 1402 as despots. The space he devotes to Serbia in his work, as well as the manner in which he speaks of it, seems to indicate, however, that he regarded it, together with Hungary as a obstacle of the further Turkish conquests in the Balkans. Doucas's text indicates that Serbia, though incomparably weaker than in the time of Dusan's mighty empire, was in fact the only remaining more or less integral state in the Peninsula. The riches of Serbia and, consequently, of its despots, is stressed in a number of passages. Almost at the very beginning Doucas says that Bayezid seized 'a sufficient quantity of silver talents from the mines of Serbia' after the Battle of Kosovo. When Murad II conducted negotiations with Despot Djuradj for his marriage with the Despot's daughter Mara, Doucas writes, no one could guess how many 'gold and silver talents' he took. Doucas also says that the Despot began to build the Smederevo fortress with Murad's permission. The building of a fortress has never been an easy undertaking and if we bear in mind that Despot Djuradj built the part of the Smederevo fortress called 'Mali Grad' (Small fortress) in two years only, we realize that his economic power was really considerable. When Fadulah, the counselor of Murad II, sought to persuade his lord to occupy Serbia, he stressed the good position of the country, particularly of Smederevo, and the country's abundant sources of silver and gold, which would enable Murad not only to conquer Hungary, but also to advance as far as Italy. After Mehmed II captured Constantinople, the Serbs undertook to pay an annual tribute of 12.000 gold coins, more than the despots of Mistra, the lords of Chios Mitylene or the Emperor of Trebizond. Already in 1454 the Despot's men brought the tribute to Mehmed II and also ransomed their captives. Critobulos's superb description of Serbia is the best testimony that this was not only Doucas's impression: 'Its greatest advantage, in which it surpasses the other countries, is that it produces gold and silver? They are mined everywhere in that region, which has rich veins of both gold and silver, more abundant than those of India. The country of the Triballi was indeed fortunate in this respect from the very beginning and it was proud of its riches and its might. It was a kingdom with numerous flourishing towns and strong and impregnable fortresses. It was also rich in soldiers and armies as well as in good equipment. It had citizens of the noblest rank and it brought up many youths who had the strength of adult men. It was admired and famous, but it was also envied, so that is was not only loved of many, but also disliked by many people who sought to harm It'. It is no wonder that George Sphrantzes once complains that Christians failed to send aid to Constantinople and that he singles out for particular blame that 'miserable despot, who did not realize that once the head is removed, the limbs, too disappear'. It may be said, therefore, that Doucas regarded Serbia as one of the few remaining allies of at least some ability to stem the Turkish advances, and that this opinion was primarily based on its economic resources. Serbia was clearly distinguished as a state structure, as opposed to most of the remaining parts of the Peninsula, inhabited by peoples which Doucas does not seem to differentiate precisely. According to him, the authority over a particular territory issued from the ruler's title, the title of despot, which was first in importance after the imperial title, also determined the rank of Serbia in the Byzantine theory of hierarchy of states. Doucas's testimony also shows that this theory not only endured until the collapse of the Empire, but that it also persisted even in the consciousness of the people who survived its fall.

Cultures of remembrance that are officially affirmed by national elites in the Western Balkan countries, that is in the former Yugoslavia, are a source of ongoing conflict. Various collective memories and mutually antagonized interpretations of the past, show that Croats, Serbs, Bosnians, Macedonians, Montenegrins and others who lived together for centuries and decades within a single state, after all interpret and remember their common history in completely different ways. Their social narratives about the past and dominant cultures of memory are predominantly selective, one-sided, intolerant, exclusive. After a long time, they lived together members of different ethnic, religious and national backgrounds and their historically unfinished and unsuccessful attempt to form a common Yugoslav culture and unique Yugoslav identity, a difficult civil war occurred, ethno-nationalism escalated, and people who were very close and very similar to one another, tried to create as much difference and distance between themselves through violence. All national communities that participated in the wars of the 1990s, emphasized defending national culture as one of their main tasks. The warring parties sought to destroy everything that reminded them that different people, their neighbors and friends of a different religion were living there. Today, three decades after these conflicts, they are still prisoners of their attitude to history. The culture nevertheless brings them together and inspires them to understand themselves more and to cooperate better.

The relevance of the problem under study stems from the fact that the practice of terrorism is one of the main challenges of contemporary world politics, affecting various regions of our planet. In this regard, the study of this phenomenon within a particular region deserves special attention, Northern Ireland in this case. The practice of terrorism there has been a destabilising challenge almost throughout the twentieth century and is associated with unresolved interethnic and interreligious problems. The aim of the paper is to identify factors in the emergence, spread and de-escalation of political violence in Northern Ireland in a historical retrospective. The main approaches to the study of the problem in question are historical and analytical methods. The study shows the main reasons for the emergence and escalation of political violence and terrorism in Northern Ireland and indicates the main measures to find compromise in a multi-confessional and multi-ethnic society, which may be a model for the resolution of similar conflicts in other regions of the modern world. The materials of the paper can help to study the specifics of regional terrorism, to identify the main factors that allow reducing the level of social conflict, and to understand similar phenomena in other regions (the Balkan Peninsula, the Middle East, etc.). Moreover, it reveals the needs to make the awareness of the educated class of the society.

AbstractThe primary aim of the article is to present a different approach in the critic of sources concerning the reconstruction of „late Hunnic” and „early Bulgaric” period of steppe history. In the last half century it became a main narrative in research, that the Bulgars, appearing around the 480's on the Balkan Peninsula, are identical with those Oguric tribes (Saragur, Ogur, Onogur), that – according to Priscus rhetor – arrived to the eastern part of the European steppe circa 463. Also it is assumed by certain authors, that in the years following the battle at Nedao river (455) the Hunnic tribes, overrun by the newcomers, fled behind the Moesian borders of the East-Roman empire and lost all the continuity of their political and ethnic existense. Analyzing however the sources providing information on this period – Jordanes' Getica, the works of Cassiodorus, Ennodius, Malalas, Procopius and others –, we can let ourselves to assume differently. Although in this article I do not deal with the questions related to early Hungarian history, it is clear enough, how important the above mentioned problem is in view of these questions as well.