Balkan Babel Ramet, Sabrina P.
2002, 20020101
eBook
The fourth edition of this critically acclaimed work includes a new preface, a new chapter, and a new epilogue, as well as revisions throughout the book. Sabrina Ramet, a veteran observer of the ...Yugoslav scene, traces the steady deterioration of Yugoslavia’s social and political fabric in the years since the war for Kosovo. Ramet paints a strikingly original picture of Yugoslavia’s demise and the emergence and politics of the Yugoslav successor states.
From Kurdistan to Somaliland, Xinjiang to South Yemen, all secessionist movements hope to secure newly independent states of their own. Most will not prevail. The existing scholarly wisdom provides ...one explanation for success, based on authority and control within the nascent states. With the aid of an expansive new dataset and detailed case studies, this book provides an alternative account. It argues that the strongest members of the international community have a decisive influence over whether today's secessionists become countries tomorrow and that, most often, their support is conditioned on parochial political considerations.
The Yugoslav break up and conflict have given rise to a considerable literature offering dramatically different interpretations of what happened. But just how do the various interpretations relate to ...each other? This ambitious new book by Sabrina Ramet, an eminent commentator on recent Balkan politics and history, reviews and analyses more than 130 books about the troubled region and compares their accounts, theories, and interpretations of events. Ramet surveys the major debates which divide the field, alternative accounts of the causes of Yugoslavia's violent collapse, and the scholarly debates concerning humanitarian intervention. Rival accounts are presented side by side for easy comparison. Thinking about Yugoslavia examines books on Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Macedonia, Montenegro, and Kosovo which were published in English, German, Serbian/Croatian/Bosnian, and Italian, thus offering the English-speaking reader a unique insight into the controversies.
Balkan genocides Mojzes, Paul
2011., 2011, 2011-10-16, 20110101
eBook
During the 20th century, the Balkan Peninsula was affected by three major waves of genocides and ethnic cleansings, some of which are still being denied today. In Balkan Genocides Paul Mojzes ...provides a balanced and detailed account of these events, placing them in their proper historical context and debunking the common misrepresentations and misunderstandings of the genocides themselves. A native of Yugoslavia, Mojzes offers new insights into the Balkan genocides, including a look at the unique role of ethnoreligiosity in these horrific events and a characterization of the first and second Balkan wars as mutual genocides. Mojzes also looks to the region's future, discussing the ongoing trials at the International Criminal Tribunal in Yugoslavia and the prospects for dealing with the lingering issues between Balkan nations and different religions. Balkan Genocides attempts to end the vicious cycle of revenge which has fueled such horrors in the past century by analyzing the terrible events and how they came to pass.
This promising addition to the growing literature on the history of late socialism charts the development of youth culture and politics in socialist Yugoslavia, focusing on the 1980s. Rather than ...examining the 1980s as a mere prelude to the violent collapse of the country in the 1990s, the book recovers the multiplicity of political visions and cultural developments that evolved at the time and that have been largely forgotten in subsequent discussion. The youth of this generation, the author convincingly argues, sought to rearticulate the Yugoslav socialist framework in order to reinvigorate it and 'democratise' it, rather than destroy it altogether.
In Art Work , Katja Praznik counters the Western understanding of art – as a passion for self-expression and an activity done out of love, without any concern for its financial aspects – and instead ...builds a case for understanding art as a form of invisible labour. Focusing on the experiences of art workers and the history of labour regulation in the arts in socialist Yugoslavia, Praznik helps elucidate the contradiction at the heart of artistic production and the origins of the mystification of art as labour.
This profoundly interdisciplinary book highlights the Yugoslav socialist model of culture as the blueprint for uncovering the interconnected aesthetic and economic mechanisms at work in the exploitation of artistic labour. It also shows the historical trajectory of how policies toward art and artistic labour changed by the end of the 1980s. Calling for a fundamental rethinking of the assumptions behind Western art and exploitative labour practices across the world, Art Work will be of interest to scholars in East European studies, art theory, and cultural policy, as well as to practicing artists.
This compilation of essays by scholars from the region, Western Europe, and the US, explores the intersection of international politics in the post-Yugoslav states with a focus on the influence and ...impact of the European Union, the United States, Russia, China, and Turkey. The implications of external actors’ policy in the region for its Euro-Atlantic integration, its security, and stability are examined and discussed. In assessing the importance of the post-Yugoslav states for the EU and US and the current trend of disengagement by these two democratic actors in the region, answers are revealed regarding the question whether we are seeing a new Eastern Question emerging in the post-Yugoslav states. Likewise, when looking at the role of Russia, China, and Turkey in the region—and in contrast to European and US policies—, it becomes obvious to what extent the region, once again, is becoming the playground of Great Power games and wider geopolitical strategic interests.
The analytical time frame covers the period 1991–2018. The changes in the foreign policies of great powers are explored as they relate to the institutional set-up of the region. For instance, do the changes affect the EU’s hegemony in the region? Do Russia, China, and Turkey actively contribute to changing the rules of the game in the region—be it the accession process or regional cooperation?
Europe's recognition of new states in Yugoslavia remains one of the most controversial episodes in the Yugoslav crisis. Richard Caplan offers a detailed narrative of events, exploring the highly ...assertive role that Germany played in the episode, the reputedly catastrophic consequences of recognition (for Bosnia-Herzegovina in particular) and the radical departure from customary state practice represented by the EC's use of political criteria as the basis of recognition. The book examines the strategic logic and consequences of the EC's actions but also explores the wider implications, offering insights into European security policy at the end of the Cold War, the relationship of international law to international relations and the management of ethnic conflict. The significance of this book extends well beyond Yugoslavia as policymakers continue to wrestle with the challenges posed by violent conflict associated with state fragmentation.
Germany's 1941 seizure of Yugoslavia led to a bloody insurgency, and the Wehrmacht waged a brutal campaign in response--massive reprisal shootings, destruction of entire villages, and huge mobile ...operations against civilians. Terror in the Balkans explores the reasons behind Germany's extreme security measures in southern and eastern Europe.
This social, cultural, and political history of Slavic Muslim women of the Yugoslav region in the first decades of the post-Ottoman era is the first to provide a comprehensive overview of the issues ...confronting these women. It is based on a study of voluntary associations (philanthropic, cultural, Islamic-traditionalist, and feminist) of the period. It is broadly held that Muslim women were silent and relegated to a purely private space until 1945, when the communist state “unveiled” and “liberated” them from the top down. After systematic archival research in Bosnia, Croatia, Serbia, and Austria, Fabio Giomi challenges this view by showing: How different sectors of the Yugoslav elite through association publications, imagined the role of Muslim women in post-Ottoman times, and how Muslim women took part in the construction or the contestation of these narratives. How associations employed different means in order to forge a generation of “New Muslim Women” able to cope with the post-Ottoman political and social circumstances. And how Muslim women used the tools provided by the associations in order to pursue their own projects, aims and agendas. The insights are relevant for today’s challenges facing Muslim women in Europe. The text is illustrated with exceptional photographs.