Ulf Brunnbauer

The authors of this volume analyse the development of historiography in Southeast Europe after the collapse of socialism. On the one hand, they discuss efforts at reevaluating the past. On the other hand, their contributions reveal that recent historiography has often been characterised by a high degree of continuity despite social and political transformation. Neither the methodology nor the topics of mainstream historiography have changed. Nevertheless, new approaches have developed that do not view the past from a narrow political and national perspective. They connect to international discourse and break out of the parochialism of much of traditional historical writing in Southeast Europe.

Historiography in Southeast Europe After Socialism

(Re)writing History

Todor Kuljić

Sonja Vogel

die Kultur der Erinnerung im postjugoslawischen Raum : Essay

Umkämpfte Vergangenheiten

Stefan Troebst

die Erinnerung an den Kommunismus in Südosteuropa

Zwischen Amnesie und Nostalgie

John R. Lampe

Disentangling a controversial history of turmoil and progress, this Handbook provides essential guidance through the complex past of a region that was previously known as the Balkans but is now better known as Southeastern Europe. It gathers 47 international scholars and researchers from the region. They stand back from the premodern claims and recent controversies stirred by the wars of Yugoslavia’s dissolution. Parts I and II explore shifting early modern divisions among three empires to the national movements and independent states that intruded with Great Power intervention on Ottoman and Habsburg territory in the nineteenth century. Part III traces a full decade of war centered on the First World War, with forced migrations rivalling the great loss of life. Part IV addresses the interwar promise and the later authoritarian politics of five newly independent states: Albania, Bulgaria, Greece, Romania, and Yugoslavia. Separate attention is paid in Part V to the spread of European economic and social features that had begun in the nineteenth century. The Second World War again cost the region dearly in death and destruction and, as noted in Part VI, in interethnic violence. A final set of chapters in Part VII examines postwar and Cold War experiences that varied among the four Communist regimes as well as for non-Communist Greece. Lastly, a brief Epilogue takes the narrative past 1989 into the uncertainties that persist in Yugoslavia’s successor states and its neighbors. Providing fresh analysis from recent scholarship, the brief and accessible chapters of the Handbook address the general reader as well as students and scholars. For further study, each chapter includes a short list of selected readings.

The Routledge Handbook of Balkan and Southeast European History

Klaus Roth

Southeastern Europe is often portrayed as an area plagued by endemic nationalisms, a view that seems to be confirmed by the break-up of Yugoslavia. However, a closer look shows that the nation is not the only territorial unit of identification. Regions play an important role as well, especially those that look back on traditions that differ from those of the national state. Thus, the end of socialism also brought forward regional movements which articulated opposition to the dominance of the centralized state. These developments are furthered by the integration into the European Union, whose policy of a "Europe of the Regions" demands strong regional centres for the administration of structural funds and for the empowerment of the regions. The contributions to this volume address the dynamics of regions, regionalism and regional identities in present Southeast Europe, but also look into the history of individual regions. They provide ample material for understanding the complex nature of territorial identification in this rapidly changing part of Europe.

Region, Regional Identity and Regionalism in Southeastern Europe

The contributions to this second volume focus equally on tangible and intangible dimensions of Southeast European regions. They represent the region both as a territorial unit and as a mental construct laden with symbolic meaning. The papers demonstrate that regions, be it the entire Balkan Peninsula or be it a small area somewhere in the mountains, can become palpable, visible, and audible. They can produce culture and they can, at the same time, be products of culture: regions can be constructs of those who inhabit them - or of spatial planning from "above". In any case, both the physical and the symbolic regions are a very relevant issue in Southeast Europe, serving purposes of spatial, ethnic, religious or even professional identification, or of politically motivated border-drawing.

Ulf Brunnbauer

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