Challenge : Unified Balkans

Your challenge, mirroring Thande's one, is to make the Balkans as unified as you can with a POD before the Yugo-Soviet split. Bonus points if you also achieve a "Northern Slavic Unification" between States like Czechoslovakia and Poland !
 
In fact, both Dimitrov and Tito were toying with "Balkan federation" idea from as early as 1944 and they signed custom agreement in 1947, roughly a year before Stalin-Tito split. Following foot-dragging on both side was caused by power struggle over who would lead new union (Dimitrov wanted 50/50 and Tito, leading more populous and developed country, wanted to be a big cheese). Would Dimitrov died 1.5 years earlier then IOTL, it is possible that Tito's ambitions would be satisfied by integrating Bulgaria into Yugoslavia, Stalin's attitude would be more mellow and split would not happen. However, resulting "Big Yugoslavia" would have all the ills old Yugoslavia did and more (relationships between Bulgarians and Serbs were complicated).
 
In fact, both Dimitrov and Tito were toying with "Balkan federation" idea from as early as 1944 and they signed custom agreement in 1947, roughly a year before Stalin-Tito split. Following foot-dragging on both side was caused by power struggle over who would lead new union (Dimitrov wanted 50/50 and Tito, leading more populous and developed country, wanted to be a big cheese). Would Dimitrov died 1.5 years earlier then IOTL, it is possible that Tito's ambitions would be satisfied by integrating Bulgaria into Yugoslavia, Stalin's attitude would be more mellow and split would not happen. However, resulting "Big Yugoslavia" would have all the ills old Yugoslavia did and more (relationships between Bulgarians and Serbs were complicated).

I agree with you on the fact that it could happen. But it would not last very long. OTL Yugoslavia barely got by as is and it would not survive even until OTL breakup with Bulgaria added.
 
Your challenge, mirroring Thande's one, is to make the Balkans as unified as you can with a POD before the Yugo-Soviet split. Bonus points if you also achieve a "Northern Slavic Unification" between States like Czechoslovakia and Poland !

I will eschew the bonus points.

Selim III has a stronger will and pushes through his reforms. The Ottoman Empire maintains it's hold over the Balkans. Voilla.
 
It really shouldn't have been that difficult, Serbian, Bosnian, Bulgarian, and Croatian are all more or less dialects of the same language. Avoid the religious 'ethnicizing' element and they have a lot better chance of forming a unified state. So, avoid Ottoman conquest to prevent any conversions to Islam, and have a unified Serbia/Bulgaria take over Croatia and convert them to Orthodoxy (or the other way around; but Serbia/Bulgaria is bigger so they have a better chance).
 
I Had a TL with a POTUS Jimi Hendrix starting a war in Yugoslavia that ended in 2002, shortly afterwards, the Balkan confederation was formed.
 
It really shouldn't have been that difficult, Serbian, Bosnian, Bulgarian, and Croatian are all more or less dialects of the same language.
You are very wrong. Serbian and Croatian are pretty close (dialects of the same language, as Standard German and the language Austria uses) and Bosnians speak sub-dialect of Croatians, but Bulgarian (and Macedonian, which is but a Bulgarian dialect) is different. Bulgarian and Serbian aren't much close to each other than Standard Spanish and Portuguese, may be even less. And Slovenian is another Slavic language in it's own right.

Manfr, would you give bonus points for Czechs entering union with Yugoslavia?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Czech_Corridor
 

wormyguy

Banned
In 1894, the people of Albania first saw airships.
byzantinebalkans.png
 
In fact, both Dimitrov and Tito were toying with "Balkan federation" idea from as early as 1944 and they signed custom agreement in 1947, roughly a year before Stalin-Tito split. Following foot-dragging on both side was caused by power struggle over who would lead new union (Dimitrov wanted 50/50 and Tito, leading more populous and developed country, wanted to be a big cheese). Would Dimitrov died 1.5 years earlier then IOTL, it is possible that Tito's ambitions would be satisfied by integrating Bulgaria into Yugoslavia, Stalin's attitude would be more mellow and split would not happen. However, resulting "Big Yugoslavia" would have all the ills old Yugoslavia did and more (relationships between Bulgarians and Serbs were complicated).

Might this provoke Stalinist intervention, if only to break Bulgaria away from "Greater Yugoslavia"?

(Getting to Yugoslavia itself might be kind of hard)
 
You are very wrong. Serbian and Croatian are pretty close (dialects of the same language, as Standard German and the language Austria uses) and Bosnians speak sub-dialect of Croatians, but Bulgarian (and Macedonian, which is but a Bulgarian dialect) is different. Bulgarian and Serbian aren't much close to each other than Standard Spanish and Portuguese, may be even less. And Slovenian is another Slavic language in it's own right.

Manfr, would you give bonus points for Czechs entering union with Yugoslavia?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Czech_Corridor

Seconded !

I might say additional bonus points if somehow Albania, italian Friuli and Greeece are also parte of the "thing" !
 
Might this provoke Stalinist intervention, if only to break Bulgaria away from "Greater Yugoslavia"?
Theoretically yes, but let's put it this way: I don't believe that Bulgarians would do something reckless enough to provoke direct military responce. I was thinking of sequence of small changes after Bled accord is signed and Dimitrov is dead. Stalin might be less then excited about new union, but I'm sure there's a TL where he could let it happen. However, having less ambitious Tito would help too.
(Getting to Yugoslavia itself might be kind of hard)
I believe at this point Soviet Army units still garrisoned Romania and Hungary. However, invasion would be a bitch, Soviets would be about the only kind of invading force likely to meet fierce resistance of both Serbs and Croats.

I might say additional bonus points if somehow Albania, italian Friuli and Greeece are also parte of the "thing" !
Albania could join "Big Yugoslavia" pretty easily. They were Serbian marionettes, for all intents and purposes, relying on Yugoslavian market for trade and Yugoslavian advisors to make new communist bureaucracy work. Getting Greece into fold calls for alternative Britons, who should allow Royalist government in Greece to fall (unlikely in Cold War atmosphere).
 
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Getting Greece into fold calls for alternative Britons, who should allow Royalist government in Greece to fall (unlikely in Cold War atmosphere).

Actually, there's a handful of decent enough PODs for that too - different percentages traded at Yalta, maybe, or Stalin who didn't abide by his promise and actually aided the Communists in Greece? A Britain too occupied elsewhere for some reason?

Greece was pretty close to going red ITL, is what I'm saying.
 
Some kind of Ottoman splintering with one Ottoman Empire surviving in the Balkans and the result surviving in OTL-Turkey-border eastward sounds interesting.

But how would that actually work? Might there be some factional fight, some Imperial brother being sprung from the Gilded Cage and smuggled into Europe?

EDIT: However, IIRC most of the Empire's Balkan territory was gone before 1900, making this solution a little tricky.
 
Some Bosnians might take offence to that.

They might, but that doesn't make it untrue. A language is a dialect with an army, after all, or at least some political will to resist assimilation.

And Yugoslavia's standard dialect was in fact called Serbo-Croatian until they decided they were very different in the 1990s.
 
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