WI: More peaceful Balkans?

Interesting question Avitus,I came across it by chance and I went through it...I read the arguments,some of them remind me of 'laboratory tube arguments' maybe due to the fact that the contributors do not know the Balcans very well...

I have just been informed of the contents of the destruction of Greece by the German occupation 1941-1944 in a publication by the Reserved bank of Greece fully documented:13% loss of population-mainly due to famine(as opposed to hunger and that in 20th century Europe...) with 40% of staples(like beans and similar products) 60% of the the cotton production lost
etc due to feeding of the German army in the Balcans,massacres(as counter measures against resistance!...or so they said) and depopulation of many fertile areas etc and the question was how did that nation survived that time...just think that the Ottoman occupation was worse and its consequences lasting for generations after independence...draw your conclusions...
At present I live in a Balcan nation(Romania) which was not so directly affected by Ottoman conquest,at worst partial only,and I have seen and
read about the results of Ottoman conquest here...think how it was in Bulgaria and especially in Greece which staged numerous revolts during the Ottoman occupation and of course not without reason...

In sort,the Balcans suffered from partial to total regression under a conqueror that was inferior in both social structure and civilization and economic progress due to its nomadic backround...until lately,in the 20th century the genocide of the Armenians and Greek and Syrian orthodox populations between 1915-1923...
 
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Wait...what instances of ethnic cleansing happened before the arrival of the Ottomans?
Byzantine population transfers come to mind. Not sure they were truly intended to break up an ethnic group on ethnical lines, but they repeatedly moved Slavs to Anatolia and the like. That has to at least count as unpleasant.

Maybe "Phalangism" ? Cataprachtism has a nice ring to it, and is arguably more Byzantine, though neither of these would be an actual translation of the fasces.

Good enough for our purposes.
 
Yeah the Ottomans were such genocidal hatemongers who brutally subjugated the people of the Balkans and forced their religion on them at saberpoint.

Except they didn't and all of these assertions are blatantly false and unhistorical and in no small measure tinted in thinly veiled nationalist rhetoric and ethnic prejudice.

As a great Serb historian once said, if the Turks were as bloodthirsty as the folk songs depicted them and spread Islam by the sword, no orthodox or catholic church or monastery would have been left standing.

It isn't that simple;the Christian population was their source of income...
heavy taxes,land products and whatever these Asians could not do...plus offending christian religion .
in such a blatant fashion could cause an outcry in Europe,something the Ottomans couldn't afford...
 
And its again going to have a very heavy weight of pure classism if the aristocrats dominate and the majority of the population just has to suck it up. There's just not a good option here other than hoping your rulers DON'T abuse your power if you're lower class in this context.
I'm not disputing that classism is going to be at least as bad as and likely worse than ethno-religious descrimination (or at least worse than the Ottomans intended it to be), but classism is going to be present whether we have the Ottomans or not. I'm willing to put the descrimination down as a single point against the Ottomans, but classism is two or three points against everyone (unless you have a society you think is better about classism, but I'm quite sure the Ottomans aren't above the average).

Basically I think the issue of classism ought not to be brought up, because it's going to exist no matter who's in charge, but I do hold that descrimination would be at least an appreciable fraction of the level of problem of aristocratic classism. To me, that fraction (based again on my fairly arbitrary scale) looks to be a rough third, which seems reasonable to me.

No, what made some ethnicities hate each other is some ethnicities being unable to fucking move on. Yes, I'm sure that while the Ottomans were in charge having the mostly Muslim Albanians dominant wasn't very pleasant, but Serbians faced the choice of either "That was the past, this is now." or "REVENGE!" and they chose the latter.

That is from their problems, not from Ottoman actions.
It's not a matter of revenge if the problems are ongoing. Continuing to use Kosovo as an example, the region became majority Albanian in ethnicity and Muslim in religion because of actions undertaken by the Ottomans to help fight the Austrians. Serbia was sympathetic to Austria, and after regaining the region in the 1690s the Ottomans began to actively foster the growth of the Islamic community in Kosovo and tear down Christian institutions there, prompting the locals to flee in significant numbers. Even so the territory was still considered a part of Serbia, and a century later when the Ottomans had to give Serbia autonomy they gave them the region. Since then the region has been considered Serbian since before 1200, still holds a significant Serbian population, and has been a part of the modern Serbian state since its inception its only natural that the serbs want to keep the region. On the other hand the majority in Kosovo are Muslim Albanians, so it's also perfectly reasonable for them to want independance from a state where they don't have the representation and autonomy that they want. It is a problem that arose entirely during Ottoman rule, and in Kosovo's case it is one that the Ottomans created on purpose to keep the Serbs down, and that has no solution that will satisfy everyone, so I feel placing blame on the Ottomans at least in some capacity is warranted.

In the greater scope of nationalism both sides are just doing what makes sense, so I definitely don't consider it an unreasonable unwillingness to move on, but even if you do consider both sides to be unreasonable towards eachother then I would argue that making them hate eachother was indeed a state policy for the Ottomans designed to keep the Balkans under their control, so they can be blamed for the hate between them too.

It has more to do with, again, people screaming for revenge rather than wiping the slate clean. There might not be the things to have "revenge!" against in different circumstances, but it doesn't speak well of the people who felt that because bad things were done by Muslim Albanians in the past that the appropriate response is to do Muslim Albanians now. It speaks a great deal of their intolerance and hatred and very little of the meaning of what was done to them.

It's the opposite of the Truth and Reconciliation committees.
Again, ongoing conflict, and a two way struggle. The Albanians don't like the Serbs either, and are infringing on territory that has been Serbian for two centuries. It's not as simple as saying "I refuse to tolerate X because of the past". More like "X can't have my sovereign territory just because they live there. X can have some special privileges, but only if they behave like everybody else". Letting an ethnicity have a region just because they are the majority isn't right (otherwise we'll see nations with excess population using them to colonize and claim other territories), but neither is opressing people or forcing them from their homes. A complex solution needs to be established, and sometimes solutions (especially ones dependant on a certain level of integrity in one or both groups) fail for one reason or another, resulting in what's happening now in Kosovo.


Balkans without being conquered raises a lot of very unpleasant issues about how they handle BYZANTINE rule and its legacy, and any attempts by Byzantium to reestablish control. Ethnic cleansing in the Balkans arguably started in their period earlier, honestly, which is not something I like to think about but I'm pretty sure is true by the definition of the term.

As for being receptive to the idea: There are a lot of nasty possible idealogies. Byzantine fascism (using OTL terminology because for a state calling itself Roman it could well look to the fasces, and my Greek isn't good enough to translate) in an alt-20th century is certainly not impossible as a response to "restore ancient glories" and all that sort of rubbish. Just to name one example.

Germany wasn't under imperial rule (in this sense), Russia being under that wasn't directly related to what lead to the October Revolution, and well we don't need to go there. There are a lot of ways for insert harmful ideology here of various sorts to sneak in.

I don't mean this just to be contentious, its just that we saw things happen OTL that did pretty awful things so often over many places in the OTL 20th century. I'd really feel leery of expecting any part of Europe to have effective antibodies with a POD before any of the modern institutions that may have helped (say) OTL Great Britain have truly developed.

History can be grimdark and all.
Agreed that Byzantium did have a level of ethnic cleansing (although to be fair in the period relocation within the empire is pretty tame even by modern standards), but not agreed that it was worse than anyone else at the time. By the time that the Ottomans were fighting to retain the Balkans, violent ethnic cleansing was definitely not par for the course.

As for violent ideologies, I get what you mean about it being too early to tell at the time of the PoD, but I will say that generally successful nations always tend to be less suceptible to them, and the reverse is also true. In that respect, if we start the Balkans on a good streak in the late middle ages, I think it at least helps their chances of continuing it in modern times.

Not really, no. The combination of increasingly unwelcome rule (whatever it was like earlier) bloody wars for independence, insecurity in a dangerous world, and all the fun and joy of the 20th century's pandora's box of horrors landed on the Balkans one thing after another - whereas for example the pain the US went through from ~1918 on was with the last half century having been far easier and far more prosperous (for all its problems there) for the majority.

But a lot of that is just everything that could go wrong from the OTL events (the multiple collapses pre-Ottomans you referred to, Ottoman rule, nationalism, the modern industrial world changing traditional things tremendously) being without let up - if the alt-Balkans face a perfect storm of disasters (even if different disasters) politically and socially, the 20th century will be bleak even if the 14th-19th was better.

I just want to note that because of how even the countries that did handle it well were under pretty serious stress - I would not want to be a Frenchman in the 1930s in a lot of ways, or the 1830s for that matter. And France was a Great Power, not a province.

Agreed on fractional points. It might be useful to discuss for any specific scenario how some relatively minor issues being avoided changes things, but that's just fleshing out that scenario and doesn't relate to your scale.

After all, who knows what individuals might have risen without the OTL figures? An Albanian whose family tree resembles OTL Skanderbeg but who works out as an Orthodox saint, favoring education, would have a dramatic impact on the region, no?

Just using this as food for thought.
I think you are right that (correct me if I'm misinterpreting), if we simply give the Balkans a good 20th century they could be par for the course in Europe by today. The issue here is that I feel that the area was predisposed to such problems by 1700, what with the ethnic shifts and ethnic rivalries. Similarly, I think the root of that round of problems is based in the Ottoman conquest, and obviously the events of the 1300s caused the Ottoman conquest. I don't see a PoD after the Ottoman withdrawal to be likely to produce good results, as the region is already thoroughly messed up and surrounded by enemies and or radical governments on all sides. A PoD during Ottoman rule might work by preserving the empire as the region's uncontested dominant power, but I find that to be a rather difficult goal, not to mention that it would destroy (or heavily Ottomanize at least) all the region's native cultures, so I'd prefer that the area remain independant. Peaceful Ottoman withdrawal would also work, but I see virtually no chance of that happening, so I prefer to prevent their conquest altogether.

That's why I wanted to choose a PoD when all the Balkan nations were fairly strong, around 1300, before Bulgaria fell apart, before the civil war between Andronikos II and Andronikos III devastated Byzantium, and before the rise and overexpansion of Stephen Dusan. That was probably the last time when I would say that all three main groups (Serbs, Greeks, and Bulgarians) were doing pretty well for a while at the same time. It just seems easier to build on a positive streak than to turn a negative one around.
 
I'm not disputing that classism is going to be at least as bad as and likely worse than ethno-religious descrimination (or at least worse than the Ottomans intended it to be), but classism is going to be present whether we have the Ottomans or not. I'm willing to put the descrimination down as a single point against the Ottomans, but classism is two or three points against everyone (unless you have a society you think is better about classism, but I'm quite sure the Ottomans aren't above the average).

Basically I think the issue of classism ought not to be brought up, because it's going to exist no matter who's in charge, but I do hold that descrimination would be at least an appreciable fraction of the level of problem of aristocratic classism. To me, that fraction (based again on my fairly arbitrary scale) looks to be a rough third, which seems reasonable to me.

I think the problem is that classism of these sorts of societies means pretty much the same damn effect on the vast majority of the population as saying "You're Christian, therefore your legal rights are inferior to Muslims."

Either way, the vast majority of the population is excluded from any form of power and from liberties as we understand the term.


It's not a matter of revenge if the problems are ongoing. Continuing to use Kosovo as an example, the region became majority Albanian in ethnicity and Muslim in religion because of actions undertaken by the Ottomans to help fight the Austrians. Serbia was sympathetic to Austria, and after regaining the region in the 1690s the Ottomans began to actively foster the growth of the Islamic community in Kosovo and tear down Christian institutions there, prompting the locals to flee in significant numbers. Even so the territory was still considered a part of Serbia, and a century later when the Ottomans had to give Serbia autonomy they gave them the region. Since then the region has been considered Serbian since before 1200, still holds a significant Serbian population, and has been a part of the modern Serbian state since its inception its only natural that the serbs want to keep the region. On the other hand the majority in Kosovo are Muslim Albanians, so it's also perfectly reasonable for them to want independance from a state where they don't have the representation and autonomy that they want. It is a problem that arose entirely during Ottoman rule, and in Kosovo's case it is one that the Ottomans created on purpose to keep the Serbs down, and that has no solution that will satisfy everyone, so I feel placing blame on the Ottomans at least in some capacity is warranted.
I don't, because the situation we're blaming them for is the Serbs, AFTER Kosovo is not an Ottoman territory (and depending on which atrocity, after there isn't even an Ottoman Empire), attempting to drive the Albanians out of Kosovo.

In the greater scope of nationalism both sides are just doing what makes sense, so I definitely don't consider it an unreasonable unwillingness to move on, but even if you do consider both sides to be unreasonable towards eachother then I would argue that making them hate eachother was indeed a state policy for the Ottomans designed to keep the Balkans under their control, so they can be blamed for the hate between them too.
What possible sense is there in ethnic cleansing? And what policy had the Ottomans try to make one group hate each other?

Again, ongoing conflict, and a two way struggle. The Albanians don't like the Serbs either, and are infringing on territory that has been Serbian for two centuries. It's not as simple as saying "I refuse to tolerate X because of the past". More like "X can't have my sovereign territory just because they live there. X can have some special privileges, but only if they behave like everybody else". Letting an ethnicity have a region just because they are the majority isn't right (otherwise we'll see nations with excess population using them to colonize and claim other territories), but neither is opressing people or forcing them from their homes. A complex solution needs to be established, and sometimes solutions (especially ones dependant on a certain level of integrity in one or both groups) fail for one reason or another, resulting in what's happening now in Kosovo.
Oh for God's sake. The Albanians live there. We're not talking a fucking invading army of Albanians, we're talking about civilians who have homes that are in territory the Serbs consider Serbian.

And considering that the Serbs didn't have just one polity early on, it gets even more complicated and pointless.

Once the population is already there, the only questions are whether you accept the situation as part of whatever territorial borders get determined (something in flux particularly post collapse of Yugoslavia), or you don't.

Frankly, this is why I hate ethnically defined nation states. That "X people live in Y region" as if all areas with Frenchmen should be French and only areas with Frenchmen should be French (picking France because, um, it came to mind) ends only in blood and suffering.

Agreed that Byzantium did have a level of ethnic cleansing (although to be fair in the period relocation within the empire is pretty tame even by modern standards), but not agreed that it was worse than anyone else at the time. By the time that the Ottomans were fighting to retain the Balkans, violent ethnic cleansing was definitely not par for the course.
Pretty tame even by modern standards, yes, but certainly enough that someone determined to be hateful and unforgiving like the OTL perpetrators of ethnic cleansing in the 20th century (and the sense that's borderline genocide) could use as an "excuse".

As for violent ideologies, I get what you mean about it being too early to tell at the time of the PoD, but I will say that generally successful nations always tend to be less suceptible to them, and the reverse is also true. In that respect, if we start the Balkans on a good streak in the late middle ages, I think it at least helps their chances of continuing it in modern times.
While I would say that the Balkans having a good streak in the late Middle Ages can't hurt their chances later, I'm not so sure that successful is the thing - or at least that it depends on how we're looking at that. I'd generally say the century between the Napoleonic Wars and WWI was better for Germany than most countries.

I think you are right that (correct me if I'm misinterpreting), if we simply give the Balkans a good 20th century they could be par for the course in Europe by today.
Yeah. At least in regards to the atrocities and so on aspect.

Economically would depend on whether we mean the European average or the top, I think.

That's why I wanted to choose a PoD when all the Balkan nations were fairly strong, around 1300, before Bulgaria fell apart, before the civil war between Andronikos II and Andronikos III devastated Byzantium, and before the rise and overexpansion of Stephen Dusan. That was probably the last time when I would say that all three main groups (Serbs, Greeks, and Bulgarians) were doing pretty well for a while at the same time. It just seems easier to build on a positive streak than to turn a negative one around.
Fair enough, taken in that light.
 
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I think the problem is that classism of these sorts of societies means pretty much the same damn effect on the vast majority of the population as saying "You're Christian, therefore your legal rights are inferior to Muslims."

Either way, the vast majority of the population is excluded from any form of power and from liberties as we understand the term.
Yes, but the point I'm making is that the excluded portion of the population only grows with the ethno-religious descrimination. If we have 85% of the population excluded in a Greek state run by Greeks, we have at least 95% excluded in one run by another ethnicity that descriminates against them.


I don't, because the situation we're blaming them for is the Serbs, AFTER Kosovo is not an Ottoman territory (and depending on which atrocity, after there isn't even an Ottoman Empire), attempting to drive the Albanians out of Kosovo.
Again, the situation began when the Ottomans were in charge of the region, because they relocated new people to the region and pursecuted the old population into leaving (they dismantled the local Patriarchate and everything).

What possible sense is there in ethnic cleansing? And what policy had the Ottomans try to make one group hate each other?
Stealing land from one group that you don't like and giving it to one that you do like is both the inspiration for the ethnic cleansing and a clear attempt to foster hate between them so as to stop the Serbs from focusing all their energies on the Ottomans themselves. It's not right on either end, but that there was a deliberate attempt to foster hate is pretty obvious (unless the Ottomans legitimately believed they could eventually repopulate all of Serbia with Albanians, which is worse if true IMO).

Oh for God's sake. The Albanians live there. We're not talking a fucking invading army of Albanians, we're talking about civilians who have homes that are in territory the Serbs consider Serbian.

And considering that the Serbs didn't have just one polity early on, it gets even more complicated and pointless.

Once the population is already there, the only questions are whether you accept the situation as part of whatever territorial borders get determined (something in flux particularly post collapse of Yugoslavia), or you don't.

Frankly, this is why I hate ethnically defined nation states. That "X people live in Y region" as if all areas with Frenchmen should be French and only areas with Frenchmen should be French (picking France because, um, it came to mind) ends only in blood and suffering.
I don't agree with ethnically defined states either (hence my love of Rome and Byzantium), but that's how the modern world tends to work.

That said, Serbia has a great claim on the land, which was definitively part of Serbia before the Ottomans and from their being granted autonomy onwards, and they aren't trying to force the Albanians out, they are trying to get them to give up being a special province and just be another part of the country. Neither side is pushing ethnic cleansing now, nor are they not acknowledging the right of one group to be there. It's the right to secede that the Serbs have a problem with, which isn't a right they guarantee anyways.

Pretty tame even by modern standards, yes, but certainly enough that someone determined to be hateful and unforgiving like the OTL perpetrators of ethnic cleansing in the 20th century (and the sense that's borderline genocide) could use as an "excuse".
True, but that's a pretty sad excuse. At that point I'd be surprised if the regime involved actually needed the excuse for anything more than an inconsequential line in a rally speech.

While I would say that the Balkans having a good streak in the late Middle Ages can't hurt their chances later, I'm not so sure that successful is the thing - or at least that it depends on how we're looking at that. I'd generally say the century between the Napoleonic Wars and WWI was better for Germany than most countries.
Would Germany before WWI really be considered that extreme? Imperial Germany seemed pretty average for the time. Of course, there's pretty much no arguing that it didn't get way worse after German fortunes turned south following WWI, so I would say that supports bad fortunes leading to radical ideologies.
Yeah. At least in regards to the atrocities and so on aspect.

Economically would depend on whether we mean the European average or the top, I think.

Fair enough, taken in that light.
Economically being in the middle of the pack would be perfect honestly.

Obviously 1300 isn't perfect, but earlier it becomes pretty much "How can we replace the Ottomans with Byzantium or Bulgaria?", while later I've already gone over the issues.
 
Yes, but the point I'm making is that the excluded portion of the population only grows with the ethno-religious descrimination. If we have 85% of the population excluded in a Greek state run by Greeks, we have at least 95% excluded in one run by another ethnicity that descriminates against them.

Another religion, in this case, not ethnicity, which I think is significant to MY argument - the ability to move from the "bottom class" to the ranks of power.

Either sucks pretty badly, so I'm hoping your scenario includes the Balkan states - whether going democratic or not - develop better institutions than say, Russia did OTL.

Again, the situation began when the Ottomans were in charge of the region, because they relocated new people to the region and pursecuted the old population into leaving (they dismantled the local Patriarchate and everything).
And the ethnic cleansing began when people decided they were too mad to forgive the sins of the past and had to punish the descendants of the responsible parties or related parties.

Stealing land from one group that you don't like and giving it to one that you do like is both the inspiration for the ethnic cleansing and a clear attempt to foster hate between them so as to stop the Serbs from focusing all their energies on the Ottomans themselves. It's not right on either end, but that there was a deliberate attempt to foster hate is pretty obvious (unless the Ottomans legitimately believed they could eventually repopulate all of Serbia with Albanians, which is worse if true IMO).
I suspect it had less to do with "one set of people" and more about either Byzantine style breaking up troublesome populations, or rewarding loyal Albanians with land in an area the empire wanted settled by loyalists (similar in this case to Edward I encouraging English settlement in Wales).

Though at this point we're left with it being messy imperialistic policy anyway.

I don't agree with ethnically defined states either (hence my love of Rome and Byzantium), but that's how the modern world tends to work.

That said, Serbia has a great claim on the land, which was definitively part of Serbia before the Ottomans and from their being granted autonomy onwards, and they aren't trying to force the Albanians out, they are trying to get them to give up being a special province and just be another part of the country. Neither side is pushing ethnic cleansing now, nor are they not acknowledging the right of one group to be there. It's the right to secede that the Serbs have a problem with, which isn't a right they guarantee anyways.
Sure. But there have been up to at least the 1990s attempts to force them out, which most definitely is.

Claims to the right to leave - well, this gets into a thing worth a discussion on its own, so I'm not going to try to take it up here for simplicity's sake.

Would Germany before WWI really be considered that extreme? Imperial Germany seemed pretty average for the time. Of course, there's pretty much no arguing that it didn't get way worse after German fortunes turned south following WWI, so I would say that supports bad fortunes leading to radical ideologies.
Probably not, but the point is that the of the last two hundred years, German fortunes have not been uniformly below average (let alone "awful"), and yet . . OTL.

Economically being in the middle of the pack would be perfect honestly.

Obviously 1300 isn't perfect, but earlier it becomes pretty much "How can we replace the Ottomans with Byzantium or Bulgaria?", while later I've already gone over the issues.
Yeah. I think the problem is that there is no ideal date for your scenario (the "everyone more or less balanced") without erasing the issues as we know them to begin with entirely ("What if the Slavs never migrated to the Balkans?" avoids ANYTHING with Serbia in the Balkans, but is a little ridiculous).

1300 will do for discussion's sake, IMO.

Economics . . . for discussion's sake, will Bulgaria (Greece being in economic turmoil) count as an example to compare "today"?

Just wanting to look up how big a gap there is and post it here so we have a notion of how far off it is.
 

plenka

Banned
In my humble opinion, without Turks entire region would be more stable then it is today. Serbian nationalism would be nipped in the bud without turkish occupation, and I think that the region would be very peaceful. For an example Catholics (Croats), and the Ortodox (Serbs) lived peacefully in the Krajina for centuries, and ethnic clashes began only when Croats started killing Serbs in WW2. Of course after that in the Yugoslav wars Serbs decided to avenge themselves on the Croats and the Muslims. Muslims really got battered in the Yugoslav wars because both Croats and the Serbs wanted pieces of Bosnia for themselves. There was even a deal between Milosevic ( Serbian president) and Tudman ( Croatian president) to carve up Bosnia and ethnicly cleanse Muslim population. That plan never became reality because neither side trusted eachother, and Dayton agreement formed Bosnia and Herzegovina under the USA protection.

If you feel that I made any mistakes please feel free to correct me, there is no need for this to become an endless argument.
 
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