Chapter Two ETHNO-HISTORICAL CONSIDERATIONS (p. 35-36)
1. The Balkan peninsula
The Balkan peninsula derives its name from the Turkish word for the Slavic toponym Stara Planina– the mountain range in Northern Bulgaria, to the south of the Danube.1 The first person to use the term Balkan Peninsula was the German geographer Zeune (1808), who replaced the former reference to the peninsula as"European Turkey" with this term, stating that there was une répugnanceévidente‘evident repulsion’ at the description of the Balkans as"Turkey in Europe" (cf. Cviji 1918:2). The name Balkan Peninsula was readily accepted since it was parallel to the names of the other two peninsulas in Southern Europe, the Pyrenean and the Apennine one, which were also named after mountain ranges.
1.1. While the eastern, southern and western boundaries of the peninsula are defined by the borders of the Adriatic, Ionian, Mediterranean, Aegean and Black seas, its northern boundary is defined by two mighty rivers: the Sava, from its head-waters in the Alps, north of the Gulf of Trieste, to its junction with the Danube, and the Danube from here on, to its estuary in the Black Sea (cf. Cviji 1918:2, Kati i 1976:11). Thus, unlike the northern boundaries of the Pyrenean and the Apennine peninsula, which are closed by high mountains– the Pyrenees and the Alps, respectively, the northern boundaries of the Balkan Peninsula are not sharply separated from the rest of continental Europe. Because of this, the Balkan peninsula has been very open to invasion from the north, and it is from the north that numerous invasions have come.2 The invasions have driven into the peninsula a diversity of tribes and have turned it into a conglomeration of peoples and languages.
1.2 With the exception of Stara Planina and the Rhodope ranges, which are moderately high and have numerous mountain passes, the major mountain chains in the Balkans run north-south, so, the invaders have been able to penetrate deep into the peninsula. Having settled, the individual tribes were isolated, however, the high mountains hindering the creation of common states and encouraging linguistic localisms.
2. Ethnic Balkans
The modern Balkan states share a geographical unity and historical heritage dating back to inhabitation during the Lower Paleolithic times, 200,000-100,000 B.C. (cf. Carter 1977:1). In the course of the first millenium of the modern era, however, due to the uneven influence of Rome in the territories in and around the Balkans, which the empire had conquered, two different civilizations developed on the peninsula. Balkanhalbinsel. Over a hundred years later, the Serbian geographer Cviji supported
2.1 During the period before Christ, Roman influence on the Balkans was chiefly along the Adriatic and Ionic coast, concentrating in coastal towns. In the first century A.D. the Romans began pushing their frontiers inland across the Balkans. As they adv- anced, they established forts and small towns and built roads to connect them with the coast. The countryside beyond the forts and the towns remained populated with indigenous population, however, and experienced little or no Roman influence.
2.2 In 324, the emperor Constantine chose to live in the east and established a new center there, Constantinople. This marked the beginning of the end of the centralized Roman rule, which was precipitated after the death of emperor Theodosius I, who divided the empire between his two sons, into Old Rome in the west and New Rome in the east. |
