Archives

  • Miscellaneous: Romani culture, sociolinguistics and environment
    No. 8 (2017)

    It is a satisfaction for me to publish the number 8 of this second Balkania era, owing to the support of Casa Mediterráneo and its director, Javier Hergueta. During the last couple of years, Balkania has been maintained as a reference journal, using the academic links between Spain and Southeast Europe and incorporating academic content from authors from other geographies to whom we publish their articles both in Spanish and English.

    In this issue we wanted to continue with the same spirit of the previous issues: achieve a level of publication that brings the Balkans closer from rigor and depth. We continue to seek a balance between historical analysis and the monitoring of current events, but with sufficient perspective so that the journal is not corseted at a political moment and has a horizon of interest for the sake of present and future researchers.

    This year, we have chosen to deal with several issues that had not been addressed until now. First of all, I must express my gratitude for the help given by the sociologist and Honorary Professor of the University Paris-Descartes Jean Pierre Liegoise, an expert in Roma issues, for his invaluable help in the realization of this issue. In this way, we address the history of the Roma communities in the Balkans through an article by the specialists, Elena Marushiakova and Vesselin Popov, who trace a journey through the Roman identity from the time of the Ottoman Empire to the current times of pan-europeanism and globalization. Linguistic issues also have a place: Hristo Kyuchukov explores the coding of the Romani language. In this sense, he argues that in order to develop a Roma-encoded lexicon, it is necessary to use the old Roma words that are forgotten in some dialects but are preserved in others. With regard to the sociolinguistic question, Jelena Kovač's article aims to provide preliminary information on the attitudes of the young Roma population of Serbia towards learning and preserving their mother tongue, determining as a determining factor the role played by the family.

    Balkania is interested in working on a comparative approach that brings Balkan studies closer to other area studies. It is necessary to recognize a particular interest in the work of Anamarija Marinović who, from her academic specialty in

    Portuguese-speaking studies, analyzes and compares the concepts of absence and longing (saudade) and her Serbian linguistic equivalent (čežnja) in the two respective cultures. Similarly, we have a work by Jelena Filipović and Ivana Vučina Simović that reveals the emotional ties created by Nobel Prize winner Ivo Andric with the Sephardic community in the Balkans and how these ties manifested in his literature and essays, reflecting in this process a form of "imagined community".

    Another issue that Balkania had not analyzed so far were the environmental issues that are increasingly emerging in Balkan studies. Jeroen Arends places value on the concept of ecosystem services as an approach that could play a very important role in the sustainable use and management of natural areas and natural resources in the region. The article by Nadezda Apostolova and Daniel Scarry summarizes the patterns in the socioecological system of Macedonia, which shows how economic, social and political factors interrelate with landscapes, species and ecosystems in the present. The publication of both articles offers a broad focal vision of the entire region, but also of a single country.

    The census in Bosnia seemed to us a very important issue to have of the complicated political situation that the country is experiencing with the difficult ethnic and institutional equilibriums that the country has been living since the signing of the Dayton Accords. The successful defense of the thesis of Esma Kučukalić and the publication of a book on the subject, seemed an excellent opportunity to publish the results of her years-long research.

    The work of Aleksandar Kocić allows us to put at the same level, with all its complexities, the sealed peace agreements for Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo, which nowadays happen to be two of the most important political political uncertainty points of the region. The interest of this article, in addition to the international level, is to contribute to establishing a genealogical point in relation to the current scenario. This is particularly important, above all, from the point of view of comparative studies, because after the Yugoslav fragmentation, the countries of the region show increasingly more specific or differentiated state realities.

    We hope that it meets the demands of our public and that it contributes to the expansion of the Balkan studies, not only by providing knowledge, but also by favoring the appearance of new lines of research.

    Miguel Rodríguez Andreu

    Balkania Editor-in-chief

  • Monograph dedicated to North Macedonia
    No. 7 (2016)

    When the staff responsible for Balkania journal contacted Casa Mediterráneo, proposing a collaboration to publish and distribute this academic project, the institution welcomed it and showed its support without hesitation. The reasons are various and of different nature. Casa Mediterráneo is part of the network of Houses of the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation (MAEC) as a tool for the implementation of public diplomacy, the one that makes civil society one of the participants in international relations. The academic world is undoubtedly an example of this civil society to which public diplomacy directs its attention. In the same way, the activities of this Casa cover the Euro-Mediterranean area and, since its establishment in 2009, it has shown great interest in the Balkans. Another reason is the fact that this journal has been previously published by the Embassy of Spain in Belgrade. In this sense, the vision of the diplomat Javier Hergueta, then second ranking officer in Spanish diplomatic corps was decisive for the promotion of the collaboration of this academic project with Spanish public institutions. Finally, this collaboration acquires great value for this Casa since it accesses the contents of the previous copies of Balkania, for the undoubted quality of its socio-political studies and relevant intellectual category of its writers. For all of the above, Casa Mediterráneo is excited to start this collaboration with the journal, participating in the publication, distribution and presentation of this seventh issue. For those interested in getting to know Casa Mediterráneo better, I invite you to visit our website: http://casa-mediterraneo.es/.

    I would like to congratulate the publisher of Balkania, Miguel Rodríguez Andreu, for the effort and determination demonstrated by publication of each issue of the journal. In doing so, he contributes, in an excellent and invaluable way, to cover a space of the Balkan studies by Spain, which deserves the greatest recognition, recognition I extend to Javier Hergueta, for his exceptional political, academic and cultural vision of this project, and Carlos Flores Juberías, Honorary Consul of the Republic of Macedonia in the Valencian Community, for his interest in the continuation of the same. Likewise, Casa Mediterráneo appreciates the unselfish efforts of the translators of this bilingual edition and, of course, the help of the MAEC and the Spanish Embassies in Belgrade, Skopje and Athens.

     

    Miguel Oliveros

    General Director, Casa Mediterráneo

  • Sephardic culture in the Balkans
    No. 6 (2015)

    The year 1992 was a special year for all of Spain. The celebration of the Barcelona Olympics and the organization of the Seville Expo, along with the organization of the Second Ibero-American Summit, were some of the events that showed the great social, economic and cultural potential of the country that year. These celebrations were joined by commemorative events for the 500 years of the “Discovery of America”, whose date, October 12, 1492, the day of the national holiday, began, as the law that regulates it says, a “period of projection linguistic and cultural beyond European limits.

    However, equally, that year the Edict of expulsion of the Jews residing in the Crown of Castile and the Crown of Aragon was signed—the Kingdom of Portugal would do so in 1496—to cause the forced exile of thousands of people who would have to be displaced to other parts of the European continent, North Africa and, later, to the American continent. Despite so many political and cultural events taking place in 1992, and of such magnitude, paradoxically, far from silencing what had been considered a “historical injustice,” a window of opportunity was opened to make visible and strengthen the ties between the Sephardic diaspora and Spain. That year the Sephardic issue would not only be of interest to the Jewish community, but it was an unparalleled opportunity for the Sephardic world to be present in academic and cultural circles with a multitude of activities and meetings that generated a great current of interest in public opinion. 

    An outstanding fruit of that new impulse was the creation of the Casa Sefarad-Israel, which with its activity has made it possible to highlight the Jewish legacy of Spain and bring current Sephardim closer to the homeland of their ancestors, Spain-Sepharad. As a result of this increasingly intense rapprochement, this year a new page of reunion is signed with the approval by the Congress of Deputies of a law that facilitates the conditions for obtaining nationality for all Sephardim originating in Spain, and which came into force on October. The generosity of generations and generations of Sephardim, who were custodians of Spanish traditions and customs, has its symbolic counterpart in the will of Spain to reach out to the Sephardic descendants and honor all those who nostalgically kept the keys of those which were their “original homes.”

    This is not the first gesture. The memory and loyalty of the Sephardic community was recognized in 1990, when it was awarded the Prince of Asturias Award for Concord. However, since the time of Isabel II, Spain had been encouraging rapprochement with the granting of licenses to own cemeteries or permits to open synagogues. Senator Ángel Pulido, for example, saw the possibilities generated by this historical link and was seduced by the “Spaniards without a homeland”, promoting a philo-Sephardic campaign that culminated, in addition to his renowned publications, with the founding of the Spanish-Hebrew Alliance in Madrid (1910) or the opening of the Universal House of Sephardim (1920). Even when Fernando de los Ríos was Minister of State, the possibility of granting Spanish nationality to the Sephardic Jews of Morocco was considered.

    Especially recognized was the role played by Spanish diplomats during World War II, who interceded with the German authorities and collaborationist governments to denounce the persecution of Jews in their Ministry and manage to grant consular protection to thousands of people of Sephardic origin, thanks to a Royal Decree of 1924 intended to grant nationality to “former Spanish protégés or descendants of these, and generally individuals belonging to families of Spanish origin.” The efforts of Ángel Sanz Briz in Budapest, Sebastián de Romero Radigales in Atenas, Bernardo Rolland de Miotta in Paris, Julio Palencia in Sofia, Javier Martínez de Bedoya in Lisbon, José Rojas in Bucharest or Eduardo Propper de Callejón in Bordeaux were decisive in saving all these lives. In this regard, it should be noted that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation of Spain, in collaboration with Casa Sefarad-Israel, promoted the exhibition entitled “Visas for freedom”, which was held from April 13 to May 15, 2011 in the National Bank of Serbia, in the form of recognition of the Spanish diplomats and their collaborators who during the Second World War and on their own initiative helped the Jews persecuted by Nazism. This initiative continued in May of this year through the exhibition “Images of a lost world. The life of the Sephardic Jews of the Balkans” from the Cervantes Institute in Belgrade, based on a previous exhibition by Casa Sefarad-Israel and images and texts belonging to Centropa.

    Following, therefore, a trajectory of promoting Sephardic culture, which has characterized for years the cultural activities of the Spanish Embassy in Belgrade, as well as the Cervantes Institute, I am ultimately pleased to present this monograph. I would like to take this opportunity to express my gratitude to those who have made it possible: Under the direction of Miguel Rodríguez Andreu, director of Balkania magazine, this new edition has the knowledge and coordination of an expert in this field of research, professor Jelena Filipović, professor at the Faculty of Philology of the University of Belgrade, to which she is Embassy, ​​is very grateful for all her efforts and initiative. Likewise, I would like to express my gratitude to the rest of the authors: to Krinka Vidaković-Petrov, Michael Studemund-Halévy, Ivana Vučina Simović, Katja Šmid and Ana Cirić Pavlović for trusting Balkania to share their research work, as well as to the entire team of translators, for having been part of a project that is in its sixth year and that I am pleased to see the light of day again in a year as significant as this one.

    Miguel Fuertes Suarez

    Ambassador of Spain in Belgrade

    .....................................

    Since the inauguration of the Cervantes Institute of Belgrade in December 2004, the center has been integrated into the cultural life of the city. This was its objective, and this is what it has been, always at the service of the language and culture of all the countries that share the Spanish language, as well as at the service of the citizens who have sought to get closer to our institution and the activities that we organize and in which we have participated since then.

    One of the cultural activities in which the institution has collaborated since 2010 is the publication of the Balkan studies magazine Balkania, whose presentations year after year have been held in our facilities, bringing together a large number of attendees and personalities from the social, cultural and political life of the city. The presence of Spanish and Serbian experts at these meetings has aroused the interest of the local media, which has recognized the publication's efforts to strengthen ties between both geographies, and also to provide knowledge about a territory that has much to discover.

    This year the journal dedicates its contents to Sephardic culture, whose community until the Second World War was very numerous in the area. Cities such as Thessaloniki, Sarajevo, Istanbul and Belgrade during the Ottoman Empire were a “new home” for the thousands of Sephardic Jews who, expelled from the Iberian Peninsula after the Edict of Expulsion of 1492, arrived in these territories. For centuries they were guardians and protectors of customs and an ancestral heritage, among which are the Spanish language and culture. This is reflected in the enormous current interest in Spain and Latin America throughout the region, as well as in the Sephardic legacy.

    It is not surprising then that the Cervantes Institute of Belgrade plays a relevant role in the visibility and promotion of this historical and emotional link, and has close contact with the Sephardic community in Belgrade, in Serbia and throughout the region. This year with even more reason, due to the approval of the law that facilitates the conditions for obtaining Spanish nationality for the population of Sephardic origin. In this sense, the Cervantes Institute is responsible for the two necessary tests in this regard: that of knowledge of Spanish with the Spanish diploma DELE level A2 or higher and that which accredits knowledge of the Constitution and the Spanish social and cultural reality CCSE, of which you can find exhaustive information on our website.

    In this way, a trajectory is maintained that, since the first activity we organized in 2006, has been based on the spirit of promoting and making Sephardic culture visible with activities and meetings in the Serbian capital such as: exhibitions, music concerts, poetry contests, screening of documentaries (The Last Sephardic and The Angel of Budapest) or, more recently, the organization of the exhibition “Images of a Lost World. The Life of the Sephardic Jews of the Balkans”, currently available for those institutions interested in its exhibition.

    It is in this context of action and collaboration, where the Cervantes Institute of Belgrade did not hesitate to offer all its help to the director of the journal Balkania, Miguel Rodríguez Andreu, and to the coordinator of this issue, the professor in Sociolinguistics and expert in Sephardic culture , Jelena Filipović, in the editing, promotion and distribution of this monograph. That is why I am pleased to be able to affirm that Balkania does nothing but provide quality content, as it has been doing since its foundation, and, in addition, adds efforts to a task that from the center that I represent has always been considered capital in our proposal and agenda. cultural for the city of Belgrade.

    Enrique Camacho García

    Director of the Cervantes Institute of Belgrade

  • The business environment in Serbia and Western Balkans
    No. 5 (2014)

    Since the economic crisis began, the fundamental concern for the majority of the continent's citizens has been focused on the Eurozone. The very negative impact that the crisis had on countries such as Greece, Spain or Portugal focused attention on the national policies of the Member States and on the measures adopted from Brussels or the European Central Bank. On the other hand, the borders of the European Union have the psychological effect of encouraging forgetting what happens outside them, although in perspective candidate countries such as Serbia, Macedonia, Albania or Montenegro are in question, whose main trading partner is the EU itself.

    The economic crisis is a constant in the economic life of the region since the fragmentation of Yugoslavia. The countries of the region have to undertake many reforms linked to their status as former socialist countries, but also to their status as future members of the EU. The fact that enlargement is not a priority at the moment for the EU chancelleries, and that these countries have to encourage local economic activity, makes the situation by no means easy: high levels of unemployment, need for Legislative reforms, rationalization of bureaucratic procedures, fight against corruption or strengthening of judicial guarantees are challenges in systems that withstood the impact of the transition towards a market society, but that are stagnant to address the challenges of the current economy due to lack of political will, due to the immediate costs of said reforms (social and electoral) or due to the simple entrenchment of the socio-economic habits of previous periods.

    With the aim of taking the pulse of the current economic situation, Balkania has turned to different specialists to illustrate what difficulties investors encounter, with the idea of ​​​​drawing a general landscape of business in Serbia and the region in general. Siniša Zarić in her contribution includes the most common demands among foreign investors in Serbia, as well as an interesting comparison using economic indicators on the degree of competitiveness of the Balkan country in relation to countries such as Croatia, the Czech Republic or Bulgaria, which have undergone major transformations. economics since its socialist or Soviet stage. His conclusions highlight the importance of the rule of law as a relevant variable to create a stimulating investment context.

    Marko Malović and Duško Bodroža question the development strategy dependent on Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in Serbia, based on a complex scenario where “the consequences caused by privatizations are numerous and are reflected in the balance of payments deficit, in high unemployment, in poor export performance, in the high rate of inflation and in the instability of the exchange rate.” The authors collect what misconceptions are about how FDI can confront this economic situation.

    Renewable energies have emerged as a key sector in terms of investments, but also as a necessary sector from an ecological point of view. José María Gómez raises the problems of investment in this sector but also its possibilities taking into account more consolidated experiences: “The Balkans do not represent a region with significant levels of energy production and constitute mostly small energy markets. Far from being a disadvantage, in the long run it could be a positive factor, allowing us to avoid the mistakes made in the past by more developed energy markets.” In perspective is making profitable a sector with a great future but also one that faces various political, legal and economic obstacles.

    The agroeconomic sector in Serbia will be one of those that will undergo the most changes in the short term, in other reasons, given the evident need to progressively adapt the agrarian and rural policy with the EU policy in the common market. On this issue, Nenad Ilić argues that: “The absence of adaptive development could cause unfavorable effects that would be reflected in the decrease in the rural population, in the high unemployment rate and in the increasingly high rate of old age of the rural population.” . In this context he maintains that agricultural cooperatives should be encouraged gradually.

    Veran Stanćetic focuses the problems derived from the slowness of the system, inadequate laws or their non-implementation “on the inefficiency in the organization of the public sector – weak institutions and low quality of public administration (poor governance). In short, it is about the (ir)responsibility and inefficiency of the political elite.” Given which the author indicates the possible and desirable paths of reforms that must be implemented to stimulate more intense economic development.

    Croatia's departure from CEFTA with its entry into the European Union affects the type of economic relations that countries in Southeast Europe have, generating new possibilities for exchange between the current members of the agreement. Rade Škorić maintains that "it is to be hoped that Serbian producers will know how to take advantage of this new situation and the preferences they have in their exchange with the CEFTA countries, compared to Croatia whose products are subject to customs duties."

    Finally, from my position as director of the magazine, I would like to express my gratitude to the authors of the articles, to the Spanish Embassy in Belgrade, and, especially to the translators Marija Minić and Dragana Štrbac, and to the Economic and Commercial, in the person of its boss Aitor Mate, for the help shown and for the enthusiasm with which we have all faced this project, which will be reflected as every year during the presentation of the magazine at the Cervantes Institute in Belgrade. We hope that the work carried out in Balkania n“ 5 (2014) will serve to bring Southeast Europe closer to the European economies and the Spanish economy in particular. May this edition be, as it has been until now, an interesting publication for the public sector and the private sector, both in business and in the academic world.

    Miguel Rodríguez Andreu

    Balkania Editor-in-chief

  • Identities and languages ​​in the Balkan area
    No. 4 (2013)

    Identity is one of the questions that has sparked the most interest among Balkan scholars. Already in the times of Yugoslavia, the plurality of nations and religions implied an attractive field of study for all those who approached sociology or local anthropology. There are many reasons that have meant that this interest not only did not decrease, but rather increased in the heat of events in the area. All the supranational projects that prospered in the region (Ottoman Empire, Austro-Hungarian Empire, monarchical Yugoslavia or socialist Yugoslavia) left behind a trail of nations mired in political-social uncertainty. As a result, those nations have revealed their own adaptation and social response mechanisms, mostly linked to religion, traditions or historical narratives. The analysis of the socio-political keys of these historical episodes and their impact on Serbs, Croats, Bosnian-Muslims or Montenegrins, has allowed us to establish both continuities and discontinuities with the past, offering a prism of reactions that have revealed that nationalism or Ethnic identity are not exclusively phenomena of remote times.

    Balkania in its number 4 approaches various ways of approaching identity sensu lato, given the impossibility of articulating a single common denominator at this historical moment. The objective of this issue of the magazine is to offer thematically a global perspective of this process in the different ways in which that identity is reflected (its relationship within Europe, language, politics, history or gender), and also how some of its many questions are resolved in a territory where some identities cannot be understood without the others. In general, interest in identity—like other objects of study—has been marked by the conflicts that arose in the region not so long ago. As Andrea Maura states in her magazine article: "The main argument is that the majority of works on the contemporary Balkans have been written during times of crisis." For this reason, perhaps it is now, when the area lives in a relative state of calm, that it is most worthwhile to investigate the social landscape, and offer rigorous analyses, free from the confusion and tension of political anxiety. As stated in the article, Balkan-Europe relations are a round trip, and this has its consequences on the way we look at the Balkans and, also, how the Balkans look at us.

    The relationship between language and identity has been one of the most controversial aspects. The founding of new States on the basis of the majority ethnic group, or on non-consensual interethnic coexistence, has meant that language, as Francisco Villegas and Almir Methadžović analyze in their article, is: "a field of discord and dispute." The result is the interested use of identity as a tool of political struggle, but also as a means to strengthen ethnic ties. As Jairo Dorado explains in his magazine article: "through or around the standardization processes—in themselves extralinguistic processes—a linguistic identity and a basic identity community articulated on political power are created." Both articles give an account of the sociopolitical imbrications of the language, in a context of political interests where linguistic standardization has given rise to many false beliefs.

    The nation-building process has also had implications for institutional design. As Aida Džanović establishes in her article in the magazine: "In Bosnia and Herzegovina, we start from the ethno-political disposition based on the institutionalization of ethnic differences." If the institutionalization of ethnic differences was crucial to agree on a model of social cohesion where democratic values ​​were not sacrificed, the tiring Balkan transition has shown that it is essential to also advance in the consolidation of civil society. The institutionalization of ethnic nationalism can lead to political relations of collective confrontation. The result of this model is a scenario where local political demands are combined, but the imposition of political systems drawn up from the international community is also manifested. In this sense, the article by Arlinda Rrustemi and Moritz Baumgärtel focuses on the contrasts derived from the political action of Vetevëndosje in the context of globalization, analyzing a "counter-hegemonic" social movement whose approaches "do not agree with the hegemonic ideas promoted by the coloniality of power.

    Gender issues have been a sensitive topic in recent decades, and are closely related to debates about identity. In her article in the magazine, Marija Grujić explains what meaning turbofolk music had among Serbs in that context: «turbofolk culture, to differentiate itself from the commercial music of the Yugoslav period, under the principle of the collective, no longer assumed any concept. regional or local community, but only a clearly Serbian, Orthodox one, at that time the most dominant and hegemonic concept of national identity. The article explores the impact of ethnic-national homogenization on gender relations in the field of turbofolk music; and how “national liberation” does not imply a break with many of the traditional and conventional legacies associated with women.

    The region is undergoing the metamorphoses of a cycle change as complex as the political transition towards democracy and the entry into the EU of each of the Southeast European countries. Balkania wants to be a witness and speaker of this trajectory, and seeks to link the political phenomena that arise in the area with any European latitude, in an effort to offer an approach that does not isolate the region from the most relevant political, economic and social dynamics of the continent.

    With this philosophy, Balkania maintains its commitment to in-depth analysis and cooperation between Spain and Southeast Europe. To this end, Balkania renews its website, making it more operational and updating it with new content, among which the digitization of Balkania 2003 and 2004 stands out, which will surely be of interest to readers. We hope to satisfy all of your concerns with this issue.

    Miguel Rodríguez Andreu

    Balkania Editor-in-chief

  • Transitions in Southeast Europe
    No. 3 (2012)

    The history of a region like Southeast Europe can be approached from very different perspectives. What the journalistic chronicle can interpret as a key day, a key episode or a key decision, time dilutes, turning it into another inconsequential chapter of complex and uncertain historical processes that do not know where they will end.

    The concept of long duration (longue durèe) is a concept developed by the "Annal Current", which was coined by the historian Fernand Braudel. Starting from the axiom that time does not stop, the historian understood that longue durèe is the time of structures that last over time, in relation to others that are temporary or that belong to limited political, economic and social cycles of a certain genealogy.

    When the Yugoslav Civil Wars ended, an objective for the region was on the horizon: for the former Yugoslav republics to be members of the EU and thereby neutralize the regional tensions inherited from the conflict. The majority of the affected population agreed with this. However, the years have passed and, with the exception of Slovenia and Croatia, the future is not completely clear in this regard. The citizens of Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and Macedonia are aware that time is ticking, and what, after the Yugoslav fragmentation, seemed like the key to access a hopeful future has become a long journey whose end is unknown. The announcements of favorable opinions from Brussels, the optimistic statements with a European perspective, and the deadlines set to achieve effective integration, are increasingly receiving skeptical glances from the local population who at the same time are aware that the European Union does not pass currently at its best moment in the midst of the economic crisis.Time will determine whether the European integration process has a greater impact on local political culture than the fragmentation of Yugoslavia and the subsequent conflict already has.

    Balkania in its new issue faces the uncertain territories of a regional transition that is oriented towards Brussels but that must in any case bear the weight of its recent history. The first two articles of Balkania address this question, in the parallel, but not identical, cases of Serbia and Croatia. The European integration process has shown that each country requires a specific reading of its characteristics and peculiarities. Both articles offer us a comprehensive analysis of all its keys to understand how this integration process has developed (Croatia) - through Constantino Longares - and how it is developing (Serbia) - through Pablo Rupérez and Mercedes Millán.

    The right of restitution and return of the displaced in the cases of Kosovo and Bosnia and Herzegovina—addressed by Mikel Córdoba and Fermín Córdoba—and the situation in the Brčko District—addressed by César Pacheco—are two graphic examples of a transition that It is not free of questions from the effects of the conflict itself to the present reality more than 20 years after the end of the Yugoslav Civil Wars. Both articles offer a conscientious analysis of the difficulties involved in returning to normality after enormously bloody conflicts with thousands of people affected, where the international community has had to face its difficult management.

    The effects of war not only translate into changes in physical structures, but also psychological ones, as a consequence of the assimilation of an enormously turbulent political itinerary. In the present, the inherited historical memories, the national narratives of the Yugoslav conflict—both addressed by Ruíz Jiménez—intersect with the selection strategies of the national memory that are made in a country like Serbia, involved in a double process, and sometimes contradictory, of national construction and of promotion of the values ​​associated with European integration—addressed by Gordana Đerić—.

    Only the passage of time will give us an accurate perspective on the impact that each political event had and also on its subsequent significance (longue durèe), but it seems obligatory to assume that the jump from the Yugoslav conflict to European integration requires an analytical background. deeper than what is presented to us with the current chronicle. For this reason, Balkania dedicates this issue to the diffuse territories of a political transition that offers a multitude of elements of analysis and that reveals both continuities and ruptures since the time of Yugoslavia.

    Balkania renews its commitment to in-depth analysis with the study of crucial aspects of regional reality, and the publication of this issue is good proof of this. The magazine maintains its own continuity with the increase in its dissemination in institutions, research centers, universities and public libraries, with a greater presence both internationally and regionally in Southeast Europe, as well as in Spain, where it was held in Madrid in June in 2012 an event to promote the magazine. The event, organized by the European Commission and the Serbian Embassy in Spain, was attended by the ambassadors of Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Romania, Malta, as well as diplomatic representatives from other Southeast European countries. The magazine was presented by ambassador Javier Hergueta, historian Francisco Veiga, political scientist Ruth Ferrero-Turrión, and the author of this editorial, and various issues concerning the magazine were discussed at the event.

    During the last year the magazine has also had a greater media presence, having been mentioned on several occasions in widely followed media outlets such as RTVE or social networks linked to Balkan news (www.casabalcanes.com; www.balkanidades.com ; www.eurasianhub.es; www. eurasianet.es), with which a trajectory can already be recognized within Balkan studies in Spanish. Furthermore, in this edition we have decided to translate the articles into Serbian in such a way that we reach a greater number of readers in Southeast Europe.

    Miguel Rodríguez Andreu

    Balkania Editor-in-chief

  • Twenty years since the disappearance of Yugoslavia
    No. 2 (2011)

    Balkania is once again published in its second issue thanks to the support of the Spanish Embassy in Belgrade. As a result of the good reception that the first issue experienced, by managing to bring together a large group of experts in Balkan studies, it was essential to guarantee its continuity and try to be increasingly ambitious. An initiative that will undoubtedly increase the dissemination of the magazine's contents is the publication of its digital version (www.balkania.es); In this way, the magazine gains presence, expansion and credibility and, in addition, offers the possibility of exponentially increasing the number of readers with a more modern and accessible proposal. There are still some objectives to meet, which satisfy the most demanding quality criteria; However, the path taken is the appropriate one. The good response from the public confirms this. It has resulted in new article proposals, both for this issue and the next, and good prospects for expanding the dissemination and networks in which Balkania is becoming integrated.

    For this new issue we wanted to create a monograph on the dissolution of Yugoslavia. The dissolution of Yugoslavia continues to rage. Twenty years after Yugoslavia ceased to be part of the European world map, the Kosovo crisis, which some authors point out as the starting signal for regional problems, still deserves the attention of international public opinion today for its power. conflict potential. The Kosovar Albanian institutions approved a unilateral declaration of independence in February 2008, supported among others by the US, Germany, France, the United Kingdom and Italy, which was strongly opposed by Serbia, based on resolution 1244 (1999) of the United Nations Security Council, which provided autonomy to Kosovo, but within the borders of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, which would later legally succeed the Republic of Serbia. Following the ruling of the International Court of Justice on July 22, 2010, which ruled that the unilateral declaration of Kosovo independence was not illegal, Serbia went to the United Nations (UN) General Assembly to defend its sovereign interests in Kosovo. vo, moment from which the dispute experiences a new political period where the Belgrade-Priština negotiations will be developed mainly under the protection of the EU, and the will of the Serbian government to enter the European club, without giving up its claims. territorial over Kosovo. The refusal of the Serbian majority in the north to live under the rule of the Kosovar Albanian authorities generates in Belgrade an intricate unofficial dilemma: maintain historical demands in favor of the unity of the Serbian people or bet everything on entry into the EU. Both options clash with the misgivings of some sectors of Serbian society, skeptical of a future that is not yet clear.

    Not far away, in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the functionality of the state is still under discussion. An institutional framework inherited from the Dayton peace agreements (1995), which, although it put an end to the war, failed to establish the best foundations for the political, economic and social development of the country. A Bosnian identity has yet to crystallize that overcomes the ethnic divisions between Bosniaks, Serbs and Croats, even more bitter than those that manifested themselves in the form of conflict at the beginning of the Yugoslav wars of secession, although now with a different regional context, which It oscillates between the constriction imposed by the path towards the EU, political and economic redefinition, and post-conflict reconciliation. The international community and the EU seem to continue to be the main lifeline of a country in which too much money and diplomatic efforts have been invested for it to be abandoned to the fate of ethnic leadership, an unfavorable economic situation and frequent cases of corruption, scenarios whose consequences are still difficult to predict.

    Macedonia and Greece continue with their swords raised over the name of the former Yugoslav republic. On November 5, 2011, the International Court of Justice ruled by a vote of 15 to 1 that Greece violated the 1995 interim agreement by vetoing Macedonia's application for NATO membership at the 2008 summit in Bucharest. The agreement between the two countries states that Greece could not block Macedonia's membership in international organizations if it was done under the provisional United Nations name of the "Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia." Although there are more than 130 countries that have used the name "Republic of Macedonia" in their bilateral diplomatic relations, the United Nations and the EU use the name "Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia." One more chapter in the Greek effort to prevent the name "Macedonia" from being attributed to this country, which is the same name as its northern region. Added to this is the designation of Skopje airport as “Alexander the Great”, in honor of Alexander the Great of Macedonia, or the architectural and monumental refoundation project “Skopje 2014”, in a clear initiative to boost Macedonian civil sentiment and enhance its historical legitimacy.

    These are just some of the legacies of the past. Negative inertias arising from the fragmentation of Yugoslavia, and the political and war conflicts that emerged afterwards. For this reason, the dissolution of Yugoslavia continues to be a topical issue, which deserves careful study, through a constant regeneration of analyzes and interpretations that help us understand what is happening and how to address the future of the region. For these purposes, the 20 years that have passed since the Yugoslav dissolution have become a timely anniversary. On October 7, 2011, the Spanish Embassy together with the Megatrend University held the symposium “Twenty years after the dissolution of the Ex-Yugoslavia” in Belgrade, chaired by professor Slobodan Pajović and the Spanish diplomat Francisco de Miguel. The symposium was attended by Francisco Veiga and José Girón (Spain), Zdravko Grebo (Bosnia and Herzegovina), Ružica Jakešević (Croatia), Franco Juri (Slovenia), Srgjan Kerim (Macedonia), Saša Knežević (Montenegro), Zoran Avramović and Edita Stojić-Karanović (Serbia), who illustrated from their academic-professional experience different readings of the Yugoslav crises to locate the causes of the dissolution in: the fall of the Berlin Wall and the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the process of territorial and ideological redefinition that occurred later and its impact on Yugoslav institutions, a marked federalization, especially since the 1974 Constitution, and the inability of the Yugoslav model to adapt to the dynamics of a democratic system. The economic imbalances between republics, the failure of a neoliberal project for the Former Yugoslavia during the government headed by Ante Marković, the immediate holding of parliamentary elections with the fall of communism, and the ethnic division around the leaders were discussed. in each of the socialist republics. A collection of causes that, by themselves, do not solve the Yugoslav enigma, although they do reveal themselves as main objects of study, increasingly better founded on specialized literature and primary research sources.

    Balkania has chosen in this issue to draw a line between past events and the political episodes that followed, with an approach to some of the issues that surround the Balkan news and that are closely related to the dissolution of Yugoslavia . In the first part, Balkania has compiled four articles corresponding to Francisco Veiga, Ružica Jakešević, Saša Knežević and Edita Stojić-Karanović, works exhibited at the aforementioned symposium. The organization of this event and its link to Balkania represents a step forward in the consolidation of the project and, in addition, this issue integrates Spanish and Southeast European academics in a common initiative. In a second part, the articles by Carlos Taibo, Carlos González, Miguel Palacios, Antonio Moneo, Carlos Flores and Esma Kučukalić prove the renewal of academic activity in Balkan studies from Spain and the gradual increase in researchers working in that direction. A third part as an annex includes the articles that have been translated from the original into Spanish.

    Miguel Rodríguez Andreu

    Balkania Editor-in-chief

     

  • Spanish Balkanologists
    No. 1 (2010)

    Balkania emerged several years ago at the initiative of the Spanish diplomat Javier Hergueta, an expert knowledgeable about the political-economic reality of the region. In his third professional stay in the Balkans, he wanted to once again promote a project from which, on this occasion, the Spanish academic world and all of us who in some way have some professional and personal link with Southeast Europe benefit.

    Balkania seeks to contribute to the dissemination of a subject of study that still has much to discover. The Balkans generate a whole series of political, economic and social dynamics, unknown to the general public and which, despite their specificities, are part of European space and culture. Balkania, in addition to delving into the complexity of the political-social phenomena that unfold in the region, has an integrative vocation in a double sense: to develop studies that, through rigor, bring the Balkans closer to the academic world and the interested public in general, and open a meeting space that encourages interest in carrying out these studies and disseminating them for the benefit of its own participants.

    Balkania in its second journey was born with many uncertainties, the result of the experience of this type of initiatives on previous occasions. However, it is ambitious in its aspirations. It hopes to meet the quality criteria that the reader deserves, and with enough experience to reach the occasion when, due to its continuity, it can be a reference journal among the academic community. With this desire we seek to generate an engine of optimism that I hope will be shared by all of us who are interested in the Balkans and without which this project would not be able to move forward with a future perspective.

    It is for this reason that some of the people who participate in the enthusiasm of this new journey have been encouraged to participate voluntarily to give meaning to the project. Francisco Veiga, Carlos Flores, Ruth Ferrero-Turrión, Arturo Esteban, Fermín Córdoba, Mikel Córdoba, Virtuts Samchó, Gorka Niubó, Antonio Moneo, Ignacio Castro and the one who writes this introductory letter, have prepared a whole series of articles in which they have put all his academic efforts at the service of the reader.

    Finally, I want to give my infinite gratitude to the Spanish Embassy in Belgrade, and to its ambassador Iñigo de Palacio, as well as to the II Head of the Embassy, ​​Javier Hergueta, for their leadership and decision at the time of making the project a reality. I would like to convey my gratitude to the Cervantes Institute of Belgrade, in the person of its director, Antonio Lázaro Gozalo, and to the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation, an organization that has made my stay in Belgrade possible in the best conditions. And, last but not least, to the participants in Balkania for their contribution, support and dedication to the magazine, which have made the project even more exciting.

    Miguel Rodríguez Andreu

    Balkania editor-in-chief