document_title: History of the Balkans

question_text: when did the ottoman empire conquer the balkans

question_tokens: when did the ottoman empire conquer the balkans

text: History of the Balkans

text: Prehistory[edit]

text: Neolithic[edit]

text: Archaeologists have identified several early culture-complexes, including the Cucuteni culture (4500 to 3500 BC), Starcevo culture (6500 to 4000 BC), Vinča culture (5000 to 3000 BC), Linear pottery culture (5500 to 4500 BC), and Ezero culture (3300—2700 BC). The Eneolithic Varna culture in Bulgaria(4600-4200 BC radiocarbon dating) produced the world's earliest known gold treasure and had sophisticated beliefs about afterlife. A notable set of artifacts are the Tărtăria tablets found in Romania, which appear to be inscribed with proto-writing. The Butmir Culture (2600 to 2400 BC), found on the outskirts of present-day Sarajevo, developed unique ceramics, and was likely overrun by the proto-Illyrians[citation needed] in the Bronze Age.

text: The "Kurgan hypothesis" of Proto-Indo-European (PIE) origins assumes gradual expansion of the "Kurgan culture", around 5000 BC, until it encompassed the entire pontic steppe. Kurgan IV was identified with the Yamna culture of around 3000 BC.

text: Copper Age[edit]

text: At ca. 1000 BC[3] Illyrian tribes appear in parts of northern Albania and all the way aside Adriatic Sea, Dacians in what is today Romania, and Thracians[4] in Thrace and adjacent lands (now Romania, Bulgaria, Moldova, northeastern Greece, European Turkey, eastern Serbia and Republic of Macedonia). These three major tribal groups spoke Paleo-Balkan languages, Indo-European languages. The Phrygians seem to have settled in the southern Balkans at first, centuries later continuing their migration to settle in Asia Minor, now extinct as a separate group and language.

text: Antiquity[edit]

text: Iron Age[edit]

text: After the period that followed the arrival of the Dorians, known as the Greek Dark Ages or the Geometric Period, the classical Greek culture developed in the southern Balkan peninsula, the Aegean islands and the western Asia Minor Greek colonies starting around the 9th or 8th century BC and peaking with the democracy that developed in 6th and 5th century BC Athens. Later, Hellenistic culture spread throughout the empire created by Alexander the Great in the 4th century BC. The Greeks were the first to establish a system of trade routes in the Balkans, and in order to facilitate trade with the natives, between 700 BC and 300 BC they founded a number of colonies on the Black Sea (Pontus Euxinus) coast, Asia Minor, Dalmatia, Southern Italy (Magna Graecia) etc.

text: By the end of the 4th century BC Greek language and culture were dominant not only in the Balkans but also around the whole Eastern Mediterranean. In the late 6th century BC, the Persians invaded the Balkans, and then proceed to the fertile areas of Europe. Parts of the Balkans and more northern areas were ruled by the Achaemenid Persians for some time, including Thrace, Paeonia, Macedon, and most Black Sea coastal regions of Romania, Ukraine, and Russia.[5][6] However, the outcome of the Greco-Persian Wars resulted in the Achaemenids being forced to withdraw from most of their European territories. The Balkans were to remain free from the Asian empires for at least another thousand years.

text: The Thracian Odrysian empire, probably founded in the 470s BC, after the Persian defeat in Greece,[7] had its capital at Seuthopolis, next to present-day Stara Zagora in Bulgaria. Other tribal unions existed in Dacia at least as early as the beginning of the 2nd century BC under King Oroles. The Illyrian tribes were situated in the area corresponding to today's Adriatic coast. The name Illyrii was originally used to refer to a people occupying an area centered on Lake Skadar, situated between Albania and Montenegro (Illyrians proper). However, the term was subsequently used by the Greeks and Romans as a generic name for the different peoples within a well defined but much greater area.[8] In the same way, the territory to the north of the kingdom of Macedon was occupied by the Paeonians, who were also ruled by kings, and who may have spoken some kind of Greek (this is uncertain, but their coins bore legends in that language).

text: Achaemenid Persian Empire (6th to 5th century BC)[edit]

text: Around 513 BC, as part of the military incursions ordered by Darius I, a huge Achaemenid army invaded the Balkans and tried to defeat the Western Scythians roaming to the north of the Danube river.[9] Several Thracian peoples, and nearly all of the other European regions bordering the Black Sea (including parts of the modern-day Bulgaria, Romania, Ukraine, and Russia), were conquered by the Achaemenid army before it returned to Asia Minor.[5][9] Darius's highly regarded commander Megabazus was responsible to fulfill the conquers in the Balkans.[9] The Achaemenid troops conquered Thrace, the coastal Greek cities, and the Paeonians.[9][10][11] Eventually, in about 512-511 BC, the Macedonian king Amyntas I accepted the Achaemenid domination and surrendered his country as a vassal state to the Achaemenid Persia.[9][12] The multi-ethnic Achaemenid army possessed many soldiers from the Balkans. Moreover, many of the Macedonian and Persian elite intermarried. For instance, Megabazus' own son, Bubares, married Amyntas' daughter, Gygaea; and that supposedly ensured good relations between the Macedonian and Achaemenid rulers.[9]

text: Following the Ionian Revolt the Persian authority in the Balkans was restored by Mardonius in 492,[9] which not only included the re-subjugation of Thrace, but also the full subordinate inclusion of Macedon into the Persian Empire.[13] The Persian invasion led indirectly to Macedonia's rise in power and Persia had some common interests in the Balkans; with Persian aid, the Macedonians stood to gain much at the expense of some Balkan tribes such as the Paeonians and Greeks. All in all, the Macedonians were "willing and useful Persian allies."[14] Macedonian soldiers fought against Athens and Sparta in Xerxes' army.[9]

text: Although Persian rule in the Balkans was overthrown following the failure of Xerxes' invasion, the Macedonians and Thracians borrowed heavily from the Achaemenid Persians their tradition in culture and economy in the 5th- to mid-4th centuries.[9] Some artificats, excavated at Sindos and Vergina maybe be considered as influenced by Asian practices, or even imported from Persia in the late sixth and early fifth centuries.[9]

text: Pre-Roman states (4th to 1st centuries BC)[edit]

text: Bardylis, a Dardanian chieftain, created a kingdom which turned Illyria into a formidable local power in the 4th century BC. The main cities of this kingdom were Scodra (present-day Shkodra, Albania) and Rhizon (present-day Risan, Montenegro). In 359 BC, King Perdiccas III of Macedon was killed by attacking Illyrians.

text: But in 358 BC, Philip II of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great, defeated the Illyrians and assumed control of their territory as far as Lake Ohrid (present-day Macedonia). Alexander himself routed the forces of the Illyrian chieftain Cleitus in 335 BC, and Illyrian tribal leaders and soldiers accompanied Alexander on his conquest of Persia. After Alexander's death in 323 BC, the Greek states started fighting among themselves again, while up north independent Illyrian polities arose again. In 312 BC, King Glaukias seized Epidamnus. By the end of the 3rd century BC, an Illyrian kingdom based in Scodra controlled parts of northern Albania, Montenegro, and Herzegovina. Under Queen Teuta, Illyrians attacked Roman merchant vessels plying the Adriatic Sea and gave Rome an excuse to invade the Balkans.

text: In the Illyrian Wars of 229 BC and 219 BC, Rome overran the Illyrian settlements in the Neretva river valley and suppressed the piracy that had made the Adriatic unsafe. In 180 BC, the Dalmatians declared themselves independent of the Illyrian king Gentius, who kept his capital at Scodra. The Romans defeated Gentius, the last king of Illyria, at Scodra in 168 BC[citation needed] and captured him, bringing him to Rome in 165 BC. Four client-republics were set up, which were in fact ruled by Rome. Later, the region was directly governed by Rome and organized as a province, with Scodra as its capital. Also, in 168 BC, by taking advantage of the constant Greek civil wars, the Romans defeated Perseus, the last King of Macedonia and with their allies in southern Greece, they became overlords of the region. The territories were split to Macedonia, Achaia and Epirus.

text: Roman period[edit]

text: Starting in the 2nd century BC the rising Roman Empire began annexing the Balkan area, transforming it into one of the Empire's most prosperous and stable regions. To this day, the Roman legacy is clearly visible in the numerous monuments and artifacts scattered throughout the Balkans, and most importantly in the Latin-based languages used by almost 25 million people in the area (the Eastern Romance languages). However, the Roman influence failed to dissolve Greek culture, which maintained a predominant status in the Eastern half of the Empire, and of course continued to be strong in the southern half of the Balkans.

text: Beginning in the 3rd century AD, Rome's frontiers in the Balkans were weakened because of internal political and economic disorders. During this time, the Balkans, especially Illyricum, grew to greater importance. It became one of the Empire's four prefectures, and many warriors, administrators and emperors arose from the region. Many rulers built their residences in the region.[15]

text: Though the situation had stabilized temporarily by the time of Constantine, waves of non-Roman peoples, most prominently the Thervings, Greuthungs and Huns, began to cross into the territory, first (in the case of the Thervingi) as refugees with imperial permission to take shelter from their foes the Huns, then later as invaders. Turning on their hosts after decades of servitude and simmering hostility, Thervingi under Fritigern and later Visigoths under Alaric I eventually conquered and laid waste[citation needed] the entire Balkan region before moving westward to invade Italy itself.

text: By the end of the Empire the region had become a conduit for invaders to move westward, as well as the scene of treaties and complex political maneuvers by Romans, Goths and Huns, all seeking the best advantage for their peoples amid the shifting and disorderly final decades of Roman imperial power.

text: Rise of Christianity[edit]

text: Christianity first came to the area when Saint Paul and some of his followers traveled in the Balkans passing through Thracian,Illyrian and Greek populated areas. He spread Christianity to the Greeks at Beroia, Thessaloniki, Athens, Corinth and Dyrrachium.[citation needed] Saint Andrew also worked among the Dacians and Scythians, and had preached in Dobruja and Pontus Euxinus. In 46 AD, this territory was conquered by the Romans and annexed to Moesia.

text: In 106 AD the emperor Trajan invaded Dacia. Subsequently, Christian colonists, soldiers and slaves came to Dacia and spread Christianity. In the 3rd century the number of Christians grew. When Emperor Constantine of Rome issued the Edict of Milan in 313, thus ending all Roman-sponsored persecution of Christianity, the area became a haven for Christians. Just twelve years later in 325, Constantine assembled the First Council of Nicaea. In 391, Theodosius I made Christianity the official religion of Rome.

text: The East-West Schism, known also as the Great Schism (though this latter term sometimes refers to the later Western Schism), was the event that divided Christianity into Western Catholicism and Greek Eastern Orthodoxy, following the dividing line of the Empire in Western Latin-speaking and Eastern Greek-speaking parts. Though normally dated to 1054, when Pope Leo IX and Patriarch of Constantinople Michael I Cerularius excommunicated each other, the East-West Schism was actually the result of an extended period of estrangement between the two Churches.

text: The primary claimed causes of the Schism were disputes over papal authority—the Pope claimed he held authority over the four Eastern patriarchs, while the patriarchs claimed that the Pope was merely a first among equals—and over the insertion of the filioque clause into the Nicene Creed. Most serious (and real) cause of course, was the competition for power between the old and the new capitals of the Roman Empire (Rome and Constantinople). There were other, less significant catalysts for the Schism, including variance over liturgical practices and conflicting claims of jurisdiction.

text: Early Middle Ages[edit]

text: Eastern Roman Empire[edit]

text: The Byzantine Empire was the Greek-speaking, Eastern Roman Empire during the Middle Ages, centered at its capital in Constantinople. During most of its history it controlled provinces in the Balkans and Asia Minor. The Eastern Roman Emperor Justinian for a time retook and restored much of the territory once held by the unified Roman Empire, from Spain and Italy, to Anatolia. Unlike the Western Roman Empire, which met a famous if rather ill-defined death in the year 476 AD, the Eastern Roman Empire came to a much less famous but far more definitive conclusion at the hands of Mehmet II and the Ottoman Empire in the year 1453. Its expert military and diplomatic power ensured inadvertently that Western Europe remained safe from many of the more devastating invasions from eastern peoples, at a time when the still new and fragile Western Christian kingdoms might have had difficulty containing it.

text: The magnitude of influence and contribution the Byzantine Empire made to Europe and Christendom has only begun to be recognised recently. The Emperor Justinian I's formation of a new code of law, the Corpus Juris Civilis, served as a basis of subsequent development of legal codes. Byzantium played an important role in the transmission of classical knowledge to the Islamic world and to Renaissance Italy. Its rich historiographical tradition preserved ancient knowledge upon which splendid art, architecture, literature and technological achievements were built. This is embodied in the Byzantine version of Christianity, which spread Orthodoxy and eventually led to the creation of the so-called "Byzantine commonwealth" (a term coined by 20th-century historians) throughout Eastern Europe. Early Byzantine missionary work spread Orthodox Christianity to various Slavic peoples, amongst whom it still is a predominant religion. Jewish communities were also spread through the Balkans at this time, while the Jews were primarily Romaniotes.[16][17] In a sense of a Greek-influenced "Byzantine commonwealth", the Greek Christian culture and also the Romaniote culture have influenced the emerging cultures both the Christian and the Jewish cultures of the Balkans and of Eastern Europe.[18]

text: Throughout its history, its borders were ever fluctuating, often involved in multi-sided conflicts with not only the Arabs, Persians and Turks of the east, but also with its Christian neighbours- the Bulgarians, Serbs, Normans and the Crusaders, which all at one time or another conquered large amounts of its territory. By the end, the empire consisted of nothing but Constantinople and small holdings in mainland Greece, with all other territories in both the Balkans and Asia Minor gone. The conclusion was reached in 1453, when the city was successfully besieged by Mehmet II, bringing the Second Rome to an end.

text: Barbarian incursions[edit]

text: Coinciding with the decline of the Roman Empire, many "barbarian" tribes passed through the Balkans, most of whom did not leave any lasting state. During these "Dark Ages", Eastern Europe, like Western Europe, regressed culturally and economically, although enclaves of prosperity and culture persisted along the coastal towns of the Adriatic and the major Greek cities in the south.[19] As the Byzantine Empire withdrew its borders more and more, in an attempt to consolidate its waning power, vast areas were de-urbanised, roads abandoned and native populations may have withdrawn to isolated areas such as mountains and forests.[19]

text: The first such barbarian tribe to enter the Balkans were the Goths. From northern East Germany, via Scythia, they pushed southwards into the Roman Balkans following the threat of the Huns. These Goths were eventually granted lands inside the Byzantine realm (south of the Danube), as foederati (allies). However, after a period of famine, the proto-Visigoths rebelled and defeated the emperor in 378. The Visigoths subsequently sacked Rome in 410, and in an attempt to deal with them, they were granted lands in France. The Huns, a confederation of a Turkic-Uralic ruling core that subsequently incorporated various Germanic, Sarmatian and Slavic tribes, moved west into Europe entering Pannonia in 400–410 AD. The Huns are supposed to have triggered the great German migrations into western Europe. From their base, the Huns subdued many people and carved out a sphere of terror extending from Germany and the Baltic to the Black Sea. With the death of Attila the Hun in 454 AD, succession struggles led to the rapid collapse of Hun prestige and subsequent disappearance from Europe. In the mean time, the Ostrogoths freed themselves from Hunnish domination in 454 AD and became foedorati as well. The Ostrogoths too migrated westwards, commissioned by the Byzantines, and established a state in Italy. In the second half of the 5th- and first of the 6th century, new Germanic barbarian tribes entered the Balkans. The Gepids, having lived in Dacia in the 3rd century with the Goths, settled Pannonia and eventually conquered Singidunum (Belgrade) and Sirmium (Sremska Mitrovica), establishing a short-lived kingdom in the 6th century. The Lombards entered Pannonia in 550s, defeated the Gepids and absorbed them. In 569 they moved into northern Italy, establishing their own kingdom at the expense of the Ostrogoths.

text: The Slavs, known as the Sklavenoi, migrated in successive waves. Small numbers might have moved down as early as the 3rd century[citation needed] however the bulk of migration did not occur until the 6th century. The Slavs migrated from Central and Eastern Europe and eventually became to be known as South Slavs . Most still remained subjects of the Roman Empire.

text: The Avars were a Turkic group (or possibly Mongol[20]), possibly with a ruling core derived from the Rouran that escaped the Göktürks. They entered Central Europe in the 7th century AD, forcing the Lombards to flee to Italy. They continuously raided the Balkans, contributing to the general decline of the area that had begun centuries earlier. After their unsuccessful siege on Constantinople in 626, they limited themselves to Central Europe. They ruled over the Western Slavs that had already inhabited the region. By the 10th century, the Avar confederacy collapsed due to internal conflicts, Frankish and Slavic attacks. The remnant Avars were subsequently absorbed by the Slavs and Magyars.

text: The Bulgars, a people of Central Asia, most believed Turko-Altaian and Indo-Arian.[citation needed] The major Bulgar wave commenced with the arrival of Asparuh's Bulgars. Asparuh was one of Kubrat's, the Great Khan, successors. They had occupied the fertile plains of the Ukraine for several centuries until the Khazars swept their confederation in the 660s and triggered their further migration. One part of them — under the leadership of Asparuh — headed southwest and settled in the 670s in present-day Bessarabia. In 680 AD they invaded Moesia and Dobrudja and formed a confederation with the local Slavic tribes who had migrated there a century earlier. After suffering a defeat at the hands of Bulgars and Slavs, the Byzantine Empire recognised the sovereignty of Asparuh's Khanate in a subsequent treaty signed in 681 AD. The same year is usually regarded as the year of the establishment of Bulgaria (see History of Bulgaria). A smaller group of Bulgars under Khan Kouber settled almost simultaneously in the Pelagonian plain in western Macedonia after spending some time in Panonia. Some Bulgars actually entered Europe earlier with the Huns. After the disintegration of the Hunnic Empire the Bulgars dispersed mostly to eastern Europe.

text: The Magyars, led by Árpád, were the leading clan in a ten tribe confederacy. They entered Europe in the 10th century AD, settling in Pannonia. There they encountered a predominantly Slavic populace and Avar remnants. The Magyars were a Uralic people, originating from west of the Ural Mountains. They learned the art of horseback warfare from Turkic people. They then migrated further west around 400AD, settling in the Don-Dnieper area. Here they were subjects of the Khazar Khaganate. They were neighboured by the Bulgars and Alans. They sided with 3 rebel Khazar tribes against the ruling factions. Their loss in this civil war, and ongoing battles with the Pechenegs, was probably the catalyst for them to move further west into Europe.

text: The local Romans and Romanized remnants of the Iron Age populace of the Balkans began their assimilation into mainly the Slavs and Greeks, however, notable Latin-speaking communities are known to have survived. In literature, these Romance-speakers are known as "Vlachs". In Dacia, Roman colonists and Romanized Dacians retreated in the Carpathian Mountains of Transylvania after the Roman withdrawal. Archaeological evidence indicate a Romanized population in Transylvania by at least the 8th century. By the 7th and 8th centuries, the Roman Empire existed only south of the Danube River in the form of the Byzantine Empire, with its capital at Constantinople. In this ethnically diverse closing area of the Roman Empire, Vlachs were recognized as those who spoke Latin, the official language of the Byzantine Empire used only in official documents, until the 6th century when it was changed to the more popular Greek. These original Vlachs probably consisted of a variety of ethnic groups (most notably Thracians, Dacians, Illyrians) who shared the commonality of having been assimilated in language and culture of the Roman Empire with the Roman colonists settled in their areas. Anna Comnene relates in Alexiade about Dacians (instead of Vlachs) from Balkans and from the North side of Danube and they were identified as Romanians.[21] Romance-speaking populations survived on the Adriatic, and the Albanians are believed by some to be descending from partially Romanized Illyrians.

text: First Bulgarian Empire[edit]

text: In the 7th century the First Bulgarian Empire was established. It greatly increased in strength in the coming centuries stretching from Dnieper to Budapest and the Mediterranean. Bulgaria dominated the Balkans for the next four centuries and was instrumental in the adoption of Christianity in the region. Bulgarian Tsar Boris I ordered the creation of the Bulgarian Alphabet, which was later spread by missionaries to the north reaching Russia.

text: High Middle Ages[edit]

text: Republic of Venice[edit]

text: In building its maritime commercial empire, the Republic of Venice dominated the trade in salt,[22] acquired control of most of the islands in the Aegean, including Cyprus and Crete, and became a major "power" in the Near East and in all the Balkans. Venice seized a number of locations on the eastern shores of the Adriatic sea before 1200, partly for purely commercial reasons, but also because pirates based there were a menace to its trade. The Doge since that time bore the titles of Duke of Dalmatia and Duke of Istria. Venice became a fully imperial power following the Venetian-financed Fourth Crusade, which in 1203 captured and in 1204 sacked Constantinople and established the Latin Empire. Venice subsequently carved out a sphere of influence in the Aegean known as the Duchy of the Archipelago, and also gained control of the island of Crete.

text: Late Middle Ages[edit]

text: From the 14th century, Venice controlled most of the maritime commerce of the Balkans with important colonial possessions on the Adriatic and Aegean coasts. Venice's long decline started in the 15th century, when it first made an unsuccessful attempt to hold Thessalonica against the Ottomans (1423–1430). She also sent ships to help defend Constantinople against the besieging Turks (1453). After the city fell to Sultan Mehmet II, he declared war on Venice. The war lasted thirty years and cost Venice many of the eastern Mediterranean possessions. Slowly the Republic of Venice lost nearly all possessions in the Balkans, maintaining in the 18th century only the Adriatic areas of Istria, Dalmatia and Albania Veneta. The Venetian island of Corfu was the only area of Greece never occupied by the Turks. In 1797 Napoleon conquered Venice and caused the end of the Republic of Venice in the Balkans.

text: Early modern period[edit]

text: Ottoman Empire[edit]

text: Much of the Balkans was under Ottoman rule throughout the Early modern period. Ottoman rule was long, lasting from the 14th century up until the early 20th in some territories. The Ottoman Empire was religiously, linguistically and ethnically diverse, and, at times, a much more tolerant place for religious practices when compared to other parts of the world.[23][24] The different groups in the empire were organised along confessional lines, in the so-called the Millet system. Among the Orthodox Christians of the empire (the Rum Millet) a common identity was forged based on a shared sense of time defined by the ecclesiastical calendar, saint's days and feasts.[25]

text: The social structure of the Balkans in the late 18th century was complex. The Ottoman rulers exercised control chiefly in indirect ways.[26] In Albania and Montenegro, for example, local leaders paid nominal tribute to the Empire and otherwise had little contact. The Republic of Ragusa paid an annual tribute but otherwise was free to pursue its rivalry with the Republic of Venice. The two Romance-speaking principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia had their own nobility, but were ruled by Greek families chosen by the Sultan. In Greece, the elite comprised clergymen and scholars, but there was scarcely any Greek aristocracy. A million or more Turks had settled in the Balkans, typically in smaller urban centers where they were garrison troops, civil servants, and craftsmen and merchants. There were also important communities of Jewish and Greek merchants. The Turks and Jews were not to be found in the countryside, so there was a very sharp social differentiation between the cities and their surrounding region in terms of language, religion and ethnicity. The Ottoman Empire collected taxes at about the 10% rate but there was no forced labor and the workers and peasants were not especially oppressed by the Empire. The Sultan favoured and protected the Orthodox clergy, primarily as a protection against the missionary zeal of Roman Catholics.[27]

text: Rise of nationalism in the Balkans[edit]

text: The rise of Nationalism under the Ottoman Empire caused the breakdown of millet concept. With the rise of national states and their histories, it is very hard to find reliable sources on the Ottoman concept of a nation and the centuries of the relations between House of Osman and the provinces, which turned into states. Unquestionably, understanding the Ottoman conception of nationhood helps us to understand what happened in the Balkans in the late Ottoman period.

text:
Serbian Revolution (1804–15)
Greek War of Independence (1821–32)
Bosnian uprising (1831–32)

text: The bloody suppression of the April Uprising in Bulgaria, became occasion of the outbreak of the Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878).

text: Congress of Berlin[edit]

text: The Congress of Berlin (13 June - 13 July 1878) was a meeting of the leading statesmen of Europe's Great Powers and the Ottoman Empire. In the wake of the Russia's smashing victory in a war with Turkey, 1877–78, the urgent need was to stabilize and reorganize the Balkans, and set up new nations. German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, who led the Congress, undertook to adjust boundaries to minimize the risks of major war, while recognizing the reduced power of the Ottoman Empire, and balance the distinct interests of the great powers.

text: As a result, Ottoman holdings in Europe declined sharply; Bulgaria was established as an independent principality inside the Ottoman Empire, but was not allowed to keep all its previous territory. Bulgaria, without being admitted to the Congress, lost more than 70% of its territory, and over 50% of its ethnic population remained outside its borders—which caused a number of uprisings and brought the country into subsequent Balkan wars. Bulgaria lost Eastern Rumelia, which was restored to the Turks under a special administration. Macedonia, and East and Western Thrace were returned outright to the Turks, who promised reform and Northern Dobrudja became part of Romania, which achieved full independence but had to turn over part of Bessarabia to Russia. Serbia and Montenegro finally gained complete independence, but with smaller territories. Austria took over Bosnia and Herzegovina, and effectively took control of the Sanjak of Novi Pazar. Britain took over Cyprus.[28]

text: The results were at first hailed as a great achievement in peacemaking and stabilization. However, most of the participants were not fully satisfied, and grievances regarding the results festered until they exploded in world war in 1914. Serbia, Bulgaria, and Greece made gains, but far less than they thought they deserved. The Ottoman Empire, called at the time the "sick man of Europe," was humiliated and significantly weakened, rendering it more liable to domestic unrest and more vulnerable to attack. Although Russia had been victorious in the war that caused the conference, it was humiliated at Berlin, and resented its treatment. Austria gained a great deal of territory, which angered the South Slavs, and led to decades of tensions in Bosnia and Herzogovina. Bismarck became the target of hatred of Russian nationalists and Pan-Slavists, and found that he had tied Germany too closely to Austria in the Balkans.[29]

text: In the long-run, tensions between Russia and Austria-Hungary intensified, as did the nationality question in the Balkans. The congress was aimed at the revision of the Treaty of San Stefano and at keeping Constantinople in Ottoman hands. It effectively disavowed Russia's victory over the decaying Ottoman Empire in the Russo-Turkish War. The Congress of Berlin returned to the Ottoman Empire territories that the previous treaty had given to the Principality of Bulgaria, most notably Macedonia, thus setting up a strong revanchist demand in Bulgaria that in 1912 was one of many causes of the First Balkan War.

text: 20th century[edit]

text: Balkan Wars[edit]

text: The Balkan Wars were two wars that took place in the Balkans in 1912 and 1913. Four Balkan states defeated the Ottoman Empire in the first war; one of the four, Bulgaria, was defeated in the second war. The Ottoman Empire lost nearly all of its holdings in Europe. Austria-Hungary, although not a combatant, was weakened as a much enlarged Serbia pushed for union of the South Slavic peoples.[30] The war set the stage for the Balkan crisis of 1914 and thus was a "prelude to the First World War."[31]

text: World War I[edit]

text: Coming of war 1914[edit]

text: The monumentally colossal World War I was ignited from a spark in the Balkans, when a Bosnian Serb named Gavrilo Princip assassinated the heir to the Austrian throne, Franz Ferdinand. Princip was a member of a Serbian militant group called the Crna Ruka (Serbian for "Black Hand"). Following the assassination, Austria-Hungary sent Serbia an ultimatum in July 1914 with several provisions largely designed to prevent Serbian compliance. When Serbia only partially fulfilled the terms of the ultimatum, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia on 28 July 1914.

text: Many members of the Austro-Hungarian government, such as Conrad von Hötzendorf had hoped to provoke a war with Serbia for several years. They had a couple of motives. In part they feared the power of Serbia and its ability to sow dissent and disruption in the empire's "south-Slav" provinces under the banner of a "greater Slav state". Another hope was that they could annex Serbian territories in order to change the ethnic composition of the empire. With more Slavs in the Empire, some in the German-dominated half of the government hoped to balance the power of the Magyar-dominated Hungarian government. Until 1914 more peaceful elements had been able to argue against these military strategies, either through strategic considerations or political ones. However, Franz Ferdinand, a leading advocate of a peaceful solution, had been removed from the scene, and more hawkish elements were able to prevail. Another factor in this was the development in Germany giving the Dual-Monarchy a "blank cheque" to pursue a military strategy that ensured Germany's backing.

text: Austro-Hungarian planning for operations against Serbia was not extensive and they ran into many logistical difficulties in mobilizing the army and beginning operations against the Serbs. They encountered problems with train schedules and mobilization schedules, which conflicted with agricultural cycles in some areas. When operations began in early August Austria-Hungary was unable to crush the Serbian armies as many within the monarchy had predicted. One difficulty for the Austro-Hungarians was that they had to divert many divisions north to counter advancing Russian armies. Planning for operations against Serbia had not accounted for possible Russian intervention, which the Austro-Hungarian army had assumed would be countered by Germany. However, the German army had long planned on attacking France before turning to Russia given a war with the Entente powers. (See: Schlieffen Plan) Poor communication between the two governments led to this catastrophic oversight.

text: Fighting in 1914[edit]

text: As a result, Austria-Hungary's war effort was damaged almost beyond redemption within a couple of months of the war beginning. The Serb army, which was coming up from the south of the country, met the Austrian army at the Battle of Cer beginning on August 12, 1914.

text: The Serbians were set up in defensive positions against the Austro-Hungarians. The first attack came on August 16, between parts of the 21st Austro-Hungarian division and parts of the Serbian Combined division. In harsh night-time fighting, the battle ebbed and flowed, until the Serbian line was rallied under the leadership of Stepa Stepanovic. Three days later the Austrians retreated across the Danube, having suffered 21,000 casualties against 16,000 Serbian casualties. This marked the first Allied victory of the war. The Austrians had not achieved their main goal of eliminating Serbia. In the next couple of months the two armies fought large battles at Drina (September 6 to November 11) and at Kolubara from November 16 to December 15.

text: In the autumn, with many Austro-Hungarians tied up in heavy fighting with Serbia, Russia was able to make huge inroads into Austria-Hungary capturing Galicia and destroying much of the Empire's fighting ability. It wasn't until October 1915 with a lot of German, Bulgarian, and Turkish assistance that Serbia was finally occupied, although the weakened Serbian army retreated to Corfu with Italian assistance and continued to fight against the central powers.

text: Yugoslav Committee, a political interest group formed by South Slavs from Austria-Hungary during World War I, aimed at joining the existing south Slavic nations in an independent state.[32] From this plan, a new kingdom eventually was born: The Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenians.

text: Montenegro declared war on 6 August 1914. Bulgaria, however, stood aside before eventually joining the Central Powers in 1915, and Romania joined the Allies in 1916. In 1916 the Allies sent their ill-fated expedition to Gallipoli in the Dardanelles, and in the autumn of 1916 they established themselves in Salonika, establishing front. However, their armies did not move from front until near end of the war, when they marched up north to free territories under rule of Central Powers.

text: Bulgaria[edit]

text: Bulgaria, the most populous of the Balkan states with 7 million people sought to acquire Macedonia but when it tried it was defeated in 1913 in the Second Balkan War. In 1914 Bulgaria stayed neutral. However its leaders still hoped to acquire Macedonia, which was controlled by an ally, Serbia. In 1915 joining the Central Powers seemed the best route.[33] Bulgaria mobilized a very large army of 800,000 men, using equipment supplied by Germany. The Bulgarian-German-Austrian invasion of Serbia in 1915 was a quick victory, but by the end of 1915 Bulgaria was also fighting the British and French—as well as the Romanians in 1916 and the Greeks in 1917. Bulgaria was ill-prepared for a long war; absence of so many soldiers sharply reduced agricultural output. Much of its best food was smuggled out to feed lucrative black markets elsewhere. By 1918 the soldiers were not only short of basic equipment like boots but they were being fed mostly corn bread with a little meat. Germany increasingly was in control, and Bulgarian relations with its ally the Ottoman Empire soured. The Allied offensive in September 1918, which failed in 1916 & 1917 was successful at Dobro Pole. Troops mutinied and peasants revolted, demanding peace. By month's end Bulgaria signed an armistice, giving up its conquests and its military hardware. The Czar abdicated and Bulgaria's war was over. The peace treaty in 1919 stripped Bulgaria of its conquests, reduced its army to 20,000 men, and demanded reparations of £100 million.[34]

text: Consequences of World War I[edit]

text: The war had enormous repercussions for the Balkan peninsula. People across the area suffered serious economic dislocation, and the mass mobilization resulted in severe casualties, particularly in Serbia where over 1.5 million Serbs died, which was approx. ¼ of the total population and over half of the male population. In less-developed areas World War I was felt in different ways: requisitioning of draft animals, for example, caused severe problems in villages that were already suffering from the enlistment of young men, and many recently created trade connections were ruined.

text: The borders of many states were completely redrawn, and the new Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, later Yugoslavia, was created. Both Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire were formally dissolved. As a result, the balance of power, economic relations, and ethnic divisions were completely altered.

text: Some important territorial changes include:

text:
The addition of Transylvania and Eastern Banat to Romania
The incorporation of Serbia, Montenegro, Slavonia, Croatia, Vojvodina, Carniola, part of Styria, most of Dalmatia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina into the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes.
Istria, Zadar, and Trieste became part of Italy,

text: Between World War I and World War II, in order to create nation-states the following population movements were seen:

text:
In the interwar period, almost 1.5 million Greeks were removed from Turkey; almost 700,000 Turks removed from Greece
The 1919 Treaty of Neuilly-sur-Seine provided for the reciprocal emigration of ethnic minorities between Greece and Bulgaria. Between 92,000 and 102,000 Bulgarians were removed from Greece; 35,000 Greeks were removed from Bulgaria. Although no agreement on exchange of population between Bulgaria and the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes was ever reached because of the latter's adamant refusal to recognise any Bulgarian minority in its eastern regions, the number of refugees from Macedonia and Eastern Serbia to Bulgaria also exceeded 100,000. Between the two world wars, some 67,000 Turks emigrated from Bulgaria to Turkey on basis of bilateral agreements.
Under the terms of 1940 Treaty of Craiova, 88,000 Romanians and Aromanians of Southern Dobruja were forced to move in Northern Dobruja and 65,000 Bulgarians of Northern Dobruja were forced to move in Southern Dobruja.

text: See also:

text:
Treaty of Trianon
Little Entente
League of Nations
Aftermath of World War I
Greco-Turkish War (1919-1922) with an estimate of 250.000 casualties.[35]

text: World War II[edit]

text: World War II in the Balkans started from the Italian attempts to create an Italian empire. They invaded Albania in 1939 and annexed after just a week to the Kingdom of Italy. Then demanded Greece to surrender in October 1940. However, the defiance of the Greek prime minister Metaxas on 28 October 1940, started the Greco-Italian war. After seven months of hard fighting, with some of the first Allied victories and the Italians losing nearly one third of Albania, Germany intervened to save its ally. In 1941, it invaded Yugoslavia with the forces they later used against the Soviet Union.

text: After the fall of Sarajevo on 16 April 1941 to Nazi Germany, the Yugoslav provinces of Croatia, Bosnia, and Herzegovina were recreated as fascist satellite states, Nezavisna Država Hrvatska (NDH, the Independent State of Croatia). Croat-nationalist, Ante Pavelić was appointed leader. The Nazis effectively created the Handschar division and collaborated with Ustaše in order to combat the Yugoslav Partisans.

text: With help from Italy, they succeeded in conquering Yugoslavia within two weeks. They then joined forces with Bulgaria and invaded Greece from the Yugoslavian side. Despite Greek resistance, the Germans took advantage of the Greek army's presence in Albania against the Italians to advance in Northern Greece and consequently conquer the entire country within 3 weeks, with the exception of Crete. However, even with the fierce Cretan resistance, which cost the Nazis the bulk of their elite paratrooper forces, the island capitulated after 11 days of fighting.

text: On May first the Balkan frontiers were once again reshuffled, with the creation of several puppet states, such as Croatia and Montenegro, the Albanian expansion into Greece and Yugoslavia, Bulgarian annexation of territories in the Greek North, creation of a Vlach state in the Greek mountains of Pindus and the annexation of all the Ionian and part of the Aegean islands into Italy.

text: With the end of the war, the changes of the ethnic composition reverted to their original conditions and the settlers returned to their homelands, mainly the ones settled in Greece. An Albanian population of the Greek North, the Cams, were forced to flee their lands because they collaborated with the Italians. Their numbers were about 18 000 in 1944.

text: Aftermath of World War II[edit]

text: In January 7–9, 1945, Yugoslav authorities killed several hundred of declared Bulgarians in Macedonia as collaborators, in an event known as the "Bloody Christmas".

text: The Greek Civil War was fought between 1944 and 1949 in Greece between the armed forces of the Greek government, supported at first by Britain and later by the United States, against the forces of the wartime resistance against the German occupation, whose leadership was controlled by the Communist Party of Greece. Its goal was the creation of a Communist Northern Greece. It was the first time in the Cold War that hostilities led to a proxy war. In 1949, the partisans were defeated by the government forces.

text: Cold War[edit]

text: During the Cold War, most of the countries in the Balkans were ruled by Soviet-supported communist governments. The nationalism was not dead after World War II. Yugoslavia was not an isolated case of ethnic tension. For example: in Bulgaria, beginning in 1984, the Communist government led by Todor Zhivkov began implementing a policy of forced assimilation of the ethnic Turkish minority. Ethnic Turks were required to change their names to Bulgarian equivalents, or to leave the country. In 1989, a Turkish dissident movement was formed to resist these assimilationist measures. The Bulgarian government responded with violence and mass expulsions of the activists. In this repressive environment, over 300,000 ethnic Turks fled to neighboring Turkey.[36] However, despite being under communist governments, Yugoslavia (1948) and Albania (1961) fell out with the Soviet Union. After World War 2, communist plans of merging Albania and Bulgaria into Yugoslavia were created, but later nullified when Albania broke all relations with Yugoslavia, due to Tito breaking from the USSR. Marshal Josip Broz Tito (1892–1980), later rejected the idea of merging with Bulgaria, and instead sought closer relations with the West, later even creating the Non-Aligned Movement, which brought them closer ties with third world countries. Albania on the other hand gravitated toward Communist China, later adopting an isolationist position. The only non-communist countries were Greece and Turkey, which were (and still are) part of NATO.

text: Religious persecutions took place in Bulgaria, directed against the Christian Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant churches as well as the Muslim, Jewish and others in the country.[citation needed] Antagonism between the communist state and the Bulgarian Orthodox Church eased somewhat after Todor Zhivkov became Bulgarian Communist Party leader in 1956. Zhivkov even used the Bulgarian Orthodox Church for the purposes of his policies.[citation needed]

text: Post-Communism[edit]

text: The late 1980s and the early 1990s brought the collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe. As westernization spread through the Balkans, many reforms were carried out that led to implementation of market economy and to privatization, among other capitalist reforms.

text: In Albania, Bulgaria and Romania the changes in political and economic system were accompanied by a period of political and economic instability and tragic events. The same was the case in most of former Yugoslav republics.

text: Yugoslav wars[edit]

text: The collapse of the Yugoslav federation was due to various factors in various republics that composed it. In Serbia and Montenegro, there were efforts of different factions of the old party elite to retain power under new conditions along, and an attempt to create Greater Serbia by keeping all Serbs in one state.[37][better source needed] In Croatia and Slovenia, multi-party elections produced nationally inclined leadership that followed in the footsteps of their previous Communist predecessors and oriented itself towards capitalism and secession. Bosnia and Herzegovina was split between the conflicting interests of its Serbs, Croats, and Bosniaks, while Macedonia mostly tried to steer away from conflicting situations.

text: An outbreak of violence and aggression came as a consequence of unresolved national, political and economic questions. The conflicts caused the death of many civilians. The real start of the war was a military attack on Slovenia and Croatia taken by Serb-controlled JNA. Before the war, JNA had started accepting volunteers driven by ideology of Serbian nationalists keen to realise their nationalist goals.[38]

text: The Ten-Day War in Slovenia in June 1991 was short and with few casualties. However, the Croatian War of Independence in the latter half of 1991 brought many casualties and much damage on Croatian towns. As the war eventually subsided in Croatia, the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina started in early 1992. Peace only came in 1995 after such events as the Srebrenica massacre, Operation Storm, Operation Mistral 2 and the Dayton Agreement, which provided for a temporary solution, but nothing was permanently resolved.

text: The economy suffered an enormous damage in all of Bosnia and Herzegovina and in the affected parts of Croatia. The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia also suffered an economic hardship under internationally imposed economic sanctions. Also many large historical cities were devastated by the wars, for example Sarajevo, Dubrovnik, Zadar, Mostar, Šibenik and others.

text: The wars caused large population migrations, mostly involuntary. With the exception of its former republics of Slovenia and Macedonia, the settlement and the national composition of population in all parts of Yugoslavia changed drastically, due to war, but also political pressure and threats. Because it was a conflict fueled by ethnic nationalism, people of minority ethnicities generally fled towards regions where their ethnicity was in a majority. Since the Bosniaks had no immediate refuge, they were arguably hardest hit by the ethnic violence. The United Nations tried to create safe areas for the Bosniak populations of eastern Bosnia but in cases such as the Srebrenica massacre, the peacekeeping troops (Dutch forces) failed to protect the safe areas resulting in the massacre of thousands. The Dayton Accords ended the war in Bosnia, fixating the borders between the warring parties roughly to the ones established by the autumn of 1995. One immediate result of population transfers following the peace deal was a sharp decline in ethnic violence in the region. A number of commanders and politicians, notably Serbia's former president Slobodan Milošević, were put on trial by the United Nations' International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia for a variety of war crimes—including deportations and genocide that took place in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo. Croatia's former president Franjo Tuđman and Bosnia's Alija Izetbegović died before any alleged accusations were leveled at them at the ICTY. Slobodan Milošević died before his trial could be concluded.

text: Initial upsets on Kosovo did not escalate into a war until 1999 when the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro) was bombarded by NATO for 78 days with Kosovo being made a protectorate of international peacekeeping troops. A massive and systematic deportation[citation needed] of ethnic Albanians took place during the Kosovo War of 1999, with over one million Albanians (out of a population of about 1.8 million) forced to flee Kosovo. This was quickly reversed from the aftermath.

text: 2000 to present[edit]

text: Greece has been a member of the European Union since 1981. Greece is also an official member of the Eurozone, and the Western European Union. Slovenia and Cyprus have been EU members since 2004, and Bulgaria and Romania joined the EU in 2007. Croatia joined the EU in 2013. Macedonia also received candidate status in 2005, while the other Balkan countries have expressed a desire to join the EU but at some date in the future.

text: Greece has been a member of NATO since 1952. In 2004 Bulgaria, Romania and Slovenia became members of NATO. Croatia and Albania joined NATO in 2009.

text: In 2006, Montenegro separated from the state of Serbia and Montenegro, also making Serbia a separate state.

text: On October 17, 2007 Croatia became a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council for the 2008-2009 term, while Bosnia and Herzegovina became a non-permanent member for the 2010-2011 period.

text: Kosovo declared its independence from Serbia on February 17, 2008.

text: Since the 2008 economic crisis, the former Yugoslav countries began to cooperate on levels that were similar to those in Yugoslavia. The term "Yugosphere" was coined by The Economist after a regional train service "Cargo 10" was created.

text: Overview of state histories[edit]

text:
Greece:
Bulgaria: Bulgars, a Turkic tribe, settled the Balkans after 680. They subsequently absorbed the local Slavs. Bulgaria was Christianized in the late 9th century. The Cyrillic was developed around the Preslav Literary School in Bulgaria in the beginning of the 10th century. The Bulgarian Church was recognized as autocephalous during Simeon the Great, who greatly expanded the state over Byzantine territory. In 1018, Bulgaria became an autonomous theme in the Roman empire until the restoration by the Asen dynasty in 1185. In the 13th century Bulgaria was once again one of the powerful states in the region. By 1422 all Bulgarian lands south of the Danube became part of the Ottoman state, however local control remained in Bulgarian hands in many places. North of the Danube, Bulgarian Boyars continued to rule for the next three centuries. Bulgarian continued to be used as the official language north of the Danube until the 19th century.
Serbia: Following the settlement of Slavs, the Serbs established several principalities, as described in the DAI. Serbia was elevated to a kingdom in 1217, and an empire in 1346. By the 16th century, the entire territory of modern-day Serbia was annexed by the Ottoman Empire, at times interrupted by the Habsburg Empire. In the early 19th century the Serbian Revolution re-established the Serbian state, pioneering in the abolition of feudalism in the Balkans. Serbia became the region's first constitutional monarchy, and subsequently expanded its territory in the wars. The former Habsburg crownland of Vojvodina united with the Kingdom of Serbia in 1918. Following World War I, Serbia formed Yugoslavia with other South Slavic peoples which existed in several forms up until 2006, when the country retrieved its independence.
Croatia: Following the settlement of Slavs in the Roman provinces of Dalmatia and Pannonia, Croat tribes established two duchies. They were surrounded by the Franks (and later Venetians) and Avars (and later Magyars), while Byzantines tried to maintain control of the Dalmatian coast. The Kingdom of Croatia was founded in 925. It covered parts of Dalmatia, Bosnia and Pannonia. The state came under Papal (Catholic) influence. In 1102, Croatia entered a union with Hungary. Croatia was still considered a separate, albeit a vassal, kingdom. With the Ottoman conquest of the Balkans, Croatia fell after successive battles, finalized in 1526. The remaining part then received Austrian rule and protection. Much of its border areas became part of the Military Frontier, inhabited and protected by Serbs, Vlachs, Croats and Germans since the area had previously become deserted. Croatia joined Yugoslavia in 1918–20. Independence was retained following the Croatian War.
Albania: The proto Albanians were likely a conglomerate of Illyrian tribes that resisted assimilation with latter waves of migrations into the Balkans. The Ardiaean kingdom, with its capital in Scodra, is perhaps the best example of a centralized, ancient Albanian state. After several conflicts with the Roman Republic, building up to the Third Illyrian War, Ardiaean as well as much of the Balkans was brought into Roman rule for centuries onward. Its last ruler, King Gentius, being taken captive in 167BC to Rome. After the Western Roman Empire's collapse the territory of what is today Albania remained under Byzantine control until the Slavic migrations. It was integrated into the Bulgarian Empire in the 9th century. The territorial nucleus of the Albanian state formed in the Middle Ages, as the Principality of Arbër and the Kingdom of Albania. The first records of the Albanian people as a distinct ethnicity also date to this period. Most of the coast of Albania was controlled by the Republic of Venice from the 10th century until the arrival of the Ottoman Turks (Albania Veneta), while the interior was ruled by Byzantians, Bulgarians or Serbs. Despite the long resistance of Skanderbeg, the area was conquered in the 15th century by the Ottoman Empire and remained under their control as part of the Rumelia province until 1912, when the first independent Albanian state was declared. The formation of an Albanian national consciousness dates to the later 19th century and is part of the larger phenomenon of rise of nationalism under the Ottoman Empire.
Montenegro: In the 10th century, there were three principalities on the territory of Montenegro: Duklja, Travunia, and Serbia ("Raška"). In the mid-11th century Duklja attained independence through a revolt against the Byzantines; the Vojislavljević dynasty ruled as Serbian monarchs, having taken over territories of the former Serbian Principality. It then came under the rule of the Nemanjić dynasty of Serbia. By the 13th century, Zeta had replaced Duklja when referring to the realm. In the late 14th century, southern Montenegro (Zeta) came under the rule of the Balšić noble family, then the Crnojević noble family, and by the 15th century, Zeta was more often referred to as Crna Gora (Venetian: monte negro). Large portions fell under the control of the Ottoman Empire from 1496 to 1878. The Republic of Venice dominated the coasts of today's Montenegro from 1420 to 1797; the area around the Kotor became part of Venetian Albania. Parts were also briefly controlled by the First French Empire and Austria-Hungary in the 19th century. From 1696 until 1851 the metropolitans of Cetinje (of the House of Petrović-Njegoš) ruled the polity of Montenegro (Old Montenegro) alongside tribal rulers. The Petrović-Njegoš transformed Montenegro into a principality in 1851 and ruled until 1918. Independence of the Principality of Montenegro was received in 1878. From 1918, it was a part of Yugoslavia. On the basis of an independence referendum held on 21 May 2006, Montenegro became independent.
Bosnia and Herzegovina: The territory was divided between Croatia and Serbia in the Early Middle Ages. "Bosnia" itself was a Serbian polity according to the DAI. Bosnia, along with other territories, became part of Duklja in the 11th century. In time, Bosnia became separated under its own ruler. After 1101, Bosnia was detached from Duklja, and subsequently came under Hungarian suzerainty, as was the case with Croatia. Byzantine rule interrupted Hungarian rule, and under Byzantine suzerainty, the Banate of Bosnia came to existence. The later ban became a Hungarian nominal vassal. The Bosnian Church was a Christian church in Bosnia deemed heretical, which some rulers were adherents of. The rulers empowered themselves through trade with Ragusa, and gained lands from Serbia (Herzegovina). Bosnia reached its zenith under the rule of Tvrtko who took more lands, including parts of Dalmatia, and crowned himself as king in 1377. After the Ottoman conquest of Serbia, Bosnia followed. The Sanjak of Bosnia was established, and the local population was subject of Islamization during the following centuries by the Ottoman Empire which guaranteed more rights to Muslims. The ethnic tensions that arose in modern times stem from this religious division. Austria-Hungary took over Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1878 and annexed it in 1908. It was subsequently joined to Yugoslavia. After the Bosnian War, the state received international independence for the first time.
R. Macedonia:

text: Cultural history[edit]

text: Byzantine culture[edit]

text: Ottoman culture[edit]

text: Eastern Orthodoxy[edit]


document_title: Milankovitch cycles

question_text: the feature of earth's movement that takes about 26000 years is

question_tokens: the feature of earth 's movement that takes about 26000 years is

root

text: Milankovitch cycles

text: Earth's movements[edit]

text: The Earth's rotation around its axis, and revolution around the Sun, evolve over time due to gravitational interactions with other bodies in the solar system. The variations are complex, but a few cycles are dominant.[2]

tag: p

text: The Earth's orbit varies between nearly circular and mildly elliptical (its eccentricity varies). When the orbit is more elongated, there is more variation in the distance between the Earth and the Sun, and in the amount of solar radiation, at different times in the year. In addition, the rotational tilt of the Earth (its obliquity) changes slightly. A greater tilt makes the seasons more extreme. Finally, the direction in the fixed stars pointed to by the Earth's axis changes (axial precession), while the Earth's elliptical orbit around the Sun rotates (apsidal precession). The combined effect is that proximity to the Sun occurs during different astronomical seasons.

text: Milankovitch studied changes in these movements of the Earth, which alter the amount and location of solar radiation reaching the Earth. This is known as solar forcing (an example of radiative forcing). Milankovitch emphasized the changes experienced at 65° north due to the great amount of land at that latitude. Land masses change temperature more quickly than oceans, because of the mixing of surface and deep water and the fact that soil has a lower volumetric heat capacity than water.

text: Orbital shape (eccentricity)[edit]

text: The Earth's orbit approximates an ellipse. Eccentricity measures the departure of this ellipse from circularity. The shape of the Earth's orbit varies between nearly circular (with the lowest eccentricity of 0.000055) and mildly elliptical (highest eccentricity of 0.0679)[3] Its geometric or logarithmic mean is 0.0019. The major component of these variations occurs with a period of 413,000 years (eccentricity variation of ±0.012). Other components have 95,000-year and 125,000-year cycles (with a beat period of 400,000 years). They loosely combine into a 100,000-year cycle (variation of −0.03 to +0.02). The present eccentricity is 0.017 and decreasing.

text: Eccentricity varies primarily due to the gravitational pull of Jupiter and Saturn. However, the semi-major axis of the orbital ellipse remains unchanged; according to perturbation theory, which computes the evolution of the orbit, the semi-major axis is invariant. The orbital period (the length of a sidereal year) is also invariant, because according to Kepler's third law, it is determined by the semi-major axis.

text: Effect on temperature[edit]

text: The semi-major axis is a constant. Therefore, when Earth's orbit becomes more eccentric, the semi-minor axis shortens. This increases the magnitude of seasonal changes.[4]

text: The relative increase in solar irradiation at closest approach to the Sun (perihelion) compared to the irradiation at the furthest distance (aphelion) is slightly larger than four times the eccentricity. For Earth's current orbital eccentricity, incoming solar radiation varies by about 6.8%, while the distance from the Sun currently varies by only 3.4% (5.1 million km). Perihelion presently occurs around January 3, while aphelion is around July 4. When the orbit is at its most eccentric, the amount of solar radiation at perihelion will be about 23% more than at aphelion. However, the Earth's eccentricity is always so small that the variation in solar irradiation is a minor factor in seasonal climate variation, compared to axial tilt and even compared to the relative ease of heating the larger land masses of the northern hemisphere.

text: Effect on lengths of seasons[edit]

text:
Season durations[5]

Year
Northern
Hemisphere
Southern
Hemisphere
Date: GMT
Season
duration

2005
Winter solstice
Summer solstice
21 December 2005 18:35
88.99 days

2006
Spring equinox
Autumn equinox
20 March 2006 18:26
92.75 days

2006
Summer solstice
Winter solstice
21 June 2006 12:26
93.65 days

2006
Autumn equinox
Spring equinox
23 September 2006 4:03
89.85 days

2006
Winter solstice
Summer solstice
22 December 2006 0:22
88.99 days

2007
Spring equinox
Autumn equinox
21 March 2007 0:07
92.75 days

2007
Summer solstice
Winter solstice
21 June 2007 18:06
93.66 days

2007
Autumn equinox
Spring equinox
23 September 2007 9:51
89.85 days

2007
Winter solstice
Summer solstice
22 December 2007 06:08

tag: table

text: The seasons are quadrants of the Earth's orbit, marked by the two solstices and the two equinoxes. Kepler's second law states that a body in orbit traces equal areas over equal times; its orbital velocity is highest around perihelion and lowest around aphelion. The Earth spends less time near perihelion and more time near aphelion. This means that the lengths of the seasons vary.

text: Perihelion currently occurs around January 3, so the Earth's greater velocity shortens winter and autumn in the northern hemisphere. Summer in the northern hemisphere is 4.66 days longer than winter, and spring is 2.9 days longer than autumn.

text: Greater eccentricity increases the variation in the Earth's orbital velocity. However, currently, the Earth's orbit is becoming less eccentric (more nearly circular). This will make the seasons more similar in length.

text: Axial tilt (obliquity)[edit]

text: The angle of the Earth's axial tilt with respect to the orbital plane (the obliquity of the ecliptic) varies between 22.1° and 24.5°, over a cycle of about 41,000 years. The current tilt is 23.44°, roughly halfway between its extreme values. The tilt last reached its maximum in 8,700 BCE. It is now in the decreasing phase of its cycle, and will reach its minimum around the year 11,800 CE.

text: Increased tilt increases the amplitude of the seasonal cycle in insolation, providing more solar radiation in each hemisphere's summer and less in winter. However, these effects are not uniform everywhere on the Earth's surface. Increased tilt increases the total annual solar radiation at higher latitudes, and decreases the total closer to the equator.

text: The current trend of decreasing tilt, by itself, will promote milder seasons (warmer winters and colder summers), as well as an overall cooling trend. Because most of the planet's snow and ice lies at high latitude, decreasing tilt may encourage the onset of an ice age for two reasons: There is less overall summer insolation, and also less insolation at higher latitudes, which melts less of the previous winter's snow and ice.

text: Axial precession[edit]

text: Axial precession is the trend in the direction of the Earth's axis of rotation relative to the fixed stars, with a period of 25,771.5 years. This motion means that eventually Polaris will no longer be the north pole star. It is caused by the tidal forces exerted by the Sun and the Moon on the solid Earth; both contribute roughly equally to this effect.

text: Currently, perihelion occurs during the southern hemisphere's summer. This means that solar radiation due to (1) axial tilt aiming the southern hemisphere toward the Sun and (2) the Earth's proximity to the Sun, both reach maximum during the summer and both reach minimum during the winter. Their effects on heating are additive, which means that seasonal variation in irradiation of the southern hemisphere is more extreme. In the northern hemisphere, these two factors reach maximum at opposite times of the year: The north is tilted toward the Sun when the Earth is furthest from the Sun. The two forces work in opposite directions, resulting in less extreme variation.

text: In about 13,000 years, the north pole will be tilted toward the Sun when the Earth is at perihelion. Axial tilt and orbital eccentricity will both contribute their maximum increase in solar radiation during the northern hemisphere's summer. Axial precession will promote more extreme variation in irradiation of the northern hemisphere and less extreme variation in the south.

text: When the Earth's axis is aligned such that aphelion and perihelion occur near the equinoxes, axial tilt will not be aligned with or against eccentricity.

text: Apsidal precession[edit]

text: In addition, the orbital ellipse itself precesses in space, in an irregular fashion, completing a full cycle every 112,000 years relative to the fixed stars.[6] Apsidal precession occurs in the plane of the ecliptic and alters the orientation of the Earth's orbit relative to the ecliptic. This happens primarily as a result of interactions with Jupiter and Saturn. Smaller contributions are also made by the sun's oblateness and by the effects of general relativity that are well known for Mercury.

text: Apsidal precession combines with the 25,771.5-year cycle of axial precession (see above) to vary the position in the year that the Earth reaches perihelion. Apsidal precession shortens this period to 23,000 years on average (varying between 20,800 and 29,000 years).[6]

text: As the orientation of Earth's orbit changes, each season will gradually start earlier in the year. Precession means the Earth's nonuniform motion (see above) will affect different seasons. Winter, for instance, will be in a different section of the orbit. When the Earth's apsides are aligned with the equinoxes, the length of spring and summer combined will equal that of autumn and winter. When they are aligned with the solstices, the difference in the length of these seasons will be greatest.

text: Orbital inclination[edit]

text: The inclination of Earth's orbit drifts up and down relative to its present orbit. This three-dimensional movement is known as "precession of the ecliptic" or "planetary precession". Earth's current inclination relative to the invariable plane (the plane that represents the angular momentum of the Solar System, approximately the orbital plane of Jupiter) is 1.57°.

text: Milankovitch did not study apsidal precession. It was discovered more recently and measured, relative to Earth's orbit, to have a period of about 70,000 years. However, when measured independently of Earth's orbit, but relative to the invariable plane, precession has a period of about 100,000 years. This period is very similar to the 100,000-year eccentricity period. Both periods closely match the 100,000-year pattern of glacial events.[7]

text: Problems[edit]

text: Artifacts taken from the Earth have been studied to infer the cycles of past climate. A study of the chronology of Antarctic ice cores using oxygen-nitrogen ratios in air bubbles trapped in the ice, which appear to respond directly to the local insolation, concluded that the climatic response documented in the ice cores was driven by northern hemisphere insolation as proposed by the Milankovitch hypothesis.[8] Analysis of deep-ocean cores, analysis of lake depths,[9][10] and a seminal paper by Hays, Imbrie, and Shackleton[11] provide additional validation through physical artifacts.

text: These studies fit so well with the orbital periods that they supported Milankovitch's hypothesis that variations in the Earth's orbit influence climate. However, the fit was not perfect, and problems remained reconciling hypothesis with observation.

text: 100,000-year problem[edit]

text: Of all the orbital cycles, Milankovitch believed that obliquity had the greatest effect on climate, and that it did so by varying the summer insolation in northern high latitudes. Therefore, he deduced a 41,000-year period for ice ages.[12][13] However, subsequent research[14][15][16] has shown that ice age cycles of the Quaternary glaciation over the last million years have been at a 100,000-year period, which matches the eccentricity cycle.

text: Various explanations for this discrepancy have been proposed, including frequency modulation[17] or various feedbacks (from carbon dioxide, cosmic rays, or from ice sheet dynamics). Some models can reproduce the 100,000-year cycles as a result of non-linear interactions between small changes in the Earth's orbit and internal oscillations of the climate system.[18][19]

text: Jung-Eun Lee of Brown University proposes that precession changes the amount of energy that Earth absorbs, because the southern hemisphere's greater ability to grow sea ice reflects more energy away from Earth. Moreover, Lee says, "Precession only matters when eccentricity is large. That's why we see a stronger 100,000-year pace than a 21,000-year pace."[20][21]

text: Some have argued that the length of the climate record is insufficient to establish a statistically significant relationship between climate and eccentricity variations.[22]

text: Transition problem[edit]

text: In fact, from 1–3 million years ago, climate cycles did match the 41,000-year cycle in obliquity. After 1 million years ago, this switched to the 100,000-year cycle matching eccentricity. The transition problem refers to the need to explain what changed 1 million years ago.[23]

text: Unsplit peak problem[edit]

text: Even the well-dated climate records of the last million years do not exactly match the shape of the eccentricity curve. Eccentricity has component cycles of 95,000 and 125,000 years. However, some researchers say the records do not show these peaks, but only show a single cycle of 100,000 years.[24]

text: Stage 5 problem[edit]

text: Deep-sea core samples show that the interglacial interval known as marine isotope stage 5 began 130,000 years ago. This is 10,000 years before the solar forcing that the Milankovitch hypothesis predicts. (This is also known as the causality problem, because the effect precedes the putative cause.)[25]

text: Effect exceeds cause[edit]

text: Artifacts show that the variation in Earth's climate is much more extreme than the variation in the intensity of solar radiation calculated as the Earth's orbit evolves. If orbital forcing causes climate change, science needs to explain why the observed effect is amplified compared to the theoretical effect.

text: Some climate systems exhibit amplification (positive feedback) and damping responses (negative feedback). An example of amplification would be if, with the land masses around 65° north covered in year-round ice, solar energy were reflected away. Amplification would mean that an ice age induces changes that impede orbital forcing from ending the ice age.

text: The Earth's current orbital inclination is 1.57° (see above). Earth presently moves through the invariable plane around January 9 and July 9. At these times, there is an increase in meteors and noctilucent clouds. If this is because there is a disk of dust and debris in the invariable plane, then when the Earth's orbital inclination is near 0° and it is orbiting through this dust, materials could be accreted into the atmosphere. This process could explain the narrowness of the 100,000-year climate cycle.[26][27]

text: Present and future conditions[edit]

text: Since orbital variations are predictable,[28] any model that relates orbital variations to climate can be run forward to predict future climate.

text: An often-cited 1980 orbital model by Imbrie predicted "the long-term cooling trend that began some 6,000 years ago will continue for the next 23,000 years."[29] More recent work suggests that orbital variations should gradually increase 65° N summer insolation over the next 25,000 years.[30] Earth's orbit will become less eccentric for about the next 100,000 years, so changes in this insolation will be dominated by changes in obliquity, and should not decline enough to cause an ice age in the next 50,000 years.[31][32]

text: However, the mechanism by which orbital forcing influences climate is not well understood nor definitive:

text:
Earth is not homogeneous. Milankovitch did not relate Earth's ice ages to the total amount of solar radiation (insolation) reaching Earth but to the insolation striking 65° N in summer, due to the relative ease of heating the larger land masses of the northern hemisphere. Later studies have suggested that insolation hitting ice would simply be reflected away.
Earth is not inert. Geology affects climate, not just from the heat of the Earth's core, but from changes to the atmosphere caused by volcanic eruptions.[27] Even the configuration of land masses and ice masses changes over time due to continental drift.
The flourishing and industrial activity of humankind may affect climate (may contribute anthropogenic effects) in ways not predicted by orbital models. Many studies have concluded that detectable increases in greenhouse gas in the 20th and 21st centuries would trap energy and result in a warmer climate.[33][34][35] A previous theory was that industrial particulate pollution of the atmosphere would block solar radiation and result in cooling.
The article Future of earth presents a variety of infrequent events, such as collisions of bodies within the solar system and encounters with bodies outside the solar system, with the potential to make past or future climate deviate from a mathematical model of orbital forcing.

tag: ol

text: Effects beyond Earth[edit]

text: Other bodies in the Solar System undergo orbital fluctuations like the Milankovitch cycles. Any geological effects would not be as pronounced as climate change on the Earth, but might cause the movement of elements in the solid state:

text: Mars[edit]

text: Mars has no moon large enough to stabilize its obliquity, which has varied from 10 to 70 degrees. This would explain recent observations of its surface compared to evidence of different conditions in its past, such as the extent of its polar caps.[36][37]

text: Outer planets[edit]

text: Saturn's moon Titan has a cycle of approximately 60,000 years that could change the location of the methane lakes.[38][39] Neptune's moon Triton has a variation similar to Titan's, which could cause its solid nitrogen deposits to migrate over long time scales.[40]

text: Exoplanets[edit]

text: Scientists using computer models to study extreme axial tilts have concluded that high obliquity would cause climate extremes that would threaten Earth-like life. They noted that high obliquity would not likely sterilize a planet completely, but would make it harder for warm-blooded, land-based life to thrive.[41] Although the obliquity they studied is more extreme than Earth ever experiences, there are scenarios 1.5 to 4.5 billion years from now, as the Moon's stabilizing effect lessens, where obliquity could leave its current range and the poles could eventually point almost directly at the Sun.[42]