The Balkans since 1453

L.S. Stavrainos

Professor of History, Northwastern University

Holt, Rinehart and Winston
October, 1963
Copyright 1958 by L. S. Stavrianos
All Rights Reserved
Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 58-7242

Preface

PERHAPS THIS BOOK should be preceded by an apology rather than a preface - an apology for presumption in undertaking singlehanded a history of the Balkan Peninsula. This task, under ideal circumstances, should be assumed by an international team of scholars. And even such a team could not hope to produce anything approaching a definitive work without a good many years of cooperative research and deliberation on the numerous basic problems in Balkan history that still remain unresolved.

I began this study almost a decade ago with the hope that the inevitable shortcomings of the final product might be balanced by certain positive features. More specifically, two objectives have been kept in mind throughout the preparation of this volume. One was to synthesize and to make more generally available the great amount of monographic and periodical literature that has appeared since the period following World War I, when the currently available general Balkan histories were written. The nature and extent of this literature is indicated in the bibliography, where an attempt also has been made to point out the most pressing needs and the most promising research areas in contemporary Balkan historiography.

The other objective has been to make manifest the broader significance of Balkan history by emphasizing the interrelationship of Balkan, general European, and world history. During the past century, particularly, Balkan developments are explainable to a significant degree in terms of the impact of the dynamic, industrial Western society upon the static, agrarian Balkan society. The instability and turbulence of Balkan politics in the modern period become meaningful when interpreted as a local manifestation of the world-wide problem of the adjustment of backward areas to the Western industrial civilization that has enveloped the globe.

Early in the preparation of this study certain basic questions of definition and delimitation had to be decided. One concerned geography-how far north do the Balkans extend? The decision here-arbitrary of necessity- was to exclude Hungary and include Rumania. Another question was whether the approach to Balkan history during the Ottoman period should be primarily local or imperial. The latter had certain important advantages, particularly pedagogically. The Ottoman period of Balkan history has been viewed traditionally from Constantinople, and this treatment undoubtedly is more adaptable to the familiar patterns of general European history. On the other hand, a Balkan approach to the Ottoman period is desirable precisely because it has been hitherto neglected. But this in turn immediately raises the problem of current Balkan historiography for the Ottoman period. Yugoslav historians, who have devoted far more attention to the prenational era than any of their Balkan colleagues, are still debating elementary questions of interpretation and even of fact.

At the risk of falling between two stools, an attempt has been made to combine the imperial and local approaches. Ottoman imperial history is surveyed in Parts II and III, though the analysis is deliberately "slanted" toward the Balkans. For example, the conquests of Selim I in Syria and Egypt are of basic significance for the general history of the Ottoman Empire; yet they are only briefly summarized here because they did not directly affect the Balkans. For the same reason much more emphasis is placed on Suleiman's campaigns in Central Europe, where Balkan frontiers were involved, than on his equally important expeditions into Persia and the western Mediterranean. At the same time, Parts II and III include chapters devoted to Balkan institutions and trends during the Ottoman period, and also the "national" chapters in Part IV include background surveys of pre-nineteenth century developments and conditions.

The nineteenth century also posed a problem of delimitation. Should this study concern itself with the various crises and wars arising from the intrusion of the great powers into the vacuum created by Ottoman decline? For example, both the Near Eastern crises of the 1830's and the Crimean War did not originate in the Balkans and the military operations were not waged in that area. This would appear sufficient reason for concluding that these episodes have no place in a Balkan history. Yet the events of 1875-1878 obviously must be considered, and if they are to be considered meaningfully it is clearly necessary to trace the diplomatic threads back to the earlier crises. Thus the decision again was in favor of broader coverage, so that the so-called Eastern Question is here examined comprehensively to the Lausanne Treaty of 1923. In fact, the Question is traced through to the post-World War II period, for the maneuverings, declarations, and doctrines of Churchill and Stalin and Roosevelt and Truman are but the contemporary manifestation of the age-old Question that in the past involved Greeks, Persians, Romans, Slavs, and Turks.

It gives me pleasure to take this opportunity to acknowledge the friendly and unstinted help of the following scholars who read and criticized portions of the manuscript: Professor Sinasi Altundag of the University of Ankara, Professor George Arnakis of the University of Texas, Professor C. E. Black of Princeton University, Professor Michael B. Petrovich of the University of Wisconsin. Professor Carl Roebuck of Northwestern University, Professor Jozo Tomasevich of San Francisco State College, and Dr. Peter Topping, Director of the Gennadius Library of the American School of Classical Studies in Athens. Other scholars, including Professor Sydney N. Fisher of The Ohio State University Professor Charles Jelavich of the University of California at Berkeley, Professor William L. Langer of Harvard University, Dr. Philip E. Mosely of the Council on Foreign Relations, Professor Henry L. Roberts of Columbia University, and Professor Wayne S. Vucinich of Stanford University, responded generously to the innumerable questions that arose in the course of preparing the manuscript. I am indebted also to the following authors who kindly allowed me to read their works while still in manuscript form: Dr. John C. Campbell of the Council on Foreign Relations (French Influence and the Rise of Rumanian Nationalism), Dr. George Coutsoumaris (Possibilities of Economic Development in Greek Agriculture), Professor Roderic Davison of The George Washington University (Reform in the Ottoman Empire 1856-1876), Professor Adamantios Pepellasis of the University of California at Davis (Socio-Cultural Barriers to the Economic Development of Greece), Professor Howard A. Reed of Wallingford, Pennsylvania (The Destruction of the Janissaries by Mahmud 71 in June, 1826), Dr. Ernest E. Ramsaur, Jr. (The Young Turk Revolution, An lnquiry into the Origins of the Turkish Revolution of 1908, published in 1957 by the Princeton University Press as The Young Turks: prelude to the Revolution of 1908), Professor Henry L. Roberts of Columbia University (Rumania: Political Problems of an Agrarian State, published in 1951 by the Yale University Press), Professor Traian Stoianovich of Rutgers University (L'economie balkanique aux XVII'e et XVIII'e siecles), Professor Lewis V. Thomas of Princeton University (Ottoman Awareness of Europe, 1650 to 1800), and Professor Jozo Tomasevich (Peasants, Politics and Economic Change in Yugoslavia, published in 1955 by the Stanford University Press). While this work was in the press, Dr. George C. Soulis, Librarian of Dumbarton Oaks and member of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Harvard University, kindly informed me of a number of studies that had escaped my attention. These have been added to the bibliography section, with the notation in each case that they have not been consulted in the preparation of the manuscript. Mr. Justin Kestenbaum, formerly Hearst Fellow in American History at Northwestern University and presently a member of the history department at Wright Junior College, photographed the illustrative materials with expertness and care.

The directors and staff members of the libraries in which I have worked have been most helpful and courteous. I am grateful to them all, and particularly to those of the National Library of Greece, the Gennadius Library in Athens, the Library of Congress, the New York Public Library, and the libraries of Harvard University, Princeton University, Columbia University, Stanford University, the University of California at Berkeley, and the University of Chicago. The staff of Deering Library at Northwestern University responded unfailingly to repeated requests throughout the preparation of the manuscript.

I should also like to extend my thanks to the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation for a fellowship that enabled me to devote without interruption the year 1951-1952 to this study, and also to the Committee on Research of the Graduate School of Northwestern University for generous and successive grants-in-aid which facilitated the preparation of this book.

Finally it gives me the greatest personal pleasure to express my appreciation and gratitude to my colleague, Professor Gray C. Boyce. I am indebted to him not only for his helpful comments concerning portions of the manuscript that he read, but above all for his selfless and perceptive consideration in smoothing the way during the preparation of this study. The measure of my indebtedness will be best appreciated by my colleagues who also are associated with Professor Boyce in his department.

L. S. S.

Evanston, Illinois

Contents

PART I. INTRODUCTION

1. The Land and the People

1

Location Terrain Rivers and Routes Climate and Resources People Balkan and Western Ethnography Nongeographic

2. Historical Background

15

Greek Period Macedon Dominates the Balkans Rome Unites the Balkans Rome to Byzantium Coming of the Slavs Medieval Balkan Empires Eve of the Turkish Conquest Byzantium in Retrospect

PART II. AGE OF OTTOMAN ASCENDANCY: TO 1566

PARTIII. AGE OF OTTOMAN DECLINE: 1566 - 1815

PART IV. AGE OF NATIONALISM: 1815-1878

PART V. AGE OF IMPERIALISM AND CAPITALISM: 1878-1914

PART VI. AGE OF WAR AND CRISIS: 1914-