Contemporary Balkan History

Pre-requisites: Fulfilled academic obligations(from the previous year) and some knowledge of a foreign language

Course objectives: Introducing students to problems and issues in studying contemporary history of the Balkans. Providing students with a background to holistically understand contemporary balkan history and its political and social issues in a broader european and world context.

Course description: This course is devoted to studying contemporary Balkan history and will analyze important political and social developments during the 20th century. Political issues that will be addressed include:the influence of World War I&II on balkan people groups; conflicts, cooperation and resistance to national ideologies, resistance movements, collaborations, the holocaust, demographic and political changes caused by the wars; deep ideological political divides after 1945, during the Cold War; Cold War conflicts(civil war in Greece and the Yugoslavian-Soviet conflict). Analyzing important social phenomena: transformation from rural, pre-industrial society, modernization impulses during the inter-war period and rapid industrial development post Word War II(socio-modernization) to the development of a post-industrial, consumer society and its functioning and role in the process of globalization, multiculturalism and the creation of a technological society

Learning Outcomes: Students will be able to factually, conceptually and problematically understand, analyze and formulate scientific problems, issues and phenomena in contemporary Balkan history utilizing the latest historical research findings.

Literature/Reading:

• Stevan K. Pavlović, Istorija Balkana, Beograd 2001
• L.S. Stavrianos , Balkan posle 1453, Beograd, 2005
• Milan Ristović, Nemački „novi poredak“ i jugoistočna Evropa. 1940/41-1944/45. Planovi i praksa, Beograd 1991 (drugo izdanje: Beograd 2005).
• Ričard Klog, Istorija Grčke novog doba, Beograd 2000
• Peter Bartl, Albanci, Beograd 2001
• Andrej Mitrović, Prodor na Balkan 1908-1918, Beograd, 1982
• Marija Todorova, Imaginarni Balkan, Beograd 1999
• Barbara Jelavich, History of the Balkans, 2, Twentieth Century, Cambridge, 1983
• J. Lampe, M.R. Jackson, Balkans Economic History 1558-1950, Bloomington 1982.
• E.Kalinova, I.Baeva, Bъlgarskite prehodi 1944-2005, Sofiя 2006