Introduction

Abstract

It is a characteristic of world literature on the Balkans that whenever the ‘Balkan question’ is touched upon, the authors go back to the earliest times to try and present a comprehensive synthesis of the development of the Balkans and relations in and around them. Such syntheses usually invoke some ‘perennial’ problem of the Balkans and enumerate the factors which determine the position of this part of the world and the events there. It is surely unreasonable to seek the roots of everything ‘Balkan’ in its ancient history, and yet such an approach seems to be prevalent in many contemporary works, even those which deal with the contemporary period of international politics. This is certainly not accidental.