Balkan 1804-1999: Nacionalizam, rat i velike sile 1-2

Glenny, a BBC journalist with deep knowledge of the region, explores how nationalism, ethnic tensions and external influences shaped the fate of peoples such as Serbs, Croats, Bosniaks, Greeks, Bulgarians, Romanians and Albanians.

The book begins with a dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire: Greek independence in the 1820s, Serbian and Bulgarian movements, and Austrian and Russian influences. The great powers use the Balkans as a field for geopolitical games. The Balkan Wars of 1912-1913 lead to massacres and population displacements, and the First World War begins with an assassination in Sarajevo in 1914, where alliances of small nations with great powers lead to disaster.

The interwar period brings instability: the Kingdom of Yugoslavia faces ethnic conflicts, while fascism and communism spread in Romania and Bulgaria. World War II is a nightmare – Ustasha crimes in the NDH, Chetnik resistance, Tito's partisan movement that founded a federal Yugoslavia in 1945. Tito's Yugoslavia maintains a balance between East and West, but with his death in 1980, it disintegrates: Milošević's nationalism in Serbia, Tuđman's in Croatia, wars in Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia in 1991-1995.

Glenny points out that the Balkans are not a "powder keg" of eternal hatred, but a victim of manipulation by great powers – from the Berlin Congress in 1878 to NATO in 1999.