The Balkans

The Good Woman of Sarajevo

Mary Sparks describes a female citizen of Sarajevo, whose life in the city coincided with the period of Austro-Hungarian rule in Bosnia and whose impact on the social and cultural events reflected the modern aspirations of the city in the time leading up to the First World War

The Battle of Kosovo, 1389

For Serbs the 1389 Battle of Kosovo was a physical defeat against the Ottoman Turks, but a moral victory that formed the backbone of Serbian national identity.

The Serbian Mission to Russia, 1804

In the year of Napoleon’s coronation, writes Ann Kindersley, three patriotic Serbs officially asked for the help of the Tsar in their revolt against the Turks.

The Balkan Wars 1912-1913

Cyril Falls describes how, from the problems left by the Balkan Wars, sprang the greater catastrophe that overwhelmed Europe in 1914.

The Palace of Diocletian at Split

Anthony Rhodes introduces Diocletian, the first sovereign to voluntarily resign power, and how, at the opening of the fourth century, he spent his last years in a huge fortified seaside palace of his own construction.

Balkan Wars

Richard C. Hall looks at the bloody conflicts in south-eastern Europe which became the blueprint for a century of conflict in the region.

Propaganda in the Balkans: The Fourth Arm

‘Black’ propaganda in south-east Europe took many forms during the Second World War. Ioannis Stefanidis looks at top secret British attempts to undermine Nazi domination of the Balkans via the airwaves.