Balkanize

Balkanize (pronounced bawl-kuh-nahyz)

(1) To divide a country, political entity or other geographical territory into small, quarrelsome, ineffectual states (can be initial upper or lower case depending on context of use).

(2) To divide groups or other constructs into contending and usually ineffectual factions (should always be initial lower case).

Circa 1920: A compound word balkan + ize.  Balkan is (1) the descriptor of the geographical Balkan Peninsula and (2) a general term of description for all or some of the countries within and beyond that geographical space.  Word is of Turkic origin, related to the Turkish balkan (wooded mountain range).  The ize suffix is from the Middle English isen (ise, ize), from the Old French iser (ize) from the Latin izāre (ize), derived from the Ancient Greek ίζειν (ízein), the ultimate root being the primitive Indo-European verbal suffix idyé.  It was cognate with other verbal suffixes, the Gothic itjan, the Old High German izzen and the Old English ettan.  It’s often used in conjunction with the suffix ation to produce the suffix forming nouns denoting the act, process, or result of doing something, or of making something, ie a noun of action (eg balkanization).  It’s from the Middle English acioun & acion, from the Old French acion & ation, derived from the Latin ātiō, an alternative form of tiō (from whence tion).  The alternative spelling is balkanise, a mostly British form.

Geopolitics: The Balkans.

Balkanize was coined to describe the turmoil on the Balkan Peninsula circa 1878-1913 when the nominally European section of the Ottoman Empire fragmented into small, warring nations.  There’s no consensus among etymologists regarding the author, most preferring, on the basis of documentary evidence, the English writer James Louis Garvin (1868-1947) while other suggests earlier Germanic sources. The geographical concept of the Balkan Peninsula dates from 1808 which conveniently aligned with the European provinces of the Ottoman Empire although the first known use of the word appears in a fourteenth century Arab map which named the Haemus Mountains and Balkan and Ottoman diplomats used the word in the 1560s.  Otto von Bismarck (1815–1898; Chancellor of the German Empire 1871-1890), Chancellor of Germany during the early decades of the Second Reich, well understood the instability of the Balkans and the threat its squabbles posed to European civilization.  While he affected a complete uninterest in the place, once saying the Balkans wasn’t worth “…the bones of one German soldier” and claimed never to bother opening the diplomatic bag from Constantinople, the troubles of the place often absorbed much of his time.  Although the quote "…the great European War would come out of some damned foolish thing in the Balkans" attributed to him may be apocryphal, he may have predicted the origins of World War I (1914-1918), many sources documenting his prophecy “…it will start in the east” although, much of what he wrote in his memoirs may be retrospective foresight.

Geography: The Balkan Peninsula.

To geographers, the Balkans is the peninsula south of Eastern Europe, surrounded by the Adriatic, the Ionian, the Aegean and the Black Sea; to the east lies Asia Minor.  Although there's little dispute among geographers, there have been many disputes about which states should be thought of as "Balkan".  Scholars have their reasons for their particular construct of what makes a geopolitical entity characteristically "Balkan" while others have their own agenda.  At the moment, the closest to a consensus is that eleven nations constitute (politically) the Balkans: (1) Albania, (2) Bosnia and Herzegovina, (3) Bulgaria, (4) Croatia, (5) Kosovo, (6) Moldova, (7) Montenegro, (8) North Macedonia, (9) Romania, (10) Serbia & (11) Slovenia.  It’s because of the historic construct of Greece as a cradle of Western civilization that, despite the geography, it’s not considered Balkan.  A different reservation is applied to the small portion of Türkiye (formerly Turkey) that lies northwest of the Sea of Marmara; because most of the Turkish land-mass lies in Asia-Minor, it’s thought part of West Asia although historically, when it constituted the core of the Old Ottoman Empire, it wasn’t unusual for it to be spoken of as “European”, Nicholas I’s (1796–1855; Tsar of Russia 1825-1855) the memorable phrase describing Turkey as the “sick man of Europe” ever since recycled when criticizing whichever European country was most obviously in economic decline.  In one form or another, Türkiye's application for membership of the EU has languished in various in-trays since 1959 (it was then seeking associate membership of the EEC (European Economic Community)) so the moment of it being thought European may have passed; even Ankara seems to have lost hope.

Lindsay Lohan on the cover of the Croatian edition of Cosmopolitan, May 2006.  Hearst also publishes a Serbian edition.

For centuries, wars, conquest and population movements have meant cross-cutting cleavages have beset the Balkan Peninsula, the bloody break-up in 1992 of the former Yugoslavia (formed at the end of World War II (1939-1945)) the most recent major event and some Balkan states are also considered "Slavic states" as they are typically defined as Slavic-speaking communities (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, and Slovenia), something which influences their relations with nations to the east.  The other regional phrase of note is “Western Balkans”, used to refer to the countries on the western edge, along the Adriatic coast (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, and Serbia).  The ripples of the convulsions of the last round of balkanization, triggered by the wars of 1991-1995 which followed the breakup of Yugoslavia, may have played out with the constructs of North Macedonia, Kosovo and Montenegro now formalized (although Kosovo remains a work in political progress).  Although there remains the hope the gradual integration of the Balkan states into the EU may impose a permanent peace, the history of the region does suggest it’s one of those places best managed by competing spheres of influence which can administer rolling truces punctuated by occasional, small ethnic wars to effect minor adjustments to borders.  One hopeful sign however is that whatever the antagonistic bellicosity of Balkan politicians, the countries do tend to vote for each other in the Eurovision Song Contest.