Balcanica
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The Balcanica is an annual, peer-reviewed journal of the interdisciplinary Institute for Balkan Studies of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts (SASA). Their histories have been intertwined since 1934, when King Alexander of Yugoslavia founded the Balkan Institute in Belgrade as the only of its kind in the region. The newly-founded institute started to publish Revue internationale des Etudes balkaniques, a high-profile scholarly outlet that disseminated the findings of the most prominent European experts on the Balkans. This journal was terminated, along with the work of the institute itself, in 1941 by the order of the German occupation authorities. It was not before 1969 that the institute resumed its scholarly activities under its present-day name and within the framework of the SASA. The Balcanica became a principal platform for publishing the results of Serbian (and former Yugoslav) scholars as well as their foreign colleagues interested in different aspects of Balkan studies.
Today, more than ever, Balcanica reflects the original aspirations of its founders: its aim is to publish articles of the highest standard which deal with the Balkans from prehistoric times to modern age and through the prism of a number of disciplines. These encompass archaeology, anthropology, ethnography, history, art history, linguistics, literature, law. Such orientation perfectly fits with the most recent scholarly trends in humanities and it will contribute, along with other sustained efforts to further advance the quality and impact of its issues, to Balcanica’s finding its place among the top internationally-renowned journals of this kind. In order to increase our visibility and reach as wide readership as possible, the Balcanica is published in English language with the exception of a small number of articles written in French or German.
Journal website
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ISSN: 0350-7653
eISSN:2406-0801
Pages
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- La Yougoslavie titiste vue par les diplomates français (1955-1974)
- Les relations entre la France et la Yougoslavie pendant la période où cette dernière était dirigée par Tito, étaient marquées d'abord par l'aide yougoslave aux insurgés algériens, et ensuite par le refus de générale De Gaule de rencontrer le président Yougoslave. L'aide aux FLN algérien s'inscrivait dans la politique de non-alignement de Tito dont un aspect important était la coopération avec les pays musulmans dans le Tiers Mondes, facilité en partie par les liens mis en place entre les pays musulmans et les Musulmans Yougoslaves. Général De Gaule, considérait le sort que Tito avait réservé à général Mihailovic comme inacceptable, et estimait en plus que la fédération yougoslave en tant que telle est une structure étatique plus que fragile.
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- Le sud-est européen et l'Europe
- Depuis l'Antiquité l'histoire de la Péninsule balkanique est jalonnée d'alternances entre clivages culturels ou politiques et synthèses de civilisation: Grèce, Rome, Byzance, Empire ottoman. Ce qui a créé une superposition de nuances et de différenciations ethniques et nationales selon les lignes de partage confessionnelles et culturelles, idéologiques et politiques. La rémanence de ces lignes de partage, issues en partie du Moyen Age, et qui ne cessent de se démultiplier depuis le XIXe siècle, fait que les Balkans oscillent de nos jours entre adhésion aux processus d'intégration euro-atlantiques et processus de désintégrations successives sur la base des singularisassions communautaires et de pulsions identitaires. Menace majeure de la stabilité européenne au XIXe siècle connue à l'époque sous la dénomination de "Question d'Orient", la crise balkanique est depuis la fin du XXe siècle une zone d'ombre sur la toile d'intégration européenne. Les redoutables difficultés à gérer cette crise désormais redevenue chronique, font que les Balkans, indépendamment ou non de toutes autres contradictions euro-atlantiques, apparaissent comme un espace crucial au sein duquel la future Grande Europe joue tout ou partie de son avenir
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- Legal-sociological researches about tribes in Montenegro and Albania by Valtazar Bogišić
- Valtazar Bogišić (1834–1908) is primarily known as a codifier of civil law in Montenegro, i. e. as the author of the Codex of the Civil Proprietary Law for the Principality/Kingdom of Montenegro from 1888. He was preparing this codex according to the request of Prince Nikola of Montenegro and the order of the Russian government because he was a professor at the University of Odessa. Born in close neighbourhood of Montenegro (in Cavtat, near Dubrovnik) educated in Venice, Vienna, Gussen and Paris, Bogišić studied common law and legal history of Slavonic peoples. He commenced his studies while he was working in Austro-Hungary (1863–1869), particularly in Vienna and southern parts of Hungary (Banat). When Bogišić came in Montenegro 1873, he commenced preparing material for his codex, especially on the basis of the voluminous questionnaire (about 2000 questions), which he completed up to the end of that year. One of informers was Marko Miljanov Popović (1833–1901), the leader of the Kuchi tribe (partially with an Albanian etnolinguistic component), at the border of Montenegro and Albania. He was also well acquainted with the common law of neighbouring tribes of Grude, Hoti i Kastrati, who respected him very much. In this way Bogišić came to know considerably common law of these tribes, primarily in the sphere of civil law relationships. He carefully compared these norms of common law with the similar norms in Montenegro and Herzegovina. Bogišić incorporated the common law into the Codex of the Civil Proprietary Law for the Principality/Kingdom of Montenegro. That's way his researches in common law had a very practical character. At the same time gathering these traditional legal norms, Bogišić got acquainted more deeply with the structure of the traditional tribal society in Montenegro Herzegovina and the northern Albania. This took place in the time when this type of traditional organization of the society was very alive. Bogišić was interested in common law in Montenegro and northern Albania after his codex went into effect in 1888. As the minister of justice of Montenegro (1893–1899), Bogišić observed the tribal life in Montenegro from a sociologic point of view. He collected a very precious material, but did not finish a written study. He endeavoured to discover the codex of the common law of Albanians known as Leka Dukadyin's Law (Albanian: Kanuni i Lekё Dukagjinit). At that time Bogišić was acquainted with the texts on Leka Dukadyin's Law already published in Shkodra and Brussels, but he wished to have the whole text of this codex. In this purpose he gave instructions to the local officers in the parts of Montenegro bordering to Albania and therefore he traveled to Shkodra. He found out that there was no written codex under this name, in spite of the fact that it had been applied as an oral common law a long time. After a lot of Bogišić's instructions an officer from Podgorica named Jovan Lazović managed to write down some codex provisions obtained from the leader of the Grude tribe - Sokol Baci. It was the first larger record of the Leka Dukadyin's Law, published later in Serbia. In this way a basis for the further studies on common law was found. This material gave a more complete ethnographic picture of the tribal society. It took place before the researchers of tribes in Montenegro and Albania appeared. Bogišić's studies served as a basis for other researches on common law and traditional society in the Balkans during the second half of the 20th century, both for the researches from former Yugoslavia and those from Albania. Namely, Bogišić's studies and material he gathered (now mostly located in his archive in Cavtat) have been published more and more and have become more and more valuable nowadays.
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- Les buts de guerre alliés et leur soutien aux nationalités opprimées
- La défaite italienne à Caporetto et la révolution bolchevique ont obligés les Alliés à modifier leurs buts de guerre, voire de tenter d'affaiblir le camp adverse par une paix séparée avec l'Autriche-Hongrie. Les Alliées anglo-saxons notamment voulaient ainsi prévenir la prolongation de la guerre, mais les différents pourparlers avec les représentants de la Double Monarchie n'ont pas aboutis car les Alliés voulaient une paix séparée et l'empereur Charles une paix générale. La France était résolument contre toute solution autre celle qui se soldera par une défaite de l'Allemagne et le retour de l'Alsace-Loraine au sein de la République. C'est pourquoi le gouvernement Clemenceau voulait affaiblir le camp adverse en y provoquant des troubles intérieures en apportant le soutien allié aux nationalités vivant dans l'Autriche-Hongrie. Les revendications nationales des Tchécoslovaques, des Polonais, et jusqu'au certain point, même des Yougoslaves ont été à partir du mai 1918 officiellement reconnues.
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- Liberal and Conservative Political Thought in Nineteenth-century Serbia. Vladimir Jovanović and Slobodan Jovanović
- Two very influential political philosophers and politicians, Vladimir Jovanović and Slobodan Jovanović, differed considerably in political theory. The father, Vladimir, offered an Enlightenment-inspired rationalist critique of the traditional values underpinning his upbringing. The son, Slobodan, having had a non-traditional, liberal upbringing, gradually-through analyzing and criticizing the epoch's prevailing ideas, scientism, positivism and materialism-came up with his own synthesis of traditional and liberal, state and liberty, general and individual. Unlike Vladimir Jovanović, who advocated popular sovereignty, central to the political thought of his son Slobodan was the concept of the state. On the other hand, Slobodan shared his father's conviction that a bicameral system was a prerequisite for the protection of individual liberties and for good governance. Political views based on different political philosophies decisively influenced different understandings of parliamentarianism in nineteenth-century Serbia, which in turn had a direct impact on the domestic political scene and the manner of government.
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- Manche überlegungen zur romanisierung der skordisker
- Im Text werden manche Aspekte der Romanisierung der Skordisker besprochen. Änderungen, zu denen es nach der römischen Okkupation gekommen ist, spiegeln sich sowohl in materieller (Siedlungs- und Münzwesen Tongefäße- und Öllampenproduktion usw), als auch in geistiger Kultur (Bestattungssitten, Kult und Onomastik) wieder
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- Nomadic Pastoralism in the Early Bronze Age of the Central Balkans Evaluation of Background Knowledge
- The aim of the paper is to examine background knowledge about the organizational properties of mobile pastoral groups in order to assess the likelihood of the existence of pastoral nomads in the Early Bronze Age in the central Balkans. The patterning found by A. L. Johnson (2002) is taken as a point of departure for the cross-cultural analysis conducted in this study. Johnson's findings are in the main corroborated. Acquired knowledge about the workings of pastoral societies suggests that highly mobile pastoral groups should not be expected in the Early Bronze Age of the central Balkans.
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- On tabooization of mouse name in Central Balkans
- Obredne radnje u cilju zaštite od miševa poznate su praktično svim kulturama, a u pojedinim oblastima, koje su mogle u većoj meri da budu izložene najezdi glodara, može se očekivati i šira zastupljenost „mišje obrednosti“. Jednu od takvih zona predstavlja centralni Balkan, na kojem srećemo uočljive dokaze izrazitije kultne uloge miša - postojanje osobenih mišjih praznika i tabuizacije naziva miša, što bi moglo da ukazuje na to da njegov kult možda ima dublje, starobalkanske korene.
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- On tracing early Celtic influences in Timocka Krajina
- During 1996, in the systematic excavations carried out on Banjska Stena site, upstream from Gamzigradska Banja, a bronze crossbow zoomorphic fibula was found. It belongs to the type of Early La Tene fibulae having on the upturned foot a knob styled in the form of a hybrid animal, and modeled in the shape of a fish caught in the net, or maybe a fish with a harness. According to research so far, it is thought that the idea for their creation was inspired by the images of dragons represented on the scabbards of Early La Tene swords, as ell as on pottery vessels of the type of tulip shaped tall goblets. In accordance with the concentration of these findings, and bearing in mind their Celtic origin, they can be considered to have originated from south-eastern Pannonia, in the present-day Hungary (Szent Andrea, Liter, Sopron-Becsidombrol), and western Rumania (Pecica). Later on, the distribution of such fibulae spread to Posavina (Donja Dolina), as well as to Serbian Podunavlje (the Danube valley) – Viminacium. However, although the finding from Banjska Stena is the most eastern one (Timočka Krajina) from the centre of their origin, it can be given absolute chronological primacy within this type of fibulae, due to reat similarities to the fibulae originating in the Celtic culture central area (Val-de-Travers). The fibula from Banjska Stena should be dated into the middle of 4th century, or at the very beginning of the creating of this type of fibulae, whereas others may generally be dated in the second half of 4th entury AD.
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- Political and Social Rivalries in Nineteenth-century Serbia
- The nature of the relationship between the Serbs from Serbia and the Serbs from the Habsburg Monarchy in the nineteenth century is important for understanding the process of national development of the Serbian people as a whole. Therefore the paper analyzes the controversy over Švabe or Nemačkari, as the Serbs from Austria were called, which was one of the factors responsible for internal instability of the Principality of Serbia in the nineteenth century.