A Report on the Center for Historical Studies’ Lecture by Dr. Mark Mazower
Jason R. Koepke
On September 19, 2000 the Center for Historical Studies launched its third year of existence (first year of activities) with its first lecture of the 2000-2001 series. The lecture was given by Dr. Mark Mazower, faculty member at the University of London and author of the well-reviewed book Dark Continent: Europe’s Twentieth Century (Random House, $16). His speech, “The Roots of War and Peace in the Balkans: An Historical Perspective,” while excellently delivered and making us, as Dr. Lampe declared, “pleased as punch,” ought to have been entitled, “The Myths of Violence in the Balkans.”
By using the three main “myths” for Balkan violence, Mazower presents an outline that not only explains that the Balkans are not violent “creatures” but also that there is hope for peace and stability in the future. The first “excuse” he presented for the horrific events that mark the region’s recent history is the “it is our (the Great Powers) fault” scenario; this is the revisionist’s argument. It suggests that the Great Powers intervened too often and too much without a clear and long-term plan. Mazower’s reaction to this “alibi for the politicians” is that the Great Powers were attempting to deal with “the sick man of Europe,” the declining Ottoman Empire, in an effort to maintain some sort of stability in the region. Mazower suggested that the decline of the Ottoman Empire had much more to do with the ideas born out of the French Revolution than any intentionally harmful actions by the Great Powers.
An example he used to counter this “irresponsible poking around” by the Great Powers was the historically reoccurring appeal by Serbs for Russian assistance, both morally and militarily (1806 and 1999 are two specific cases), thus illustrating that often times it was the Balkan people who requested. Mazower points out that this is typical of many of the Great Power interventions and notes the similarity between these incidences and the behavior of the UCK (Kosovo Liberation Army). They recognized the need for Great Power (read as Superpower) support in order to further their aims at establishing an autonomous Kosovo within a Yugoslav federal structure (or a completely independent Kosovo) and in the end successfully allied themselves with powerful international actors.
The second excuse for Balkan violence shifts the blame from the Great Powers, as discussed above, to the Balkan people themselves. In other words, these people are not capable of getting along. While it is true that "massacre and counter-massacre" have marred the past century in the region, it would be mistaken to interpret this violence as unique to Eastern Europe. In Western Europe, the past four hundred years have seen many border adjustments, which have often involved violence. Since the acceptance of liberalism in Western Europe, the shadow of cruelty has been cast upon the Balkans, who have only recently been able to fully experience liberalism.
At this point Mazower began a tangential critique regarding western standards of cruelty, and while he did have a valid point, his supporting analysis was weak and thin. He argued that an analysis of prison statistics, execution numbers, and problems stemming from alcoholism would transform the Balkans into a beacon of hope for the West because their numbers are so much smaller. To me, his application of these statistics is questionable and more importantly, they fail to take into account the terrible events such as the gruesome massacres in Yugoslavia during and after World War II, Romanian policies under Ceausescu, and rampant government corruption. Additionally, he gives a historically optimistic assessment of the Yugoslav past as a relatively stable and ethnically mixed area that enjoyed religious freedom. I, and some other audience members, questioned the degree of happiness and freedom that those under the Ottoman Empire enjoyed. Debates have occurred and will continue to occur over this question, but the fact remains, there was peaceful coexistence and therefore, peaceful coexistence in the future is possible. The broader, more important, and less debatable point, is that the Balkans have been developing the ideas and institutions necessary to make the shift to liberal democracy, albeit slower than the rest of Europe. The beginning of the acceptance of liberalism within the region is the foundation for Mazower’s optimism for the region.
Related to but somewhat different to blaming the Balkan people for the violence is the last “excuse,” which is that the violent culture is a result of a primeval ethnic hatred for each other. As with most arguments supporting some sort of primeval ethnic hatred, it is dismissed easily by pointing out that violence in the area has not been occurring since the dawn of time, but primarily over the last one hundred years. Instead of some inherent quality in the people of this region, “the massacres that have happened were organized efforts to defeat cultures or nations that did not live [one group’s particular] way.”
The future for ending such efforts in the Balkans has some hurdles, most notably Kosovo and Bosnia-Herzegovina, but it looks increasingly hopeful. With Milosovic’s aggressiveness in Kosovo, an understanding that war is not necessarily a guarantee of national strength and instead can bankrupt a nation has been established, the Balkans may be entering into the latest stage of “Western enlightenment,” that of collective security and humanitarianism. Mazower’s presentation did an excellent job at making those people in the Balkans more human, more understandable, and illustrated that they are on their way, albeit slowly and bumpily, to the peace and stability that characterizes Western “civilization.”