Balkans into Southeastern Europe: A Century of War and Transition by John R. Lampe (review)

Abstract

580 SEER, 86, 3, JULY 2008 For Yavuz, European integration and identitybuilding is a 'process of the imagination' (p. 250). It remains to be seen to what extent the nations of Europe, especially those recently liberated from Soviet imperialism, will conform to the aspirations of Islamists and their fellow travellers. Zurich John Eibner Lampe, John R. Balkans intoSoutheastern Europe: A Centuryof War and Transi tion. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke and New York, 2006. x + 338 pp. Maps. Tables. Notes. Select bibliography. Index. ?16.99 (paperback). The Balkans, in popular narrative as well as in scholarly literature, are regarded as inmany ways different from the rest of Europe. Yet Balkan political and intellectual elites have always regarded themselves as European and endeavoured, in the past two centuries, to make their countries a part of Europe too. In thisbook, John R. Lampe, an eminent economic historian of the Balkans, maps both their endeavours and the formidable obstacles they faced. The EU's opening of its membership to all Balkan countries promises, in his view, a happy ending to that centuries-long endeavour. The Balkans are a mountainous and, in consequence, a sparsely populated region with relatively littlearable land and rather limitedmineral deposits. Until the mid-nineteenth century it formed the borderlands of the multi national Ottoman and Habsburg empires. Since then a growing number of nation-states were created on the Western European model. In the last century the region experienced three large scale inter-state and two intra-state wars (inGreece and Yugoslavia) which had led tohuge human losses, destruc tion of its fledgling industrial infrastructureand unprecedented displacement and migration of populations. In spite of these structural and man-made obstacles, the political leaders in Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, Yugoslavia and, to a much lesser extent, Albania succeeded, according to Lampe, in creating more or less modern European states which, on the eve ofWorld War II, retained a surprising degree of independence from theGreat Powers. France and Britain were of littlehelp in their state-building since each pursued its own strategic ends and was unwill ing or unable to offer to them adequate financial support or trade benefits. The imposition of Communist regimes in the last four countries, following World War II, brought unprecedented political repression but converted, for the first time, most of their peasant populations into urban dwellers and eliminated large pockets of illiteracy.The latest transition fromCommunism to liberal democracy and freemarket (the third transition in the past cen tury), supported by unprecedented financial aid and investment from theEU, promises finally to transformall seven independent states (and, eventually, the two international protectorates inBosnia and Kosovo) into stablemulti-party liberal democracies. According to Lampe, in contrast to the neglect Europe showed in the past, '[F]or the newly expanded European Union, however, Southeastern Europe now holds center stage' (p. 293). reviews 581 Lampe thus presents a plausible and coherent argument, rich indetail and supported with well-chosen and well-presented economic data, in support of the view that the Balkans, in their development and ultimate destination ? the EU ? do not significantly differ from the rest of Europe. But the evidence he provides also suggests that the Balkans stillare the borderland of Europe. The emergence, in the last century, of nine nation-states in the region did not improve theirposition in relation to the rest of Europe: the Balkans was Europe's borderland in the past too. In view of the lack of natural and human resources, this is perhaps not so surprising. But if so, the efforts of the Balkan political and intellectual elites to create their own nation-states on the European model, however understandable, appear to have been deeply misguided. Having a nation-state, however liberal democratic and market oriented it is, may not be enough to extricate one's nation from the margins ofEurope; themembership of theEU, ifand when it isgranted, will probably not be enough either. Nonetheless, true to his commitment to liberal democratic values, Lampe openly condemns any significant departure from the liberal democratic standards by the inter-war royal and by recent post-Communist regimes in the Balkans. Yet the handing over, in 1945, of the four Balkan countries to Soviet control and the support...