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Balkans
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To understand who the peoples of the Balkans are, one must first know which countries make up the Balkans. The countries that make up the Balkans today include Greece, Albania, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Romania, rump Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro), and Bosnia Herzegovina (referred to as Bosnia throughout this text). Geographically, "European Turkey," a small region around Istanbul, is located in the Balkans. Some scholars ... consider Croatia to be part of the Balkans.
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During the Cold War, most of the countries in the Balkans were communist-ruled. However, despite being under communist governments, Yugoslavia (1948) and Albania (1961) fell out with the Soviet Union. Yugoslavia, led by Tito, rejected the Soviet idea of merging with Bulgaria and sought closer relations with the West, later joining many third world countries in the Non-Aligned Movement. Albania on the other hand gravitated toward communist China, later adopting an isolationist position. The only non-communist countries were Greece and Turkey, which were (and still are) part of NATO.
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The term Balkans includes areas that remained under Turkish rule after 1699., namely: Bulgaria, Serbia (except for Vojvodina), Macedonia, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro (except for the Boka Bay and Budva), Kosovo, and continental Greece. Vojvodina and Transylvania (in Romania) do not belong to Balkans. After the split of Yugoslavia beginning in June 1991, the term 'Balkans' again received a negative meaning, even in casual usage. Over the last decade, in the wake of the former Yugoslav split, Slovenians have rejected their former label as 'Balkan nations'. This is in part due to the pejorative connotation of the term 'Balkans' in the 1990s, and continuation of this meaning until now. Today, the term 'Southeast Europe' is preferred or, in the case of Slovenia and Croatia, 'Central Europe'.
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Eastern Front - In the Balkans, Rumania signed an Allied armistice in Moscow on the 12th, by which time its troops were in battle alongside the Russians. The country was almost free of the Germans by the end of the month. From Rumania, the Russians reached the eastern border of Yugoslavia [B]y the 6th and crossed into southern Hungary before September was out. Russia declared war on Bulgaria on the 5th, which in turn declared against Germany three days later as Russian forces crossed into the country near the Black Sea. They entered Sofia on the 16th and at the end of October an armistice was signed with the Allied powers. By then Bulgarian troops were attacking into Yugoslavia with the Russians.
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The identity of the Balkans is dominated by its geographical position; historically the area was known as a crossroads of several cultures. It has been a juncture between the Latin and Greek parts of the Roman Empire. It became an area where Orthodox and Catholic Christianity met, as well as the meeting point between Islam and Christianity. Many Jewish refugees fled here from Inquisition.
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A[G]ain, this is but a sampling of sites and services available, and good commentary on Balkans affairs can often be found elsewhere. Point is, the publishing opportunities of the Web make it possible to hear voices that would otherwise be silenced by the apparatus of officialdom. It is certainly much harder to deceive people when they can look up the links and see the source material for themselves. So, while the public opinion is still swayed by the Powers That Be, that grip weakens daily.
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