“Balkans, hostage to old historical narratives”, German historian: Kosovo an example of rapid transformation

Today’s tensions in the Balkan region stem from 19th century processes – especially the collapse of the Ottoman and Habsburg Empires, says renowned German historian Konrad Clewing. He emphasizes that violent state formation, population movements and interventions by great powers back then created an instability that is often misunderstood by the West even today.

In an interview with The Geopost, the German historian says that the Balkans continue to remain hostage to the Ottoman and Habsburg legacy. While adding that Kosovo is an example of rapid transformation, he underlines that mass emigration poses a challenge in its own right.

Full interview:

The Geopost: From your perspective, which factors have had the strongest influence on the formation of identity in the Balkans during the 19th century?

Clewing: Yeah, that’s of course a long and difficult question to answer shortly. Basically the 19th century was marked by a long -standing and step -by -step and not always consequent development of individual statehoods in the Balkans and of somehow loosening ties to the existing empires. And the two existing empires were the Ottoman Empire in the south and the Habsburg Empire in the north. And in fact, Russia, as you said, came as a third party into Southeastern Europe, at least in its fringes, at the end of the 18th century. So, Russia was really very present. And the other major European powers that were the Habsburg Empire, as already mentioned, Russia, Prussia, then Germany afterwards, and Italy, which came later, and Great Britain and France, had a great influence on the way of things were dealt with.

And It has often been misunderstood in the West, where we researched the Balkans, how much instability, in fact, came into being during this 19th century. So, the people’s lives here, mostly in the Ottoman part or post -Ottoman part of the peninsula, the Balkan Peninsula, had really to struggle and to deal with a number of tremendous turmoils and changes, which could sometimes also be deathly dangerous to parts of the population. For instance in the first state that came fully into being after 10 years of warfare or uprising as you wish was Greece which came into being in 1830 and the relatively small but still important Muslim community there of about 10 % was simply erased by those events and this had also to do with the separation from the Ottoman Empire being a revolutionary act in many respects. So, the land was re-disputed, for instance, from many Muslim, not only, but many Muslim landowners after their being pushed away from their lands or being killed, to other people from the other parts of the population which came into possession of those lands. And we misunderstood in the West often how important that must have been for the people, both those either being threatened or taking advantage of the evolution, because everything was in changing and could represent a danger for your own life, for your family’s life, and so on.

And this was not because the Balkans were close to violence or violence -addicted in any respect, but the Ottoman Empire was weakening, which is also an undeniable fact, and getting actors such as mostly those new nation states and the other major European powers came in to fill the vacuum. So, it was a very turbulent long century and Russia was supporting all the individual state building processes except the Albanian one as the last one. And others were also supportive to many of those nation building processes, other powers. So, it is really a wide spectrum of most interesting aspects.

The Geopost: How do contemporary political narratives in South -Eastern Europe still reflect historical legacies from the Habsburg Empire?

Clewing: Maybe I would broaden the question to Habsburg and Ottoman Empire. To start with the question on Habsburg aspects, I think the northern part of the peninsula has more self -confidence in being on the right side of Europe in a way, of having some kind of a tradition, of a state, of a rule of law inherited by the individual society and something to build upon, be it pride or be it in the field and in the effectiveness of institutions. On the other hand, there is also, be it against the Habsburg and the Ottoman Empire, this legacy of seeing your own society regarding your own history and your own society as coming from an act of liberation of foreign dominance. And this is partly understandable and right in a way, so in the whole process that I tried to describe in my first answer, more people got a saying than those who had a saying before.

So, the participation of the population indeed increased and it was a kind of democratization and of liberation if you want to put it like that way. But the bad side of the legacy and the way of this legacy is dealt with is that the liberation is always put on an individual national basis. and everybody else is seen, not only the old empires, but also your new neighbors as an enemy, which again you might find some reason for it in history, everybody for everybody’s neighbors, but there’s a certain amount of distrust coming from this legacy and from the narrative of liberation that again strengthens the difficulties in developing trust in either your own society or in regional communalities that may exist.

The Geopost: How do you see political, historical and social dynamics in Balkans, especially in our region, in Kosovo?

Clewing: In the current times, mostly, Kosovo is one shining example of a society that has gone through great stress and is now enduring and making rapid changes. So, if you compare the situation in Kosovo with the situation 30 years ago, it is just incredibly how much change has happened. People may now go abroad, most recently with the visa liberation, and the educational system is totally different from 30 years ago or 60 years ago or even 90 years ago when most of the population was illiterate in Kosovo. It is a small piece of a super Vulcan in a way, where you can see how much things can be achieved and how much burdens you have to struggle with. And as all across the Vulcans, one of the basic changes to the worst, I think, is the demographic situation.

There are so many people leaving the country and all the countries around. In the rest of Europe, we have just the same development in demography, but we have earlier changed into some difficulties into societies of immigration and as the Balkans have only very recently started and only the first steps to become immigrant countries and instead are still countries of emigration I see or I understand that many problems are greater than in other parts of Europe.

The Geopost: Is there a historical moment in South -East Europe, especially in the Balkans, that you feel deserves more academic attention than currently researchers know?

Clewing: Well, I would say one structure and one event. And the structure is the similarities and the effects of the close neighborhoods that you have in the Balkans. Each of the countries is very small and all of them have risen from more or less similar bases, without taking into account where those similarities and of course also differences are. And that requires in historiography and in historical science or academic historiographical research, that also requires possibilities to study the languages of the neighbors, which is difficult to offer in small countries where people may have the priority to learn English or German or French or whatsoever. But I think in spite of some hopes I put into artificial intelligence in terms of language accessibility, I think it would still be very important for, let’s say, take the Kosovo example, to have historians that know how to spot and read Serbian topics, and in Serbia, Albanian topics, for instance.

But it’s very hard to find them because the schools don’t take, for understandable reasons, don’t take the needs of humanities as their main aspect, and neither do the pupils in the schools. So obviously you need to do this at the university level, and this really should be done, I think. So, this is the structural element. And one political element that comes into my mind, not only because it’s going to have its 105th anniversary the year after, in 2028 is in fact the congress of Berlin where many of those aspects that I mentioned in my first answer or to you and trying to answer to your first question came together, the foreign influences, but also the strive of the Balkan peoples to decide upon their own fate, and also many misunderstandings in our later times of what happened at this Congress and what this meant. Was it pre -colonial, post -colonial, was it denigrating to individual countries or was it giving hopes to the whole region? All that could be better explored than it has been.

The Geopost: And from new era, from 1999 and during this day, how do you see role of Germany in Balkans, especially in relation with Kosovo?

Clewing: Well, again, as a historian, I would start a little bit earlier, namely in the 1990s. The Balkan policy as a whole, and Kosovo was a very prominent part of the Balkan policy, was a strong factor in redefining what Germany could and should be doing with incorporation and in some cases also in collision, some collision with her European partners or maybe the US, as an independent actor, a relatively independent actor who still wished to maintain multilateral but had to acknowledge that it was and is the biggest European country and economy so it had some responsibility to act and it did act after the experience of how things got wrong in Bosnia. German policies towards Kosovo, not at once after the war in Bosnia, but then relatively rapidly developed into a new positioning where the buzzword was no second Bosnia and therefore, we should be prepared to intervene with partners. And this is what happened in 1999 and Germany became one of the major actors certainly not only on the ground with the Prizren area after the war being under German military administration more or less for a while, but also on the diplomatic field and economic field and cooperation. Germany had taken in many thousands and even 200 thousand, I think, refugees from Kosovo before the war and some of them returned after the Bosnian war to Kosovo, which was no good idea at that moment. But anyway, Germany and Kosovo and the German -speaking world, if one may say so, is now very much linked with Kosovo or vice versa, because so many Kosovars living there. And that makes a whole new surrounding, actually, and should be more effectively be used. I think the diaspora should be more taken in into the picture than it is today.

/The Geopost