This highly readable and thoroughly researched volume offers an
excellent account of the development of seven Balkan peoples during the
nineteenth and the first part of the twentieth centuries. Professors
Charles and Barbara Jelavich have brought their rich knowledge of the
Albanians, Bulgarians, Croatians, Greeks, Romanians, Serbians, and
Slovenes to bear on every aspect of the area's history--political,
diplomatic, economic, social and cultural.
It took more than a century after the first Balkan uprising, that of the
Serbians in 1804, for the Balkan people to free themselves from Ottoman
and Habsburg rule. The Serbians and the Greeks were the first to do so;
the Albanians, the Croatians, and the Slovenes the last. For each people
the national revival took its own form and independence was achieved in
its own way. The authors explore the contrasts and similarities among
the peoples, within the context of the Ottoman Empire and Europe.