Balkans. Outskirts of Empires

The Balkans have always been and remain incomprehensible to the European mind to mythological space. Ancient civilization was born here, in the Middle Ages there were and died the Greek-Slavic principalities and kingdoms, Byzantium stood on the guard of Europe for a thousand years until the Ottoman avalanche absorbed it. The idea of ​​uniting the Southern Slavs fought here for centuries, on the outskirts of the great empires, with the concepts of the independent state development of each nation. The main civilization seams and faults of the Old World came together in the Balkans: the western and eastern Christian rites opposed Islamic and tried to coexist with him, the Slavic world was looking for mutual understanding with the Turkic, German, Albanian, and Hungarian. For three centuries, Russia defended its own interests in the Balkans.
In his new book, Andrei Shary, a famous writer and journalist, writes about the old and young Balkan states related to each other with a common historical fate, close cooperation and centuries -old experience of coexistence, but also divided, torn by eternal internecine contradictions. The publication is perfectly illustrated - reproductions of paintings, drawings, postcards and photographs make it possible to see the Balkans, their inhabitants, life, heroes and antiheroes through the eyes of contemporaries. The headings “Children of the Balkans” and “Balkan stories” complement the main text with little -known information, and epigraphs for chapters without exaggeration can be called a brief encyclopedia of world literature on the Balkans