The Myth of an Allied Landing in the Balkans during the Second World War (with particular reference to Yugoslavia)

In a journalistic career which spanned seven decades, Henry Noel Brailsford devoted a considerable part of his writing to Russian affairs and to the relations of the British and Russian peoples. In scores of articles and in two books based on first-hand observations, he helped to mold Western attitudes — especially of those on the political Left — to the often maligned, frequently enigmatic giant of the East. Few English journalists in the twentieth century could match the knowledge, personal contacts, and audience of a man who published several articles a week from the late 1890s to the early 1950s for a host of papers, including, to name the most important, the Manchester Guardian, the Speaker, the Daily News, the Nation, the Herald, the New Republic, the New Leader, Reynolds News, and the New Statesman. While Brailsford's field of competence encompassed the whole range of international and imperial affairs, he was preoccupied with the Balkans, with Russia, and with India, and of these only Russia commanded his attention throughout his life. The Balkan question belongs to the years before World War I, India to the 1930s and 1940s, but Russia remained of consuming interest from the revolution of 1905 until after the Second World War.

Download Full-text

Japanese economic interests in Siberia, 1962–70

Polar Record ◽

10.1017/s0032247400061799 ◽

1971 ◽

Vol 15 (98) ◽

pp. 691-698

Author(s):

David Judd

Keyword(s):

Northern China ◽

Second World War ◽

Eastern Siberia ◽

World War ◽

Economic Interests ◽

The Balkans ◽

The Past ◽

The Pacific ◽

Second World

The eastern marches of Asia have been the Balkans of the Orient for at least a century, in which Japan, China, and Russia have striven for dominance along the Pacific littoral from Korea to Kamchatka. During and after the Second World War, eastern Siberia remained in a state of comparative truce but, in the last decade, the far reaches of Siberia, Mongolia and northern China have again become the focus of conflict. The recent negotiations between the USSR and Japan for joint commercial ventures in Siberia must be seen against the backdrop of this history, because they represent, in many ways, a continuation of national fears and motives inherited from the past.

Download Full-text

British foreign policy towards Greece during the second world war 1940-1945

10.12681/eadd/3989 ◽

1978 ◽

Author(s):

Προκόπιος Παπαστρατής

Keyword(s):

Negative Attitude ◽

Second World War ◽

National Government ◽

Left Wing ◽

World War ◽

The Balkans ◽

Resistance Movements ◽

British Foreign Policy ◽

The Government ◽

Second World

Britain became increasingly involved in Greek affairs as a result of the outbreak of the Second World War and the Italian attack on Greece. The British failed in their efforts to form a Balkan front in order to forestall the Germans but nevertheless they decided to send a small Expeditionary Force to Greece. This however did not prevent the Germans from overrunning the country. The King and his Government after an initial stay in Egypt moved to London, but were finally established in Cairo in the spring of 1943. In the meantime the Government was twice reconstructed, the last time as a result of a left-wing mutiny in the army which brought venizelist politicians in the Cabinet. The British Government recognised and supported the King and his Government as legally reprenting Greece. At the same time they were well aware that the King and his Government were unpopular to the Greek people and to,the most important of the resistance movements, the left-wing EAM/ELAS; the British feared that EAM/ELAS would seize power in Greece at the time of liberation. The changing political and military situation in Greece and the Balkans towards the end of 1943 prompted the British to readjust their policy towards Greece without,however, abandoning its basic principle. After failing in this,due to the negative attitude of the King, the British attention was focused on the formation of a National Government while a serious army crisis in April 1944 resulted in the resignation of the Tsouderos Government. The National Government under Papandreou was formed early in the summer after the conclusion of the Lebanon Conference. EAM decided to participate in the Government in August. At the same time the Government moved to Italy where at Caserta it was agreed that ELAS and EDES would come under the orders of General Scobie, the Commander of the British forces which would be send to Greece. Athens was liberated ôn October 12, 1944 and the Greek Government moved in a few days later.

Download Full-text

The fate of missing persons and the state's possibilities in resolving this issue

Megatrend revija ◽

10.5937/megrev2102155m ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 18 (2) ◽

pp. 155-172

Author(s):

Marko Milović ◽

Ljiljana Krstić

Keyword(s):

Second World War ◽

The State ◽

Former Yugoslavia ◽

World War ◽

The Balkans ◽

Missing Persons ◽

Second World ◽

Standing Problem

The issue of the fate of missing persons is a painful topic for many families who, even after so many years, even decades, know nothing about their loved ones, and for the state a long-standing problem that cannot be solved by objective reasons alone. As time goes on, it is certain that there is less and less hope to find out where the missing persons were buried and possibly how they died. The paper points out the genesis of this issue, which is somehow very characteristic of the Balkans and which has its roots in decades. It is known that many families did not heal their wounds and overcome the losses of their relatives even from the Second World War, and new tragedies and new wounds of the 1990s on the same issue have already arrived. It was pointed out how many missing persons and graves there are today throughout the former Yugoslavia, and especially the obstruction by the leaders of some states that have been created in the meantime, including the temporary institutions of self-government in AP Kosovo and Metohija, which prevent solve.

Download Full-text

Bosnia and Herzegovina in Serbian cultural club concepts

Historijski pogledi ◽

10.52259/historijskipogledi.2020.3.4.108 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 3 (4) ◽

pp. 108-132

Author(s):

Osman Sušić ◽

Keyword(s):

Bosnia And Herzegovina ◽

Second World War ◽

World War ◽

Entire Area ◽

The Balkans ◽

Starting Point ◽

The Government ◽

The Right ◽

Banja Luka ◽

Second World

This paper covers the period from 1937 to 1945, the period of the establishment and works of the Serbian Cultural Club. The paper will discuss the political circumstances in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in wich Serbian Cultural Club was founded, as well as the program goals and its activities in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Special emphasis will be put on the period of the Second World War in the Bosnia and Herzegovina and the former common state and the activities of the Serbian Cultural Club in the Second World War. The work and achievement of the program goals of the Serbian Cultural Club in the Second World War will be presented through the work of the Exile Government in London and the activities of the Chetniks Movement in the Bosnia and Herzegovina and the former common state. The Serbian Cultural Club was formed as a form of political association and activity, which included politicians, public workers, scientists, members of various political organizations, representatives of state and parastate bodies and organizations, under the slogan "Serbs for Reunion". The club acted as a unique and homogeneous organization, regardless of the composition of the membership, with the goal of saving Serbia and Serbs. This most clearly expressed his overall activity, composition and degree of influence on state policy. The most important issues of state or Serbian nationalist policy for the interest of the Government were discussed in the Club, so the club had an extensive network of boards and several media. Professor and Rector of the University of Belgrade, Dr. Slobodan Jovanović, was elected the first president of the Serbian Cultural Club. He was the ideological creator of this organization (and he set out the basic tasks and goals of the Club). The vice presidents were Dr. Nikola Stojanović and Dr. Dragiša Vasić, and Dr. Vasa Čubrilović the secretary. Dr. Stevan Moljevic was the president of the board of the Serbian Cultural Club for the Bosnian Krajina, based in Banja Luka. According to Dinić, the initiative for the formation of the Serbian Cultural Club was given by Bosnian-Herzegovinian Serbs Dr. Nikola Stojanović, Dr. Vladimir Čorović, Dr. Vladimir Grčić and Dr. Slobodan Jovanović. The activities of the Serbian Cultural Club can be divided into two stages. The first from its founding in 1936 until the signing of the Cvetković-Maček agreement, and the second from 1939 to 1941. The program of the Serbian Cultural Club was a sum of Greater Serbia programs of all major political parties that operated in Serbia with the help of state institutions. The goals of the Serbian Cultural Club were mainly: expansionist policy of expanding Serbian rule to neighboring areas, denying the national identity of all other Yugoslav nations and exercising the right to self-determination. The program goals of the Serbian Cultural Club were to propagate Greater Serbian ideology. With its program about Greater Serbia and its activities, the Serbian Cultural Club has become the bearer of the most extreme Serbian nationalist aspirations. After the Cvetković-Maček agreement of August 1939, the Serbian Cultural Club demanded a revision of the agreement, calling for a Serbo-Croatian agreement based on ethnic, historical or economic-geographical principles. The adoption of one of these principles was to apply to the entire area inhabited by Serbs. The subcommittees of the Serbian Cultural Club in Bosnia and Herzegovina had the primary task of working to emphasize its Serbian character, and after the Cvetkovic-Macek agreement to form awareness that the whole of Bosnia and Herzegovina should enter the Serbian territorial unit. With the prominent slogan "Wherever there are Serbs - there is Serbia", the Serbs in Bosnia and Herzegovina were marked as the "vigilant guardian of the Serbian national consciousness". The leadership and most of the members of the Serbian Cultural Club joined the Chetnik movement as Draža Mihailović's national ideologues. The policy of the militant Greater Serbia program and Serbian nationalism of the Serbian Cultural Club was accepted as the program of Draža Mihailović's Chetnik movement. Some of Draža Mihailović's most important associates belonged to the Serbian Cultural Club. The main political goals of the Chetnik movement are formulated in several program documents. The starting point in them was the idea of a "Greater and Homogeneous Serbia", which was based on the idea that Serbs should be the leading nation in the Balkans.

Download Full-text

Living in the Age of Axis Internationalism: Imagining Europe in Serbia Before and During the Second World War

European History Quarterly ◽

10.1177/0265691417743621 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 48 (1) ◽

pp. 61-91 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Ana Antić

Keyword(s):

World War Ii ◽

Second World War ◽

World War ◽

The Balkans ◽

Nazi Occupation ◽

European Culture ◽

Local Actors ◽

Second World

This article explores how ‘European civilization’ was imagined on the margins of Europe in the first half of the twentieth century, and how Balkan intellectuals saw their own societies’ place in it in the context of interwar crises and World War II occupation. It traces the interwar development and wartime transformation of the intellectual debates regarding the modernization of Serbia/Yugoslavia, the role of the Balkans in the broader European culture, and the most appropriate path to becoming a member of the ‘European family of nations’. In the first half of the article, I focus on the interwar Serbian intelligentsia, and their discussions of various forms of international cultural, political and civilizational links and settings. These discussions centrally addressed the issue of Yugoslavia’s (and Serbia’s) ‘Europeanness’ and cultural identity in the context of the East–West symbolic and the state’s complex cultural-historical legacies. Such debates demonstrated how frustrating the goal of Westernization and Europeanization turned out to be for Serbian intellectuals. After exploring the conundrums and seemingly insoluble contradictions of interwar modernization/Europeanization discussions, the article then goes on to analyse the dramatic changes in such intellectual outlooks after 1941, asking how Europe and European cultural/political integration were imagined in occupied Serbia, and whether the realities of the occupation could accommodate these earlier debates. Serbia can provide an excellent case study for exploring how the brutal Nazi occupation policies affected collaborationist governments, and how the latter tried to make sense of their troubled inclusion in the racial ideology of the New European Order under the German leadership. Was Germany’s propaganda regarding European camaraderie taken seriously by any of the local actors? What did the Third Reich’s dubious internationalism mean in the east and south-east of Europe, and did it have anything to offer to the intelligentsia as well as the population at large?

Download Full-text

THE ‘MUSLIM QUESTION’ IN HITLER'S BALKANS

The Historical Journal ◽

10.1017/s0018246x13000204 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 56 (4) ◽

pp. 1007-1039 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

DAVID MOTADEL

Keyword(s):

Second World War ◽

Religious Leaders ◽

World War ◽

Muslim Population ◽

Military Conflict ◽

The Balkans ◽

Politics Of Religion ◽

History Of ◽

South Eastern Europe ◽

Second World

ABSTRACTThis article examines Germany's efforts to instrumentalize Islam in the Balkans during the Second World War. As German troops became more involved in the region from early 1943 onwards, German officials began to engage with the Muslim population, promoting Germany as the protector of Islam in south-eastern Europe. Focusing on Bosnia, Herzegovina, and the Sandžak of Novi Pazar, the article explores the relations between German authorities and religious leaders on the ground and enquires into the ways in which German propagandists sought to employ religious rhetoric, terminology, and iconography for political and military ends. Interweaving religious history with the history of military conflict, the article contributes more generally to our understanding of the politics of religion in the Second World War.

Download Full-text

DEGENERATING DISCURSIVE ATTEMPTS IN THE BALKANS TO ALTER THE LEGAL DEFINITION AND CONTENT OF THE CONCEPT OF GENOCIDE

10.31219/osf.io/dpqs4 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Teoman Ertuğrul Tulun

Keyword(s):

United Nations ◽

International Crime ◽

Second World War ◽

General Assembly ◽

Genocide Convention ◽

Legal Basis ◽

World War ◽

The Balkans ◽

Legal Definition ◽

Second World

Raphael Lemkin, a Polish lawyer of Jewish ancestry, coined the term of genocide in 1944. The period in which Lemkin coined the term coincides with the Second World War. He started to write his most significant work, Axis Rule in Occupied Europe, in 1942. He formulated his work in Nazi Germany's and other Axis Power's occupation policy especially in Poland and the Soviet Union. Lemkin's central insight was to deduce from these occupation regulations that the Germans intended to reorganize Europe along racial lines, which would entail mass murder and the suppression of other cultures. Lemkin modified his initial proposals on genocide formulated in the Axis Rule in Occupied Europe and advocated that the newly formed United Nations should sponsor a treaty to prevent genocide and use its machinery to enforce it. On December 11, 1946, one year after the final armistice, the UN General Assembly unanimously passed a resolution which stressed that "The punishment of the crime of genocide is a matter of international concern."In the ensuing period, The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Genocide Convention) was adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations on 9 December 1948. According to the Genocide Convention, genocide is a crime that can take place both in times of war and in the time of peace. The concept of genocide, which Lemkin brought to the agenda and tried to make it an international crime, was fully established on a legal basis by adopting the legally binding Genocide Convention. The Genocide Convention should not be eroded, and the term genocide, which has a strict legal definition, should not be used randomly. Recently statements were made that will erode the genocide convention, especially in the Balkans. Statements by the President of Croatia, Zoran Milanovic, downplaying the Srebrenica Genocide are example. Speaking to the press in the city of Komija on the Croatian island of Vis, Milanovic, answering a question on whether he considered Srebrenica a genocide, recently said the following: "I say yes, but then for some more serious crimes, we have to invent another name. I respect other people's sacrifices, but not everything is the same. If everything is genocide, we will have to find another name for what the Nazis and the German machinery did to the Jews in the Second World War. It is the Holocaust, but it is also genocide. Not every victim is the same, it is relativization.'' Considering that certain EU countries have been recently bringing up revisionist views and suggestions regarding the Balkans, we cannot ignore the possibility that Milanovic will jump on the bandwagon of producing "brilliant" ideas. In this context, it suffices to recall the Slovenian Prime Minister's plan (as the Slovenian EU presidency) to dismember Bosnia and Herzegovina, reorganize the borders of Croatia, Serbia, Albania, and Kosovo..The statements of Milanovic in this respect are also noteworthy in that they seriously question the current legal basis and framework of the crime of genocide.These statements will inevitably have repercussions both in the Balkans and internationally. It should be noted that any misuse of the term genocide based on shallow political interests will constitute an utter disservice to the fundamental principles of maintaining international peace, security, and stability as enshrined in the UN Charter. In terms of the Balkans, as mentioned above, it is noteworthy that revisionist discourses have recently come from countries such as Slovenia and Croatia, which are both NATO and EU members. It is disappointing that these countries, instead of playing a role that strengthens security and stability in the Balkans, play a role that disrupts security and stability. Member states of these influential international and supranational organizations are naturally expected to be much more careful in ensuring and maintaining security and stability in the Balkans. If there is a danger of fire in an area, instead of throwing flammable materials into the area, it is necessary to try to prevent the fire hazard. As AVİM, we hope that rhetoric and policies to the contrary will not be accepted in both NATO and the EU.

Download Full-text