Ethnic Cleansing in the Balkans looks at the phenomenon of ethnic cleansing in the Balkans over the last two hundred years. It argues that the events of the last two hundred years can be demystified, that the South East of Europe was not destined to become violent and that constructions of the Balkans as endemically violent misses a important political point and historical point.
This book claims that ethnic cleansing is a problem that is linked to nationalism rather than being restricted to the Balkans. As nationalism spread from Central Europe to the Ottoman regions of Europe, national ideologies replaced the older religious and political affiliations. Muslims came to be regarded as potentially disloyal minorities in Bosnia and elsewhere. In addition, national divisions harking back to the Middle Ages divided the other ethnic groups who became increasingly mutually antagonistic eventually leading to minorities being persecuted and driven out, with many victims mistreated and murdered in a demonstrably cruel fashion. At the beginning of the twenty first century, there are very few multiethnic regions left in South Eastern Europe and large diaspora communities of ethnically cleansed peoples.
Carmichael provides an account of ethnic cleansing in the Balkans as a single historical phenomenon and brings together a vast array of primary and secondary sources to produce a concise and accessible argument. This book will be of interest to students and researchers of European studies, history and comparative politics.