Intro: A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts.

Content: Consider the former Yugoslavia geographically. It runs from northwest to southeast along the Adriatic Sea across from Italy. A line bisects this region, a line that had its origins during the reign of Roman Emperor Constantine.

In the northwestern quadrant were Slovenes, Dalmatians, and Croats, with Croatia dominating. In the southeast the Serbians tended to dominate an ethnic mix that included Macedonians, Montenegrins, and Albanians. The Northwest was Roman Catholic and under European influence. The southeast was generally Eastern Orthodox in religion and after the twelfth century came under the control of the Ottoman Empire. By A.D. 1000 the Croats and Serbs had established powerful states in their respective regions but gradually outside forces cut off their independence. The Ottoman Empire gained a foothold on the European mainland in 1354, but its subsequent effort to digest the nations of the Balkans was not an easy one. Often the threat of the Turkish advance was enough to force the fractious Slavic clans to unite. At other times enterprising local chieftains would ally themselves with the Turks in order to retain a measure of independence. A combined force of Serbs, Bosnians, and Bulgarians inflicted a heavy defeat on the Turks at the Battle of Plocnik in 1337, but shortly thereafter, the Bulgarian Czar Ivan Shishman abandoned his Slavic partners and accepted the rule of the Turkish empire. This set the stage for one of the most tragic events in Balkan history and one that retains a powerful emotional pull even today. Next time: the Battle of Kosovo.

The Producer of A Moment in Time is Steve Clark. At the University of Richmond, this is Dan Roberts. Resources

Doder, Dusko. "Yugoslavia: New War, Old Hatreds," Foreign Policy (31, Summer, 1993), 3-33.

Dragnich, Alex N. and Slavko Todorovich. The Saga of Kosovo. New York: Columbia University Press, 1984.

Misha, Glenny. The Fall of Yugoslavia. New York: Penguin Books, 1992.

Moodie, Michael. "The Balkan Tragedy," Annals, The American Association of Politics and Social Science (541, September, 1995), 101-115.

Copyright 2002 by Dan Roberts Enterprises, LLC