Professor Ilchev, considering your professional interests and historical expertise, we would appreciate it if you could share your perspective on certain historical issues and processes which, nevertheless, remain highly relevant in the contemporary context. In recent times, there has been renewed discourse on the external influences shaping local Balkan politics, the persistent division between East and West, and the central role of the Balkans and their states within certain global dynamics. In this regard, it would be particularly interesting to revisit the past and examine how the major geopolitical actors of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries perceived the Balkans and pursued their policies in the region. Can we identify commonalities in the methods and instruments they employed to implement specific policies or to secure influence?
I have always believed that whenever we speak of the Balkans—or even of Bulgaria alone—it is extremely useful to consult a map of the world and reflect on the actual place the Balkans occupy within it. We, the inhabitants of this region, tend to have an exaggerated sense of the significance of the Balkans and their problems, much like an ill person who constantly discusses his illness with any attentive listener. In this sense, the Balkans today, and historically since the era of the Great Geographical Discoveries, have represented at best a minor concern in global politics—a tertiary or even lower-order issue. The fact that we live here and perceive problems from within does not imply that external observers possess informed or expert knowledge, or indeed any substantial interest. For instance, during the Bosnian War, while reading materials by Richard Holbrooke—one of the principal negotiators at the time—I was struck by the depth of his ignorance about the Balkans, despite the fact that he was the very person tasked with delineating Bosnia and Herzegovina’s borders. I also recall an encounter with an American lawyer—an educated and intelligent man—who had travelled in the former Yugoslavia and had reached Niš, yet had no idea where Bulgaria was located. Thus, we cannot expect that the great European powers, or the United States for that matter, possess profound knowledge of the region. Your question, as posed, is entirely correct: in the minds of Europeans and Americans alike, the Balkans constitute an indistinct space with only minimal differentiation among the states of Southeastern Europe and their respective peoples, especially when these peoples are not nation-state builders—about whom virtually nothing is known.
As regards developments over the past four decades, the most notable shift has been the increased involvement of the United States. Yet again, this does not represent a strategic priority for the U.S.; rather, the U.S. has to some extent assumed the role formerly held by Great Britain, which has completely disengaged from the region, and now seeks primarily to contain any potential expansion of Russian influence. In reality, Russia itself displays a diminishing interest in the Balkans as a whole. Greece, for instance, does not concern Moscow; rather, its focus lies on Serbia and, to some extent, segments of the Western Balkans. Bulgaria, meanwhile, has long occupied a peripheral position within Russia’s sphere of influence and its strategic interests in the area. A pertinent example is the recent controversy sparked by the Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson’s claim that the Soviet Army saved the Jews of the Balkans—a statement historically inaccurate, and thus provocative domestically. Had it been asserted that the Soviet Army, alongside its allies in the anti-fascist coalition, contributed to the defeat of fascism in Europe—thus removing the threat that loomed over Bulgaria’s Jewish population—this would have been historically correct. It is self-evident that had Germany won the war, no one could have saved them. Such deliberate provocations, as seen also in the recent remarks concerning Macedonian educators who created the Slavic alphabet, serve as reminders to Bulgaria’s political elites that their current orientation does not align with Russian interests and, from Moscow’s perspective, should be recalibrated accordingly.
In this context, from a historical perspective, how did Balkan rulers and political elites respond to such external challenges? Is there, in your view, a discernible pattern in their actions, or did responses vary according to the particular challenge and circumstances?
Regrettably, I would argue that responses have tended to be instinctive and reactive, rather than strategic—determined less by the actual conduct of any given Great Power than by the fundamental political predispositions of the Balkan elites themselves. Thus, in Bulgaria, for example, we observe an elite split into two factions: on the one hand, there is a contemporary pro-Western elite, whose architects were the offspring of the former communist ruling or intellectual nomenklatura. Just this morning, for instance, I watched Solomon Passy on television—himself the son of the distinguished intellectual Isaac Passy—yet ultimately an individual shaped by that era. This pro-Western faction persists today. Simultaneously, there exists a much smaller faction that remains pro-Russian. Personally, I fail to grasp the fervour with which the socialists cling to Russia and its regional influence, as in my view this serves them poorly—neither yielding domestic political dividends nor strengthening their external standing. Domestically, due to generational factors, support for any alignment with Russia is in decline; externally, Russia has amply demonstrated, including through its energy projects, that it favours other regional actors, insofar as the Balkans hold any place at all in its strategic calculus. A similar pattern is evident in Serbia and Montenegro, where pro-Russian elites seek Moscow’s backing on contentious issues. At the same time, pro-Western elites are predominant in Croatia, Slovenia, Greece, and Romania. Hence, the fundamental axis of contention in the Balkans over the past 150 years—where historical parallels are indeed warranted—has been Russia versus “the others”. In earlier periods, “the others” mainly comprised Germany and Austro-Hungary, and to a lesser extent France and Britain. Today, alongside Germany (which, in my opinion, pursues the most cautious Balkan policy), the principal counterbalance is the United States, whose foreign policy is notoriously elephantine, so to speak, often causing disruption akin to a bull in a china shop—and the Balkans are no exception. In Bulgaria, we have had, over the past fifteen years or so, U.S. ambassadors of middling calibre, whose outlook mirrored this tendency. Perhaps the sole exception was Marcie Ries, who later became an Assistant Secretary of State and stood out as a diplomat capable of strategic thinking.
Would you say that this reaction of the Balkan political elites to external influences serves primarily domestic purposes, or can we clearly discern articulated positions and responses intended for external audiences?
I would hesitate to claim that there is a well-defined political objective. Rather, what we observe is a doctrinal pattern instilled in the Balkans over the past thirty years, consistent with Benjamin Franklin’s advice in his Poor Richard’s Almanack: “Speak of interest, not of reason!” Indeed, a fundamental constraint for Russia’s regional policy is that it lacks surplus financial resources with which, crudely put, to buy the loyalty of Balkan elites—who currently depend on financial injections from the European Union and therefore maintain a pro-European orientation.
Finally, another major theme, historically rooted yet equally significant today, concerns large-scale migration and refugee movements. In your opinion, is there a discernible common Balkan response to the challenges posed by such processes, especially when comparing the situation in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, characterised by substantial flows of both Muslim and Christian populations departing from their native lands?
I do not believe that a meaningful historical parallel can be drawn here. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, refugee flows were driven primarily by political factors—conflicts within the Balkans, the construction of nation-states, and policies toward national minorities. By contrast, the current refugee flows have virtually no intrinsic connection to the Balkans and are, to a significant extent, motivated by economic considerations, which were largely absent in the earlier period. It is true that migrants then often harboured overly optimistic notions of what awaited them in the ancestral homelands they had never seen. I recall, for instance, an image of a caravan of refugees crossing the Bulgarian–Ottoman border at Deve Bair around 1908–1909: upon crossing, they would dismount from their carts and kiss the ground, convinced that Bulgaria was a land where even if one were to lose a wallet on the street, no one would dare steal it. The reality, of course, proved otherwise: the wallet would be taken with pleasure, even if left in one’s back pocket. Similarly exaggerated expectations were held by Muslims migrating to Ottoman territories. Today, the situation is entirely different. If I may draw a cautious analogy, I would compare the current situation not to the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries but rather to the fourth to sixth centuries, when massive population movements surged primarily from Asia, but also from Africa, toward Europe, driven by rumours of its wealth. Then, Europe collapsed under the pressure of the hungry masses. We are witnessing a comparable phenomenon today—except that the situation is far more severe, as today’s perceptions are shaped not by vague rumours but by the realities of a “global village”, as Marshall McLuhan termed it. Even in the poorest dwellings of Bangladesh, people can watch Western European or American advertisements on their screens, presenting an entirely different, affluent world—where the main problem is not what to eat, but which diet to follow. Inevitably, such images arouse aspirations and emotions that feed migratory pressure.
If we return once again to the Balkan context, do you believe that the region’s cultural diversity constitutes a recipe for being “united in diversity”, or is it rather an endless pathway to confrontation and a constant source of tension?
Again, the question is framed from the perspective that we live in the Balkans and thus are inherently preoccupied with Balkan issues. Yet, to the Western observer, these diverse cultures appear largely indistinguishable, or at least strikingly similar. There is a passage in Aleko Konstantinov’s To Chicago and Back that I have always appreciated: at the Bulgarian pavilion at the Chicago World’s Fair, the guide points out Bulgaria’s location on a map of Europe to American visitors. With pointer in hand, he indicates where Vienna lies, then Istanbul, and concludes, “We are right here,” pointing to the area between them. These two cities essentially delineate the markers of the Balkans—the space they occupy. To enable outsiders to comprehend where the Balkans are, one must simply say: somewhere between Vienna and Istanbul. Regrettably, this perception persists to this day.
What, then, is so fundamentally different about the cultures of the Balkan Christian peoples? If any distinction exists, it is perhaps more pronounced between Muslims and Christians, although the centuries-long presence of the Ottoman Empire in the Balkans was, paradoxically, an integrative force for the region’s cultures. This is an elementary truth, one not easily accepted by nationalists, but the Empire exerted a strong unifying effect across the Balkans. As a result, the cultural differences are far less pronounced than commonly imagined. I have always objected to the simplistic dichotomy of Eastern versus Western Europe. If there is any meaningful division, in my view, it lies more accurately among three major zones: Mediterranean Southern Europe, North-Western Atlantic Europe, and North-Eastern Europe. These zones differ less in culture per se and more in the prevailing sense of social belonging. Particularly in the North-West, where Protestant ethics dominate, the contrast with our own societal ethos is, regrettably, profound. But how markedly do Balkan cultures differ, for example, from those of Southern Italy, Spain, Portugal, or Southern France?
It is intriguing that despite our substantial similarity in worldviews and cultural frameworks—irrespective of whether one aligns with Islam or Christianity in this region—within relatively brief periods we seem capable of provoking wars resulting in significant loss of life and fratricide. How would you explain this apparent contradiction?
This is by no means exceptional. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, few in Western Europe could fathom the idea that the “cultivated” French would engage in battle with the equally “cultivated” Germans—there simply was no such expectation; peaceful coexistence seemed assured. In the Balkans, which historically lag behind Western Europe by roughly a century, such processes naturally unfold more slowly. The core issue, however, lies in political culture and the extent to which Balkan societies have evolved into civic nations embracing inclusive rather than exclusive societal development. In my view, integrative processes within Balkan societies are weaker than the centrifugal forces operating within them. It remains far easier to exclude certain groups from society than to integrate them into it. For instance, even today in Bulgaria, some individuals still marginalise the Jewish community—despite its continuous presence on the Balkan Peninsula for two millennia. Another telling example is found in our textbooks: when discussing the arrival of the Slavs and the proto-Bulgarians in the Balkans, lessons are titled “The Settlement of Slavs and Proto-Bulgarians on the Balkan Peninsula”; yet when the Ottomans arrived, the same event is labelled “The Conquest of the Balkan Peninsula by the Ottomans”. Essentially, these are identical historical processes, each accompanied by violence, forced demographic changes, massacres, pillaging, and so forth—yet they are named entirely differently.
Years ago, while preparing an article on the Bulgarian state’s policy toward its national minorities from the Liberation to 1912, I initially assumed that it would have been logical for Bulgaria—a small state of 4.5 million people preparing for war against the much larger Ottoman Empire—to ensure that its minorities became an integral part of Bulgarian society, embracing its national objectives as their own. I had even devised a tentative title for the article: “To Be Called Bulgarian Is My Greatest Joy!” However, during the course of my research, I discovered that the reality was quite the opposite: “To Call You Bulgarian Is My Greatest Joy!” In practice, the state showed little interest in integrating its minorities, instead leaving them to develop separately. In this regard, we are not so different from Western Europe. Wars in the Balkans are driven by the escalating megalomania of the ruling elites and by the fact that no other region in Europe—apart from perhaps the Caucasus—matches the Balkans in complexity: within half a million square kilometres, there are twelve states, more than fifteen distinct peoples each numbering over half a million, adherents of both major world religions with all their subdivisions—Shiites, Sunnis, Kizilbash, Alevis, as well as Orthodox, Catholics, Protestants, Uniates, and so forth. No other relatively small region employs three different alphabets; nor did any other region maintain four different calendars (Julian, Gregorian, Muslim, and Jewish) up until the early twentieth century. My point is that the region’s immense heterogeneity undeniably contributes to recurring conflicts.
I once disagreed with Professor Tsvetana Georgieva, who placed great emphasis on the “komshuluk” (neighbourliness) tradition and repeatedly argued that ethnic conflict is impossible in the Balkans because this tradition is so deeply rooted. I maintained then, and still do, that in 99 out of 100 cases, a Balkan individual will not harm a neighbour simply because they belong to a different faith or ethnicity—but this does not preclude travelling to another part of town and committing violence against people of that same faith. In the early 1990s, during a field expedition in Northeastern Bulgaria, we encountered a supporter of Dr. Ivan Georgiev’s ideas—long since vanished from the political scene—who fervently described her wish to lie in ambush at a crossroads with a machine gun and fire incessantly until all the Turks were exterminated. We were understandably discomforted by this declaration and, to lighten the mood, I asked who her neighbour was. “Bay Hasan,” she replied. “And who is Bay Hasan?” I inquired. “A very good man,” she said. “When they changed his name during the assimilation campaign, he wept bitterly, and later, when they allowed them to emigrate to Turkey, he gave everything he owned to his neighbours and left. But he disliked it there and returned after three months. Since it was winter, he stayed with us for a few days, and then we collected blankets, quilts, and firewood for him to get through the winter.” “But isn’t he a Turk?” I asked. She looked at me, surprised, and said, “What do you mean, a Turk? That’s Bay Hasan!” So, at the everyday level, things are more nuanced, but this does not preclude extremes manifesting at another level.
In this sense, should we speak not of cultural but rather political diversity in the Balkans?
Precisely—what we witness are political conflicts, consciously exacerbated by certain actors who see fulfilment of their political ambitions only through the intensification of such tensions.
Given the realities of the Balkans as we know them today, with their political, cultural, and ethnic diversity, how do you envision the future of the region over the next generation?
Let me first say that scholars—inasmuch as a historian may be considered a scientist (for I have always vacillated between viewing history as a science, an art, or something in between)—tend to think in strategic, long-term perspectives, whereas politicians make decisions based on tactical considerations: who will win more seats in the next election. Consequently, scholars’ forecasts are rarely popular with those in positions of political power. A pertinent example: I have studied professionally the Paris Peace Conference of 1919–1920, which, for the first time in the history of international forums, invited a powerful contingent of experts—economists, historians, and others. In every recommendation concerning the Balkans, the prevailing thought was that Bulgaria should not be punished excessively; rather, it should receive at least part of what it had fought for in 1915, because failing that, within thirty years the Balkans would again become the theatre of brutal armed conflict. Nonetheless, no politician had any intention of heeding this expert advice; they were uninterested in what might occur thirty years hence, concerned instead with satisfying contemporary public opinion, which demanded punishment and immediate recompense.
I would refrain from making predictions, but what I personally hope for is that the Balkans will genuinely become part of a united Europe. This very morning I heard in the news that a first step has been taken in this direction: an agreement has been signed for the gradual creation of a common European army. For now, the agreement pertains mainly to unified command structures, but in my view, this is both necessary and overdue. When critics of the European Union speak of its shortcomings, I always ask them: “What chances do we, the individual European states—not to mention the Balkan states—stand against giants like China, the United States, Russia, or a peaceful but unpredictable India?” Without a united Europe, we stand no chance whatsoever. Europe today is not what it was in the nineteenth century, when it controlled a large share of global resources and production. That is no longer the case: the entire output of Europe barely compares to that of China alone. Therefore, what I wish to see is a concerted effort to make the European Union an effective coalition of states with shared goals, safeguarding common interests, and minimising divisions between small and large, East and West—at least to the extent that this is feasible.