When the pre-eminent Russian poet Alexander Pushkin died on 10 February 1837, it was in a tragic echo of an incident of the life of his great-grandfather, Avram Petrovich Gannibal (also written as Hannibal). Pushkin was killed by his brother-in-law in a duel over Pushkin’s wife Natalya, a parallel to the first marriage of Gannibal, …
By the Battle Of Kumanovo on 23 – 24 October 1912, the First Balkan War was young, but already in full swing – it would be a decisive victory for the Serbian forces, and a shattering loss for the Ottoman. Just a week prior, on 18 October 1912, King Peter I of Serbia had issued …
“If you want to have serious riots in Yugoslavia or cause a regime change, you need to kill me. Shoot at me and be sure you have finished me off, because that’s the only way to make changes in Yugoslavia,” King Alexander I of Serbia to the Italian government after the Velabit Uprising in 1932. …
Independence is not an easy thing to establish, especially not in the Balkans. Serbia’s moves toward independence from the Ottoman Empire started in 1804, and de facto independence was achieved by 1830. Full independence did not happen until 1878, however. Bulgaria’s path to independence was even more convoluted, with moments of Schrodinger’s Independence in 1878 …
The nineteenth century wasn’t a great time for the Ottoman Empire. It wasn’t the worst time, that would be the beginning of the twentieth century when everything collapsed. But for an empire that had been the strong conqueror of Europe out of Asia, it was a catastrophe. The coming fall of the Ottomans was so …
The Vojvodina town of Petrovaradin, now part of Novi Sad, Serbia, was first settled in 4,500 BC during the Stone Age. Since that time, it was the scene of battles between great and regional powers over a dozen times. In a way, it exemplifies the fortunes of the Balkans themselves, caught between shifting alliances and …
When Ferdinand and Isabella expelled the Jews from Spain on 31 July 1492, they were welcomed with open arms into the Ottoman-ruled Balkans. Thus the Balkans, and particularly Sarajevo, came to be populated with Sephardic Jews to the extent that at the height of the community’s population, 20% of Sarajevo was Jewish and 10% of …
“When I am dead, I will not hurt anymore, will it Mama? When I am dead, build me a little monument of stones in the woods.” From the diary of Tsarevich Aleksei Romanov In the earliest morning hours of 17 July 1918, the Imperial Family of Russia was murdered in a Siberian basement. This part …
Getting ready for travel can be almost as much fun as the actual traveling. Actually, given the issues with airline seats, airborne infections, and jet lag, the travel part isn’t that great. Visiting is great, for sure. But traveling to the area to be visited? Maybe some people are masochists and enjoy the armrest struggle …
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