2025-26

The course deals with the development over time of the peoples of the Balkans during the Middle Ages, from the settlement of the Slavs to the Ottoman conquest. It examines the foundation of autonomous or independent states in the Balkans and the shaping of a distinct cultural character in the region that arose from the confluence of Byzantine and Slavic culture.

The course consists of a general survey of the history and cultural development of the peoples of the Balkans with emphasis upon the Ottoman period until 1878. In particular, the course deals with the position of the peoples of the Balkans in the political, social, economic and cultural context of the Ottoman Empire, their intellectual development, the rise of national movements and the path towards the foundation of nation states.

The course deals with the presence of Islam in the Balkans from a historical and
anthropological point of view. In chronological terms, it deals with the period from the end
of the 19th century to the final decade of the 20th century. It focuses upon socio-political
developments in the Balkans at the start of the 1990s and on their consequences for Islam in