Preface
Pronunciation Guide
Chapter 1: Definitions of Genocides and Ethnic Cleansing
Chapter 2: Heritage of Horrors
Chapter 3: Balkan Wars 1912-1913: An Unrecognized Genocide
The Carnegie Commission’s Conclusion
Epilogue: World War I as the Third Balkan War
Greek-Turkish Wars
Chapter 4 – Multiple Genocides of World War II: Western Balkans
Preliminary Philosophical and Theological Concerns
Genocide in the “Independent State of Croatia”
Genocidal Aspects of Italian Occupational Authorities in Yugoslav
Lands
Slovenia
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Chapter 5: Multiple Genocides in World War II: Northeastern and
Central Balkans
Belgrade and Serbia Proper
Backa and Baranja Under Hungarian Occupation
The Fate of the Yugoslav Army’s Jewish POWs
Montenegro
Albania and Kosovo
Massacres and Ethnic Cleansing by Cetniks
Genocide Against Romas (Gypsies)
Chapter 6: Multiple Genocides in World War II: Southeastern
Balkans
Bulgarian Jews Not Deported to Death Camps
Macedonia
Greece under German, Italian, and Bulgarian Occupation
Chapter 7: Retaliatory Genocide against Wartime Enemies
Genocide of Yugoslavia’s Ethnic Germans
Massacres of Hungarians
Ethnic Cleansing of Italians
Bleiburg and the Fate of Ustaše and Other Militaries Collaborating
with the Axis
Chapter 8: Ethnic Cleansing during Yugoslavia’s Wars of
Disintegration in the 1990s
The Context
Contentious Analytical Issues
Chapter 9: War in Croatia
Overview of the War
Was it Genocide and/or Ethnic Cleansing?
Chapter 10: War in Bosnia and Herzegovina
Problems Leading to the War
Major Events of the War
The Horrors of Ethnic Cleansing
The Srebrenica Genocide
Genocidal Rape
Did Genocide Occur in Bosnia and Herzagovina?
Appendix
Chapter 11: Protracted War and Conflict in Kosovo
Overview of Serbian-Albanian Relationships in Kosovo, 1945—1999
Overview of the War, 1999
Destruction of Serbian Orthodox Holy Places
Ethnic Cleansing in Reverse
Did Genocide and/or Ethnic Cleansing Occur?
Chapter 12: International Criminal Tribunal for Former
Yugoslavia
Chapter 13—Onward into the Twenty-first Century: A Postscript
Threat of Genocide Averted in Macedonia
Prospects for the Balkan
Time Line
Notes
Bibliography
Index
About the Author
Paul Mojzes is professor of religious studies at Rosemont College. He is the author of several books on Eastern Europe and the Balkans and editor of Religion in Eastern Europe and The Journal of Ecumenical Studies.
Mojzes's book concerns ethnic cleansing or genocide in the Balkans
three separate times in the 20th century. He bases his analysis on
both primary and secondary sources, and the scope of the work as a
whole is one of a region where violence built from one generation
to the next. His research on the Balkan Wars (1912-13) is valuable,
for while that series of conflicts has been told before, Mojzes
(religious studies, Rosemont College) focuses on the killing
between ethnic groups that is chilling and distinct from Great
Power politics. From that point, it did not take much ignition from
the Nazis to spark genocide in the region during WW II. Mojzes's
discussion of the Jasenovac camps, both what the sources and the
partisan politicians recount, is instructive. The author concludes
with a glimpse into the genocide as Yugoslavia was breaking up, and
the complexity of how to sort through such bestial killing both
legally and morally. This study includes important details for
scholars and students....Mojzes has written a study on which other
scholars will be able to build. Summing Up: Recommended.
Upper-division undergraduates and above.
*CHOICE*
The Balkan peninsula, with its crisscrossing mountain ranges, is
divided into relatively small geographic regions and equally small
religious and ethnic enclaves. Whenever the Ottoman,
Austro-Hungarian, and, later, various Communist overlordships
crumbled, the peoples of those divisions were free to have at each
other throughout the last century. As Mojzes, a professor of
religious studies at Rosemont College, indicates, the Balkans have
earned “bragging rights” as a center of genocide and ethnic
cleansing. Mojzes begins with a definition of terms, distinguishing
between the often misunderstood differences between genocide and
ethnic cleansing. He proceeds in a methodical, sometimes ponderous
way to explain the causes and courses of these outrages while
striving for fairness, since objectivity about such emotional
issues may be impossible. Some of the events he reports, such as
the cleansing and massacres during the breakup of Yugoslavia, will
be familiar to most readers. Others, such as the mass expulsions
and killings during the Balkan wars of 1912–13, are less
well-known. A disturbing but important work about a still volatile
region.
*Booklist*
With this book, Paul Mojzes has again put Eastern European
scholarship in his debt....No other book offers such a thorough,
careful, balanced treatment of the topic. The scholarship is sound:
it is careful, even comprehensive (given the limitations of some
sources), and as complete as could be hoped. This is the best book
in the field. It is warmly recommended.
*Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe*
Author Paul Mojzes tests the application of the terms ‘genocide’,
‘ethnic cleansing’, and ‘holocaust’ to the twentieth-century
history of South-eastern Europe. Mojzes is concerned about what he
sees as the propensity for mass violence in the region in question,
‘if there were “bragging rights” for being a genocidal and ethnic
cleansing area, the Balkans could claim championship status’, says
Mojzes (p. 1). He looks for evidence of genocide and ethnic
cleansing during the period of the Balkan wars at the beginning of
the twentieth century (1912-1913) the Second World War (1941-1945),
and the wars that followed the break-up of Yugoslavia at the end of
the twentieth-century (1991-1999). . . To be sure, this is an
important and worthwhile project.
*H-Soz-u-Kult*
Paul Mojzes is a well-informed and eminent historian of religion
with a profound interest in the study of ethno-religion as the
rationale for genocide. ... He offers his readers an excellent
comprehensive and systematic, narrative of the horrific events that
dominated the first and last decades of the previous century. ...
His analysis and the interpretation of the different wars in the
Balkans during the last century, and horrors they produces are very
engaging. Mojzes' book adds greatly to our understanding of ethnic
conflict and genocide. I highly recommend Balkan Genocides to
anyone interested in topics of ethnic cleansing, genocide,
ethno-religious nationalism, ethno-religious warfare, and cultural
vandalism.
*Insight*
Balkan Genocides sets out a history of conflict, mass violence,
ethnic cleansing, and genocide in the Balkans throughout the
Twentieth Century. It is an extremely useful text, providing an
overview of such events during that period, and offers readers more
of a contextual conception of conflicts in the region. . . .In
writing this book, Mojzes is clearly driven by a passion for
justice and truth — an acknowledgment of wrongs — as a way to move
forward and attempt to clear the hostilities of the past. . .
.Balkan Genocides is a valuable contribution to the literature, and
will be of use on the shelf of any scholar or practitioner in the
fields of genocide studies, history, political science,
international law, religion, socio-cultural anthropology, and
sociology.
*E-International Relations*
The strength of Mojzes’ work rests in drawing together and defining
major instances of genocide and ethnic cleansing in the Balkans. .
. . Scholars of genocide looking for an introduction to instances
of genocide in the Balkans will find the book to be useful and
accessible.
*Holocaust and Genocide Studies*
[Balkan Genocides] go well beyond the binary stereotypes of the
region — East versus West, liberal versus authoritarian,
nationalist versus cosmopolitan — in their interrogation of what
constitutes normalcy for a group of diverse countries with
overlapping historical experiences and the frequent misfortune of
being stuck between larger, more ambitious powers.
*Los Angeles Review of Books*
In this long-awaited book Paul Mojzes finally puts in context and
perspective the crimes of genocide in the Balkans in the
troublesome twentieth century. Their pervasive and frequent
occurrence and ubiquitous diffusion required an explanation beyond
the existing isolated case studies, one-sided indictments and
slanted accounts. Mojzes offers a new interpretation of the recent
Balkan history informed by paradigms from genocide and holocaust
studies. Its rich historical narrative is interspersed with
theological and philosophical observations and personal
reminiscences of a veteran Balkan scholar. I would recommend it to
all who are puzzled by recent history of violence in the Balkans
and unhappy about its shallow media coverage.
*Bojan Aleksov, University College London*
I have followed with much interest the continuing, careful, and
highly-nuanced scholarship of Paul Mojzes regarding the genocides
in the Balkan region, both historical and contemporary. His work is
made all the more significant because of his familiarity with the
languages of the region and his primary insight regarding
ethnoreligion as the rationale for genocide in that under-explored
area. As one concerned with the nexus between religion and
genocide, I applaud Mojzes for this latest contribution and
recommend it to the widest possible reading audience of all those
concerned with this ongoing horror.
*Steven Leonard Jacobs, Aaron Aronov Chair of Judaic Studies,
University of Alabama*
This book is both comprehensive and even-handed. It stands out as
preeminent over everything written on the subject of genocide in
southeastern Europe to date. It is, unquestionably, the premiere
work in the field, without a doubt the best.
*James Payton, professor of history, Redeemer University
College*
This is an extremely important book, which has no rival in print.
It systematically covers all regions and puts late 20th century
events in a much larger historical field. It is unflinching in its
consideration of the parties involved and treats all victims with
consistent empathy.
*Christopher P. Parr, professor of religious studies, Webster
University*
As the Founding Director of the Master of Arts Program in Holocaust
and Genocide Studies, Balkan Genocides: Holocaust and Ethnic
Cleansing in the 20th Century is exactly the book for which I have
been searching. There has not existed such a comprehensive, user
friendly volume in this subject area. Professor Mojzes, a world
authority on the history, political and sociological implications
of the Balkans, provides precise scholarship, in a readable manner
reflecting his many decades of research, scholarship and personal
experience in that region of the world.
*Marcia Sachs Littell, Richard Stockton College of NJ*
Mojzes' comprehensive, systematic and well documented book shows
how the Balkans in the 20th century finally became an integral part
of modern Europe, shaped by the exclusivistic nation-state
principle: a bunch of small, monoethnic, irredentistic states, of
hostile neighbours instead of friendly and cooperative nations.
This was achieved with the same horrific methods as elsewhere,
whatever they are called: genocide, mass killings, or ethnic
cleansing. All these were not caused by some ancient hatreds,
ethnic and religious differences, irreconcilable national
characters, or irrational mentality, but by a deliberate, well
planned, and ruthlessly executed power politics. Mojzes' is not
only a punctilious study of bloody episodes of the last century in
the Balkans, but also a convincing warning from the recent past,
what mistakes must not be repeated in the future, at all costs.
*Mitja Velikonja, professor of cultural studies, University of
Ljubljana, Slovenia*
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