The Medieval Balkans

HTY 2021

This course examines the history of the peoples living in the Balkan Peninsula, from the emergence of the “barbaric” states in the Balkan provinces of the Byzantine Empire to the advent of the age of nationalism in the eighteenth century. It explores the specific political, social, and cultural features of the Balkan states from their emergence until the Ottoman conquest. It explores the factors that enabled the Ottomans to establish control over the peninsula, the changes in the lives of the Balkan populace resulting from its inclusion in the empire, the way people of different ethnicities and religions shared and cohabited in common spaces, and the emergence of the Eastern Question and its impact on political developments in the region.