The History of the Balkans

The balkans is the name given to a mountainous swath of land that stretches north from present day greece up until it butts into the southern borders of present day austria. The region was eventually controlled by slavic invaders from the north, who organized the land into a series of kingdoms whose names still remain bosnia, herzigovina, serbia, bulgaria and so on. For the next five centuries, various stance groups would revolt against the ottomans, mainly along ethnic or religious lines. By the nineteenth century, the most powerful social movement was a panslavic one, which aimed to win the right to self determination for southern slavs.