ЕВРОПСКЕ СИЛЕ, ЈУЖНОСЛОВЕНСКИ ЕТНИЧКИ ПРОСТОР И ИСТОЧНА КРИЗА У XIX ВЕКУ
THE EUROPEAN POWERS, SOUTH SLAVIC ETHNIC SPACE AND THE EASTERN CRISIS IN THE 19TH CENTURY

Summary/Abstract: The Eastern Question is a historical and political concept pertaining to specific events in the XIX century, including to a long-term process known as the Eastern Crisis. This process marked the entire XIX century and its prolonged effects are present even today. In the context of forging and dissolving great alliances, whose outsets and outcomes were agreed in congresses of the European great powers of that time, the Balkan nations were frequently subject to competing influences. Due to their diverse and often incompatible socio-historical heritage, they had difficulty in finding the right paths to constitutionalize and develop their statehood. Considering that the scope of this article does not provide sufficient space for a comprehensive coverage of this issue, the paper focuses on the important moments and influences that marked the development of statehood and legal order in the Balkans. The feflection of diverse influences on the Balkan nations may best be illustrated and observed through the distinctive features underlying the development of Croatia’s statehood, the clash of conflicting interests of the East and the West (both de jure and de facto) in the development of the Serbian state of law, the specificities in establishing the Bulgarian state, and the idiosyncratic knot of ethnic and religious legacy of Bosnia and Herzegovina. All things considered, the solution to this problem is still out of sight.

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