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This paper deals with three different but interconnected cases of placement, displacement and relocation of Persian literary culture in the Eastern Mediterranean sphere: the reception of a line by Ḥāfiẓ in 1920s Cairo, as represented in a novel by Najīb Maḥfūẓ; a Modern Greek adverb, φαρσί , expressing multilingual fluency and its probable Ottoman roots; a Veneto-Balkanic net of circulation of Persian textual and linguistic heritage, focusing especially on Mostar. As the intertwined case-studies touched upon in this essay clearly show, only deep philological excavations in little-studied local microhistories can properly unearth the still obscure early modern ecology of Persian "between the Adriatic and the Nile". By taking a multilingual approach (in which Persian, Arabic, Turkish, Bosnian, Venetian and Italian are read as a cultural continuum), and looking at the ubiquity of the prestige of Persian against the background of a "significant geography" made of both physical and linguistic spaces we throw a new light—taking a step beyond the sometimes over-used notion of the "Persianate"—on the dynamics of inscriptions of Persian in the early modern Mediterranean and Southern European realities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Barukh Mitrani was an Ottoman maskil who wandered between the Balkans, Istanbul and Palestine. While living in Edirne, Mitrani established his first periodical, Carmi (Pressburg 1881). Carmi 's issues were an ongoing maskilic sermon, drawing on a deep acquaintance with the Jewish bookshelf. This paper examines selections from the fifth article in Carmi , 'Our Nationhood.' Influenced by the moderate Haskalah, Mitrani idealized a 'Golden Mean,' which sought to balance the agendas of 'the two poles': insular Ultra-Orthodox Jews on the one hand, and secularized 'Westernizers' on the other. Mitrani also espoused a Jewish nationalism which had affinities with the Hebrew 'republic of letters' and the national resurgence in the Balkans. He perceived every Jew as part of three circles: the individual, the family, and the nation. Yet his nationalism was not separatist; he obliged Jews to remain loyal Ottoman citizens and promote the Sultanate while also settling in Palestine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The scope of the paper is to provide the overview of the methodological developments that contributed to the growing interest in the nexus of material culture, circulation, and social networks, as well as the place of early modern Southeastern Europe, within the wider historiographical trends. To this end, it examines the very notion of Southeastern Europe and its impact on historical research in the region, while also providing a short discussion of the studies included in the issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I offer a concise analysis of contemporary scholarship on esotericism in the countries of former Yugoslavia and Bulgaria. After a brief historical contextualization, I examine the development and principal features of this scholarship over the last three decades. My main argument is that, due to various historical reasons, there is a stark discrepancy between the abundant presence of esoteric ideas and practices in these countries and the extent of specialized scholarship dealing with them. I also suggest that there is an uneven development of esotericism studies across the region, but that these studies are gradually finding their place in South Slavic academia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The chroniclers of the Fourth Crusade (Geoffroi de Villehardouin, Henri de Valenciennes, and Robert de Clari) have much to say about the Vlachs. Much of that information results from direct contact with the Vlachs, particularly in the case of Villehardouin and Henri de Valenciennes. However, several issues characterizing the Vlachs, especially in Robert de Clari's chronicle, are remarkably similar to stories that may be found in Niketas Choniates. The paper analyzes the role attributed to the Vlachs in the French chronicles, and attempts to explain the similarity to the coverage of things Vlach in Niketas Choniates. As such, the paper offers an examination of all Byzantine sources mentioning the Vlachs before Choniates and of non-Byzantine sources such as Benjamin of Tudela. The conclusion is that the image of the Vlachs in the French chronicles derives from stories about them circulating in twelfth-century Constantinople. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper examines the akıncı s' actions and hence the motivation for their raids as essential constituents within the process of Ottoman conquest of the Balkans in the late Middle Ages. Focusing on the raiders and their plundering activities, it asserts that the akıncıs played a crucial key role in the early Ottoman slave economy, as slave hunting was arguably the main economic driving force behind the Ottoman conquest. It hence argues that an analysis of the akıncıs allows for new insights into the nature of the early Ottoman Empire, but also advances the idea that their actions fall within a particular phase of the conquest period. To that end, the authors re-periodize the Ottoman conquest of the Balkans into the akıncı phase , which spanned eight to thirteen decades, depending on the region, and was characterized by continuous slave hunting and destruction of economic infrastructure, and the phase of administrative integration into the Ottoman Empire , which latter process was pursued by other actors, namely imperial elites from the center, and is usually characterized by at least partial repopulation of demographically weakened areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent times, there has been increased attention paid to and interest in the protection of culture and cultural heritage in the Western Balkans. Among the wide array of interventions and projects which have been developed in this field over the years, this paper offers a comparative review of the main two global initiatives proposing the collection and publication of indicators on culture, development, and tourism: the UNESCO Culture for Development Indicators, and the United Nations World Tourism Organization's Sustainable Tourism Indicators. The analysis of Western Balkan countries using these indicators helps us to see how they work in practice and what possible developmental outcomes they are likely to produce in both the short- and the long-term. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents a general overview of an ongoing research on representations of multi-religious Epirote society in local textual narratives. Aim of the paper is to explore the interplay between the Greek nationalistic script of anti-Muslim discourses and the local narratives of the Ottoman past. The focus is on the objectification of local memories in textual narratives and how this process has been affected by the diglossic relationships between oral and written Greek, which favoured a textual re-elaboration of local memories through the lens of dominant national narratives. It is argued that the analysis of `marginal texts' in `marginal contexts' can provide a useful ground to reflect on the complexities implied in the reshaping of the Ottoman past and the multi-religious character of Ottoman Balkan society, caught in between the imperatives of national narratives and the selective processes of local memories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The languages of the Balkans are a rich source of data on contact-induced language change. The result of a centuries long process of lexical and structural convergence has been referred to as a 'sprachbund'. While widely applied, this notion has, however, increasingly been questioned with respect to its usefulness. Addressing the linguistic makeup of the Balkan languages, the notion of sprachbund is critically assessed. It is shown that a) the Balkan languages and the Balkan linguistic exclaves (Albanian and Greek spoken on the Italian peninsula) share similar contact-induced phenomena, and b) the principal processes underlying the development of the Balkan languages are borrowing and reanalysis, two fundamental and general mechanisms of language change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By examining the fortunes of the 57 richest Muslims in Thessaloniki in the eighteenth century, this paper aims to contribute to the discussion on wealth accumulation in Ottoman lands. Basing our research on the probate inventories of the city, we attempt to delineate the profile of the rich in Thessaloniki. Our conclusions underline the role of credit and çiftlik exploitation in capital formation in the city. Furthermore, we suggest a distinct pattern regarding the existence or non-existence of magnate families in the Balkans which was distinct from the position in the Arab lands of the empire. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Balkan history in the late 5th to 6th c. A.D. period is viewed by scholars as, at best, a respite from a series of devastating barbarian raids and, at worst, as another stepping-stone on the path to the inevitable loss of imperial control over the region. This paper redresses these perceptions by portraying the reigns of Anastasius and Justinian as a period in which the Romans/ Byzantines were taking the initiative and 'winning' in their military and diplomatic dealings with the barbarians. These emperors devoted considerable political energy and economic and military resources to restoring imperial military authority in the northern Balkans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has always been a plurality of trends within Islam, to which Sufism also belonged. Within the Ottoman Empire, mystical groups remained among the uncentralized forms of Islam until the end of the 19 th century and the creation of an association of the dervish orders, which, however, provided only a very partial structure for them. In 20 th -century Balkans, the Bektashis, one of the major Sufi orders present in the region, secured an official and institutionalized structure in Albania from the beginning of the 1920s. After the collapse of the Communist regimes in Albania and Yugoslavia, which had put strong obstacles against the free development of religion (especially in Albania where it was banned in 1967), a Bektashi organization was reestablished in Tirana. The paper discusses the main normative features of this organization, called Komuniteti Bektashian. Kryegjyshata Botërore Bektashiane ('Bektashi Community. World Bektashi Grandfather'). Special reference is given to the changing power relations within the community caused by this novel structure (its members being often linked to other Albanian or foreign actors-Albanian politicians, Iranian Shi'i networks, Turkish Alevi networks, etc.). The article also examines the complex and disputed relationship of the Bektashi organization with the official Islamic religious institutions, its international, or rather pan-Albanian, dimension, and also its inner functioning which is not as centralized as it is supposed to be. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Squamates, head meristic characters are commonly used in analyses of intraspecific variability, systematics and phylogeny. Taxonomic significance of head scales is based on the assumption that discrete values of particular scales are set at birth and stable during individual ontogeny. In this paper, we analysed ontogenic changes of head scalation in a population of meadow viper (Vipera ursinii), based on multiple recaptures of marked individuals. Our results show that changes of cephalic scales occur both in immatures and in adults; the frequency of occurrence of change in the sample of re-photographed individuals was 52.2%. Oligomerisation was the most frequent change, found in 39.1% of re-photographed individuals. Changes in shape of cephalic plates as well as polymerisation were recorded in 30.4% of re-photographed individuals. Results of the log-linear analyses indicated no relation either between scale change and sex or between scale change and growth. Although we do not suggest that meristic characters of head scales are completely inadequate for taxonomic use, we point out the need for taking into account the ontogenic trajectories of these characters when analysing intra- and interpopulation variability, in systematics and phylogeny. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Until now, the known range of Branchipus intermedius Orghidan, 1947 was restricted to eastern Romania and the Bistra Mountain in western Macedonia. This paper reports the first record of this species from Serbia, i.e., in the area of the Stara Planina Mountains, which represents a new, southeasternmost distribution limit of B. intermedius in the Balkans. The morphology of B. intermedius is briefly discussed, and it is here described for the first time on the basis of SEM observations. The present distribution, the presumed origin, and dispersal patterns of the species are discussed as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The results presented in this paper point to the need for a revision of the known distribution areas of the species Gammarus balcanicus and Gammarus fossarum, as well as of their contact zones, both on the territory of Serbia and on the Balkan peninsula as a whole. The occurrence of G. fossarum in western Serbia contradicts the assertion that G. balcanicus is the best represented species of this genus in western Serbia and indicates a considerably wider range for G. fossarum. The results presented herein undermine the previously held belief that G. fossarum is only sporadically encountered in Serbia (especially in southern and southeastern Serbia) and indicate that it is the most abundant and most frequently found species in the catchment area of the Southern Morava (southeast Serbia). Moreover, mixed populations of these two amphipods are encountered at the majority of the localities in the Southern Morava. It is here established that the zone of contact between G. balcanicus and G. fossarum is considerably wider than was imagined and in reality stretches into southern and southeastern Serbia: it was previously thought that the contact zone lies between the rivers Morava and Drina in western Serbia and on Mt. Kopaonik in central Serbia. Since G. fossarum is dominant in relation to G. balcanicus in the given region, it can be expected that future finds will further extend the zone of contact between these two vicariant forms to the south and southeast of the Balkan Peninsula. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Macedonian crested newt T. macedonicus forms a complex hybrid zone with the Balkan crested newt T. ivanbureschi in the central part of the Balkan Peninsula. In this study, we compared life history parameters (sex ratio, survival rate and age of sexual maturation) and growth parameters (body length and mass) of T. macedonicus and T. macedonicus × T. ivanbureschi hybrids over the first three postmetamorphic years. Survival rates were high and similar for both genotypes. Sexual dimorphism in body size (length and mass) was evident at the beginning of the third postmetamorphic year, after the first breeding year, for both T. macedonicus and hybrids. We did not find clear and consistent difference in any of the analysed traits suggesting that hybridization with T. ivabureschi does not affect postmetamorphic growth and survival of T. macedonicus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The subject of this paper are the forms of victimization which have been occurring in the Balkan's region in the territory of the former Yugoslavia as of 2002. Various forms of victimizations in the war in post-Yugoslav area are possible in order to distinguish criterion coming from our definition of these forms of victimization. According to this approach, we distinguish systematization criteria by: who is doing the victimization; ways and means of victimization; time of victimization; values destroyed or jeopardized; characteristics of the victim; frequency of victimization. Organized armed formation actions caused massive moves of people, often unexpected, so that civilians had to suddenly abandon their households, in exoduses. Victims of war were submitted to different forms of physical violence -- massacres of large number of people, killing, wounding, rapes, tortures, taking people by force and executions. Pre-war victimization appears in forms of spreading fear and uncertainness, threats, harassing people in their living and working environment. War victimization takes place in conditions of life jeopardy, it is the most widely spread and the most diverse, therefore it strikes the largest number of people. Deprivation of the most important human values takes place, which, in most of the cases, is serious, and which has long lasting consequences. Numerous primary victimization prove that this, humanly induced, catastrophe can even be expected in social societies, with no such horrific experiences. On the other hand, chaos and disorganization are sources of numerous secondary victimizations.

This article offers a comparative analysis of the COVID-19 legal measures and model of governance adopted in the Western Balkans countries (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Kosovo) and its impact on the state of the rule of law, and ability of parliament and civil society to scrutinise government decisions. The article assesses the governments' approaches to introducing and enforcing COVID-19 legal measures, and shows examples of how COVID-19 has exposed more openly the weaknesses in the existing system of checks and balances in the Western Balkans. The article offers new insights into how COVID-19 presented a new opportunity for leaders in the Western Balkans to implement further their authoritarian model of governance in undermining the rule of law. This article offers suggestions on how the EU could respond, through its accession conditionality instruments and civil society, to redirect this trend towards more state capture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the rise of standardized collections of fatāwā issued by officially appointed provincial Hanafi muftis across the Ottoman Empire in the long eighteenth century. The article focuses on the earliest compilation, that of the Jerusalemite Ḥanafī mufti, ʿAbd al-Raḥīm b. Abī al-Luṭf. This compilation was commissioned by the famous chief imperial mufti Feyzullah Efendi. The article then traces the proliferation of the standardized fatāwā compilation over the course of the eighteenth century, from Medina to the Balkans. This essay seeks to examine the emergence of local/provincial compilations of fatāwā over the eighteenth century as yet another chapter in the long intervention of the Ottoman dynasty (through its learned hierarchy) in the regulation of the doctrines of the Ḥanafī madhhab at the imperial and provincial levels. Focusing on Feyzullah Efendi's initiative and its aftermath may cast light on specific venues and practices in which this intervention took place in a particular historical moment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Bosnian alpine newt (Ichthyosaura alpestris reiseri) is endemic to Prokoško Lake (Mt. Vranica, Bosnia & Herzegovina); its evolutionary history is partially clarified and its taxonomic position remains unclear. Due to severe anthropogenic pressures on Mt. Vranica (fish introduction in Prokoško Lake, pollution), it has been assumed that this form of Alpine newt is extinct from the Lake. Nevertheless, some specimens originating from Prokoško Lake are still maintained in captivity in two European zoos and by several private keepers. The main goals of the present study are: (1) to investigate the presence of Alpine newts in the Prokoško Lake and the wider area of Mt. Vranica, (2) to conduct phylogenetic analysis on found specimens of Alpine newts in relation to other Balkan populations. Newts were not registered inside Prokoško Lake but several individuals were found in water bodies surrounding the Lake. Genetic analysis shows that these individuals carry the same haplotype as Alpine newts from a captive population originating from Prokoško Lake. All the Alpine newts originating from mt. Vranica are monophyletic on mtDNA markers, hence form an Evolutionary Significant Unit within I. alpestris that is of specific conservation importance. Results corroborate previous findings concerning the complex pattern of genetic diversity of Alpine newt populations in the Balkans that is poorly understood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The fate of two languages in the Balkans under conditions of language contact is discussed here. These languages, representing different branches of the Romance family, are the Ibero-Romance language Judezmo from the eastern branch and the South Danubian language Aromanian from the western branch. Both have been subject to intense contact with other languages in the Balkans but they show differential outcomes of this contact and thus differential degrees of involvement in the Balkan sprachbund. We document the similarities and differences in these outcomes, offer an explanation of their causes, and discuss the consequences they have for understanding the Balkan sprachbund. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In many cases of apparent contact-induced change the contribution of genealogical correlation in the language sample and its interaction with processes such as matter and pattern replication are difficult to specify. In order to get a better sense of the relevance of shared ancestry, we quantify the change in similarity since the late Middle Ages in a sample of Romance and Germanic languages with data from a selected grammatical domain (expression of reflexivity). We compare their dynamics to patterns of change of similarity in two contact zones in Europe, namely the British Isles (Dedio et al., 2019) and the Balkans. Concerning the genealogical signal, the results indicate a maintenance and gain of similarity in Romance as opposed to a loss of similarity in Germanic. This hints at the importance of the inherited states, the time since the split from the common ancestor, and subsequent developments. We presume that these factors are likely to be at the origin of the maintenance and increase in similarity observed for the sampled Romance varieties. While this result cannot be generalized beyond the specific case study presented here, the basic approach will contribute to a better understanding of how contact, genealogy and culture interact in shaping the dynamics of linguistic similarity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Monasteries and the records they produced are a promising source base for writing a history of the mountains of the western Balkans. These mountains are, by and large, absent from accounts of the Ottoman presence in the Balkans and, as with mountainous areas more generally, are often considered to exist outside of the main historical narrative. Using the example of a monastery that was founded in the Pindus mountains in 1556, I argue that the monastery's beginnings are best understood within the context of the Ottoman sixteenth century, even as due regard for Byzantine precedent must also be made. In addition, I pay close attention to the monastery's location, for two reasons. First, this opens up a new set of questions for the history of monasteries during the Ottoman period; to date most studies have focused on taxation, land ownership and the relationship to the central state. Second, the monastery's location offers a way into the environmental history of these mountains at the Empire's western edge. This article aspires to extend the nascent field of Ottoman environmental history into mountainous terrain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Between 1880 and 1912 Austrian Empire issued several legal Acts regarding the terms by which the Muslims of the newly adjunct territories in Bosnia and Herzegovina were to settle their religious and community-related affairs within the framework of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. These Acts laid fundaments for the establishment of the first autonomous Islamic religious institutions in the Austrian Empire. The present article argues that institutions established during that time remained the most conspicuous legacy of the Austrian juristic regulation of Islamic affairs, not only in Bosnia and Herzegovina but in all successor states of the former Yugoslavia as well as in present time Austria itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: Longidorus barsii sp. n., from Mt Tara in the Balkan Peninsula, is described and characterised by using a polyphasic approach. The species has numerous males. The female body is 5-7 mm long, rather stout and resembles a large Xiphinema. The lip region is wide, with rounded sides continuous with the neck, frontally flattened and depressed around the oral aperture, amphids are pouch-like and distinctly bi-lobed and the odontostyle is moderately long. The nuclei of the pharyngeal glands are in the normal position, the dorsal nucleus located somewhat posterior to anterior third of bulb. The uteri are long, the distal inner epithelium densely covered with papilla-like outgrowths. The tail is rounded, bluntly conoid and very short. Alpha-numerical identification codes: A4/5, B45, C3, D3, E2, F3, G 1(2), H1, I2, J1, K67. The morphologically most similar species are L. kheirii , L. polyae and L. profundorum. Additional observations are provided on the anterior body region and genital organs in L. barsii sp. n., L. piceicola , L. silvae , and L. uroshis. Selected features are discussed from the taxonomic and functional points of view. The D2-D3 expansion domains of the 28S rRNA gene and the ITS region of L. barsii sp. n. were amplified and sequenced. Phylogenetic analysis using the D2-D3 expansion domains of the 28S rRNA gene revealed close evolutionary relationships with L. polyae , L. athesinus and three unidentified Longidorus spp. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on two markers of progressive aspect that are emerging in a Balkan Slavic dialect in Albania, presumably under Albanian influence. One of them dates back to locative (ǵe 'where'). Two processes intertwine on the grammaticalisation path of the other (toko): originally an adversative conjunction ('but'), it was structurally mapped to its polysemic (adversative, but also affirmative, progressive, conditional) Albanian counterpart po. At the same time, its choice to mark progressive was additionally motivated by the phonetic similarity with another Albanian progressive marker duke. In the first third of the 20th century both markers were used as synonyms. However, during the subsequent process of language attrition the language community in question split into three groups regarding the use of the markers: of the last six remaining speakers one speaker used only ǵe as an optional marker; one speaker used toko as an optional marker; four other speakers used toko as a regular progressive marker. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a strong tendency in Turkish historiography to approach Kemalist policies as purely domestic affairs that emanate from the centre in a top-down manner, reflecting the clear ideological positions of Ankara. The existing scholarship on the Settlement Law (1934), too, has read the development of Kemalist demographic policies in ideological terms, framing them in top-down modernist trajectories that were long in the making since the late Ottoman times. These perspectives often remained analytically singular and nation-centred, failing to engage with the broader transnational developments that were in fact crucial to the making and timing of a range of Kemalist policies. As such, the processes of demographic engineering are framed as devoid of historical conjuncture and immune from unintended consequences or the constraints presented by state capacity. In this article, I seek to overcome such limitations by situating the Settlement Law within its due transnational context of heightened interstate rivalries since the 1930s. Unfolding in myriad ways across the borderlands of Eastern Europe, the complex dynamics of interstate competition created the necessary push and pull factors that started dislodging the Balkan Muslims from those areas coveted by various territorially revisionist states in the region. The demographic engineering their arrival triggered in Turkey, I argue, was therefore as much national as international. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We explore here several kinds of language mixing to be found in the Greek-Albanian bilingual speech community of the village of Palasa in southern Albania. Palasa is of particular interest for Greek dialect studies because it offers a window in the present day into highly localized dynamics of language contact. Among the mixing observed in Palasa is code-switching, motivated by various factors as identified by Myslín & Levy 2015, borrowing, both lexical and structural, and hybridization, at a number of levels of analysis, including phonology, morphology, and semantics. Our findings indicate that language contact is still alive and well in the Balkans at least at the level of village dialects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Ottoman Empire shaped much of the Mediterranean world and yet, postcolonial scholarship has developed very few tools that engage with it as a pre-modern and pre-capitalist empire. Given its influence, it is necessary to understand the Ottoman Empire as a colonial force, especially in literatures that represent its reign. Southeastern European literature is ripe for such analysis as it seeks to understand the Ottoman legacy in Southeastern Europe, and to account for the ways in which the Ottoman Empire's imperial model created worlds within worlds, where regions not located in the imperial center were not peripheries but provincial centers. The works of Ivo Andrić, Ismail Kadare, and Meša Selimović fictionalize history in an attempt to show how history itself happens in these provincial centers. Audiences become aware of the Ottoman presence as a droning hum in the background with a lasting cultural, linguistic, and religious legacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the role of women as patrons of monastic institutions, monks and church hierarchs in the late medieval Balkans. Two case studies from medieval Serbia are examined to demonstrate the peculiarities of the relationship between female rulers and bishops, as well as of the different forms and aspects of female patronage of monasticism, like founding and donating to monasteries or commissioning liturgical books. One of the most important questions concerns the motivation of women for patronizing monks. It is suggested that there was some interplay in cooperation between female patrons and monks. The question is posed whether prayers, commemoration, spiritual guidance and even the composing of a vita (i.e. contributing to the veneration of a new saint) may be understood as a form of compensation on the part of the monks towards female patrons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on communal boundaries in nineteenth-century Ottoman Niš, a city located in what is today southern Serbia. In particular, it explores the implications of Robert Hayden’s model of “antagonistic tolerance” for Ottoman urban history. In a first step, by taking into consideration the urban form of Niš from a long-term historical perspective, we consider how urban space was divided between inhabitants with different religious backgrounds. The article then turns to consider the symbolic boundaries that existed between confessional groups in nineteenth-century Niš, which can be traced by looking at the construction of churches and mosques. By examining the ways in which communal boundaries were expressed, negotiated and changed through church and mosque buildings, we can begin to render the confessional policies of the Ottoman authorities more transparent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article looks at the impact of visa liberalisation for Western Balkan states and the increase of Balkan asylum seekers on European Union (EU) policy instrumentation regarding visa-free travel. According to the authors, the EU has increased its emphasis on the rights and social inclusion of marginalised groups such as the Roma. Details on Visa Free Dialogues with countries such as Ukraine and Russia are presented. Other topics include the temporary reintroduction of visa restrictions, power dynamics, and politicization.

Conspicuously absent from 6th to early 7th c. fortified sites in the Balkans are stirrups and other elements of equipment signalling the presence of cavalry troops. Hoards of iron implements containing stirrups have been wrongly dated to Late Antiquity; they are in fact of a much later date (9th-- 11th c. A.D.). Those hoards which can be dated to the 6th c. with some degree of certainty lack agricultural tools associated with large-scale cultivation of fields. As most such hoards found in Early Byzantine hill-forts typically include tools for the garden-type cultivation of small plots of land, they show that no agricultural occupations could be practised inside or outside 6th c. forts, which could satisfy the needs of the existing population. Those were, therefore, forts, not fortified villages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract In this article the authors contend that the murabaa debt-contract is over-emphasized, inefficient, and of questionable value with regards to creating Shariah-compliant alternatives to ribā-based finance. Instead, they argue that mushārakah, or equity-participation, should be the focus of Islamic financial innovation. They propose the creation of a new mushārakah market that would allow investors to bid for participation in investment projects, which would be distinguished from existing equity markets by requiring the direct participation of investors in a project's management. Second, the authors address the legal and regulatory reforms necessary for mushārakah financing to succeed in the Western Balkans. They recommend the protection of property rights through financial arbitration mechanisms rather than court litigation. Arbitration resolves the conflict of laws inherent to Islamic finance, by providing a means of negotiating disputes between Islamic and secular sources of law. These measures reduce transaction costs associated with equity participation and thereby increase investor confidence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, the authors discuss the use of power-sharing instruments in the Western Balkans. While the comparison will focus on the use of power-sharing in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Macedonia, there will be occasional references to Kosovo, the third country in the region that displays elements of power-sharing. We argue that the region has been a laboratory of power-sharing instruments, with rather mixed results. While in all three cases, power-sharing was part of a larger strategy of peacebuilding, and was, therefore, successful in ending violent conflict and supporting peaceful conflict resolution, the introduction of power-sharing has also had some negative side effects. We will discuss, in particular, the consequences of complicated political systems, veto rights, as well as far-reaching ethno-territorial autonomy. Furthermore, the article will asses the risk of blockages arising from complex political arrangements and resulting international mediation. A particular focus of the article will be to distinguish between federalism in Bosnia and Herzegovina and alternative forms of autonomy (both territorial and non-territorial) in Macedonia and Kosovo. Rather than suggesting that power-sharing as such has failed in the region, we submit that the experience in the region suggests that: (a) there are no viable alternatives to power-sharing in the selected countries; (b) that different types of power-sharing need to be considered; and (c) that potential membership in the European Union continues to be the only incentive for the efficient implementation and application of power-sharing in the cases discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The confrontation between the West and Russia over conflict resolution in breakaway states (Kosovo, Abkhazia, South Ossetia, etc.) has been, by and large, the result of dangerous geopolitical moves on the part of both sides after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The US tried to translate the unexpectedly quick victory in the Cold War into a policy aimed at making political use of this tectonic shift in world affairs. On the other hand, Russia—economically marginalized and fully dependent on foreign aid—was forced to stand by and swallow the bitter pill of being excluded from geopolitical decision making. This applies to international diplomacy in the Balkans in the 1990S and, especially, to the Kosovo question, which had already become heated by 1999. However, times have changed in this respect, and things have gotten worse. The Georgian-Ossetian conflict in the summer of 2008 shows that neither side is really interested in an irreversible settlement process in the regions concerned: Russia—for a long time humiliated by the West—acts with a hint of satisfaction in its voice and the West still denies reality by referring to the fairy tale of Kosovo as a sui generis case. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Amendments made to the Central European Free Trade Agreement (CEFTA) in 2006 mark significant developments in the economic integration of the Western Balkans. Among those amendments were changes to the Agreement's dispute resolution mechanism. This article analyzes the latest developments in economic integration in the Western Balkans and examines the nature and operation of the dispute resolution mechanisms used in CEFTA. Explanations for important changes to the dispute settlement process in CEFTA are suggested by examining the context of the members' economic, political, social and legal surroundings. The article surveys ongoing tendencies in the development of dispute resolution mechanisms in other regional trade agreements, in particular those utilized by the European Union (EU), as a means of exploring the rationale behind the new CEFTA. It argues that the EU practice—developed in EU association agreements with third countries—has inspired the 2006 amendments to the CEFTA dispute resolution mechanism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Activity patterns of the sand viper, Vipera ammodytes from the central Balkans (Serbia, Montenegro and Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia) were analysed. The total sample (n = 118) was divided into adult males and females, and depending on the part of the day, habitat type, exposition, and behaviour in two separate seasons (spring and summer). Simple correspondence analysis showed that in spring, males and females were associated with different expositions, while in summer, they displayed different behaviours. Multivariate correspondence analysis showed that in spring males were found more often while basking during the midday in the open forests at south-western exposition. In summer, females were found more often while basking or hiding in the morning in rocky terrains at eastern and southern expositions. The results point out that seasonal variation and intergender differences in behaviour and microhabitat use may occur in sand vipers, as was previously observed in other viper species. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As transgender identities worldwide have begun to receive attention from students of gender and sexuality, a curious Balkan (but more specifically Albanian) tradition of female-to-male transgender ("sworn virgins") surviving to the present day – an obscure and ambiguous theme until recently – is worthy of sociological attention. The "sworn virgin" phenomenon is studied in a larger, ethno-cultural context, zipping through such complicated – and sociologically contentious – notions as patriarchy, blood-feud, destructive entitlement, etc. It is argued that the "sworn virgins" of the Balkans were forced to become "social men," assuming masculine social and family roles, due to specific economic and social conditions that have historically prevailed in northern Albania, but also in Kosovo and Montenegro. Because all aspects of human life in northern Albania have been regulated for centuries by customary law, known in its codified form as the "Kanun of Lekë Dukagjini," the swearing to remain virgin for life may be considered as an escape mechanism for some women who were forced into unwanted marriages and into relations of extreme economic exploitation and social inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A multivariate analyses of various morphological characters (morphometric, meristic and qualitative) of nose-horned viper (Vipera ammodytes) revealed a complex morphological differentiation of populations from the central and the eastern Balkan Peninsula. Analyses of quantitative data showed no clear morphological discrimination or well-defined taxonomical units. On the contrary, analyses of qualitative traits separated two discrete taxa in the analysed area. One, inhabiting the eastern and the southern part of the Balkans, includes samples from most parts of Bulgaria, Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and south-eastern Serbia, whereas the other ranges from north-western Bulgaria through the main part of Serbia (except the south-east) to Montenegro. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]