TimeMaps

Greece and the Balkans
1000BC

The history of the Minoan civilization of Crete came to an abrupt end about 1400 BC. The Mycenaean world continued to flourish, however, and southern Greece was the centre of a trade network which dominated the eastern Mediterranean. Mycenaean colonies appeared in southern Italy, Sicily, Asia Minor, and as far as Egypt and Palestine.

After 1200 BC, however, this civilization too fell into rapid decline, a process almost certainly connected to the movement of peoples from central Europe. Evidence of writing and other features of a more complex society vanished at this time. Thus ended the first ancient European civilizations. Greece is now home to small-scale, illiterate tribal societies.

Greece and the Balkans
500BC

The Greek tribal societies of around 1000 BC have now formed themselves into several hundred small city-states, covering Greece and the Aegean. Many of these have sent out colonies, so that Greek civilization is now spread far and wide across the Mediterranean basin.

By this period in history most Ancient Greek city-states have a republican form of government. These are in some cases dominated by a small number of aristocratic families, while in others all male citizens have a share in government. These latter are the first democracies in history. The largest of them is the city of Athens, soon to be one of the most famous centres of civilization in the ancient world.

Political life in these states is frequently unstable and sometimes violent, but they allow a degree of freedom unknown in other lands. It is this above all else that gives rise to the dramatic intellectual achievements of Greek civilization.

Greece and the Balkans
200BC

The years after 500 BC saw the Greek city-states, under the leadership of Athens and Sparta, see off an attempt by the mighty Persian Empire to conquer them. This struggle opened two centuries in which the Greek city-states reached their brilliant cultural peak, culminating in the philosophical achievements of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. These would lay much of the foundations for two thousand years of European thought. The cultural brilliance was accompanied by unceasing warfare, however, when led to the Greek city-states being eclipsed by new, larger powers.

To the north of Greece, the kingdom of Macedonia rose to prominence under Philip II (reigned 359-336 BC) and even more so under his son, Alexander the Great (reigned 336-323 BC), under whom it briefly controlled one of the largest empires the world has yet seen. Since then Macedonia has played its part as one of the leading kingdoms of the region, along with Egypt and Syria. These kingdoms now overshadow the many small city-states of Greece.

Greece and the Balkans
30BC

The Greek city-states and the kingdom of Macedon were no match for the rising power of Rome, and by 146 BC, after a series of wars, the Romans were in complete control of the region. The Roman occupation culminated in the destruction of the famous city of Corinth, since been resurrected as a Roman colony by Julius Caesar. Roman governors now rule these provinces, but the ancient Greek cities continue to elect own magistrates and run their own affairs. The late Roman Republic saw a degree of oppression and misrule by several Roman governors, but now, under the firm rule of Augustus, the people of Greece know peace and good governance.

When the Romans annexed Macedonia and Greece, in 146 BC, they gave the Thracians their own kingdom. Since then the Romans have had to get involved in the power struggles within the Thracian royal family from time to time, and will eventually be forced to annex the kingdom entirely.

Greece AD 200 >>

Greece and the Balkans
200AD

Athens has continued to enjoy the prestige based on its magnificent cultural heritage, and is a university town to which young men flock from Rome and other parts of the empire for further education. As a whole, however, the province of Achaia has experienced economic decline over the past two centuries, probably due to the degrading of the soil that has been a continual and gradual process over the centuries.

<< Ancient Greece 30 BC

Greece and the Balkans
500AD

The Balkan provinces of the Roman empire are ruled from Constantinople, subject ot the much more effective rule of the eastern Roman emperors. They have therefore been spared much of the turmoil visited upon the western provinces. They certainly have not escaped completely - from time to time over the past three centuries armies of Visigoths and others have roamed to and fro across them. Nevertheless, the provinces have been spared the worst of the upheavals, and provincial life remains largely intact. Ancient cities continue to thrive, remaining centres of Roman-Greek civilization.

Many of these cities are also now seats of Christian bishops, which in the eastern Roman empire is firmly under the control of the emperors in Constantinople. There is not that separation between secular and spiritual authority that is becoming increasingly marked in the west, where many Roman Christians find themselves under the rule of Arian Germans. Although they still regard themselves very much as members of the same faith, the eastern and western branches of the Church are already beginning to diverge.

Greece and the Balkans
750AD

The Balkans remained under Roman (or, as we should now call it, Byzantine) rule until the time of the emperor Heraclius (610-641). At that time, a massive invasion, led by the Avar people from central Asia but composed mostly of their Slav allies, swept down to the very walls of Constantinople itself. Like so many other invaders, they failed to capture the great city, and were defeated by Heraclius. However, the Byzantines have been unable to reimpose their authority upon their old Balkan territories, except near the coast. In the meantime, the earlier populations have been swamped by Slav tribes, and city life has vanished from much of the region.

In the 7th century a new people, the Bulgars, arrived from central Asia and established themselves just north of the Carpathian mountains, conquering the Slav tribes living there. They defeated a Byzantine army sent against them and were then recognized as a separate kingdom by the Byzantine emperor (681). Thereafter the Bulgars and Byzantines have been involved in continual hostilities, with the Byzantines normally getting the upper hand.

Greece and the Balkans
979AD

Byzantine forces have been able to gradually regain control over much of the territory lost to them by the Avar invasion of the 7th century, but they have faced another threat in the form of the Bulgars. In the 9th century a succession of Bulgar kings, having converted their people to Christianity, expanded their territory dramatically. However, more recently, internal instability and external attacks, from Magyars, Pechenegs, Byzantines and Russians, have weakend them.

Caught up in the struggle between the Bulgars and the Byzantines, two Slav groups, the Serbs and the Croats, have both established independent principalities. The Croats have accepted the Catholic Church, and therefore looks westwards towards the Holy Roman Empire for political and spiritual aid. The Serbians adhere to the Orthodox Church, and look to the Byzantines for support.

Greece and the Balkans
1215AD

The struggle between the Byzantines and the Bulgars continued. However, the Byzantines, under their emperor Basil II, won a crushing victory at the battle of Belasitsa (1014), which led to the Byzantine conquest of Bulgaria and its absorption into their empire. In 1185 the Bulgars won their independence again. Then in 1204, the Byzantines suffered a catastrophe as the Christian soldiers of the Fourth Crusade sacked the Byzantine capital, Constantinople, and installed one of their leaders there as emperor.

The Slav states of Croatia and Serbia have had varying fortunes. Croatia has become politically absorbed into Hungary, though the Croats retain their distinctive national laws and institutions, while Serbia has expanded greatly and is a strong, well-organized militaristic state.

Greece and the Balkans
1453AD

The northern Balkans were ravaged by the Mongols in the mid-13th century, with Hungary and Bulgaria being particularly hard hit. Then, in the 14th century, the Muslim power of the Ottoman Turks began spreading through the region.

The Byzantines, who had regained their capital of Constantinople and partially restored their empire in the late 13th century, were the first to feel the Ottoman onslaught. Although they retained Constantinople, they lost much territory to the Ottomans, who then turned north and conquered the Bulgarians and the Serbs. In this year, 1453, the Ottomans succeed in capturing Constantinople. They now pose an even graver threat to the independence of the remaining Christian states in the Balkans, and beyond.

Greece and the Balkans
1648AD

After their capture of Constantinople in 1453, the Ottoman Turks progressively swallowed up all the Balkan lands and much of central Europe. The Christian population is allowed to practice its own religion in peace – except that, periodically, selected children are taken away to be converted to Islam and trained as Janissaries, the elite corps of the Ottoman army.

Two areas are different from the rest. In Bosnia, a large part of the population has converted to Islam. This is probably due to the presence of the cities of Sarajevo and Mostar, which soon become virtually Muslim colonies, though both Catholic and Orthodox Christians continue to have a strong presence there. In Albania, fierce resistance to Ottoman rule led to the Ottomans settling thousands of Turkish soldiers, and their families, there.

Greece and the Balkans
1789AD

The Ottoman empire made two attempts to capture Vienna, the Hapsburg capital, in 1529 and 1683, but both failed. The latter seige was followed by the Ottoman frontier being rolled back by Austia and her allies.

The Ottomans were able to stabilize the front and, later in the 18th century, to regain some territory. However, the Ottomans have also had to contend with a Russian hostility, and by the Treaty of Kucuk Kaynarca (1774), Russia has won the right to protect the interests of the Orthodox population within the Ottoman empire.

Greece and the Balkans
1837AD

In the Balkans, the people have been increasingly agitating for national liberation. In Serbia, a rebellion in 1815 succeeded in driving the Turks from much of the north. Under the threat of renewed Russian intervention, the Turks granted the rebels a semi-autonomous principality.

Further south, in Greece, an uprising broke out in 1821. A wave of sympathy for the Greeks swept through Europe and Russia, France and Britain sending support. The ensuing war ended in Greek independence and confirmed the autonomy of Serbia.

Greece and the Balkans
1871AD

In the Balkans, the increasing weakness of the Ottoman empire has been drawing the European powers into the region, even more than before. This, however, has exposed tensions between them. Each wishes to benefit as much as possible from the situation, but is increasingly suspicious of the others’ motives.

These tensions helped lead to the Crimean War (1854-6) between Britain, France and Turkey, on the one hand, and Russia, on the other. Russia came off worst, and was forced to give up the right to protect Christians within the Ottoman empire, as well as some territory, which reverted back to the Ottomans.

Greece and the Balkans
1914AD

The Treaty of Berlin (1878), signed by the leading powers of Europe, recognized the full independence from the Turks of Serbia and Romania, and guaranteed self-government for Bulgaria within the Ottoman empire. Bosnia, whilst theoretically remaining a part of the Ottoman empire, was to be administered by Austria-Hungary. The Austro-Hungarian occupation would leave a lingering thirst for independence.

Bulgaria was given complete independence from Turkey in 1908. In 1912-13 Serbia, Bulgaria and Greece drove the Ottomans out of most of their European territories in the First Balkan War - but then fought over the division of the conquered Ottoman territories in the Second Balkan War (1913-14 - this allowed the Ottomans to reclaim some of their lost territory). In all this upheaval Albania declared its independence.

Greece and the Balkans
1960AD

The aftermath of World War 1 saw the map of the Balkans re-drawn. Most notably, Serbia, plus the South Slav territories of the former Austro-Hungarian empire, were united to form the kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, later called Yugoslavia. Because of the inability of the various national groups to work together, the king, Alexander I, established a dictatorship (1929).

The period of World War 2 saw all the countries of the region occupied by the Axis powers. Communist-led resistance movements sprang up, and, aided by the incoming Soviet forces, won control of most of the countries after the war. Bulgaria and Romania became members of the Warsaw Pact in 1955, whilst Albania and Yugoslavia, under its president Josip Tito, retained a much more independent stance. Greece is the only Balkan country not to have fallen under communist sway. Greece is a constitutional monarchy, and a member of NATO.

Greece and the Balkans
2005AD

In Yugoslavia, the death of Tito (1980) gravely weakened communist rule, and the waves of liberation washing over other parts of the communist world in the late 80s and early 90s led to the dissolution of the country. Croatia, Slovenia, Serbia and Montenegro, and Macedonia, all became separate states. So too did Bosnia, which quickly descended into civil war between the different religious groups. This drew in Serbia and Croatia on opposite sides, and eventually, when fighting flared up in Kosovo, NATO stepped in with a bombing campaign (1998). Since then, although plenty of tensions remained in the region, full-scale war has been avoided.

The other countries of the Balkans threw off their communist regimes in 1989 and the following years; all have gradually moved towards becoming multi-party democracies. They have all experienced economic hardship, but over time things have improved.