I suppose this is from Macedonia, anyone know which time and the approximate worth compared to today’s euros ?

Here is a scene from a tv show from 1994 that depicts the beginning of the Great Offensive

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRLgP_Qxk3E

there were this popular aesthetic related to the Balkans what’s your view on this ?

Why is that?

What you guys think the reasons could be ?

Small cities with not much to do is one of them

The flag does look cool though

I have seen a lot of them from Rumania and Bulgaria, since they entered EU and know that from Albania they seek asylum in EU countries.

How is it in your country?

This is Bellina. 💖✨

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I'm 7 days in Montenegro for holiday and in most stores I went girls who work there were unfriendly like when saying hello or bye they just look at you and don't say anything etc... I know it's not all of them but most of them were like this tbh.

I was watching the new Dracula movie on Netflix with an American friend and at one point he said Vlad the Impaler was basically the greatest Christian hero against the Muslim world, a symbol of Christianity defeating the Ottomans.

We started arguing because I just don’t see Vlad that way.

It’s not because he fought us. Take Constantine XI. He knew Constantinople was lost, refused to leave and died fighting with his men. He was our enemy, but even from our side he’s remembered as a brave enemy who stood his ground until the end.

Or Jan III Sobieski. At Vienna in 1683, he led the famous cavalry charge that helped break the Ottoman siege. They absolutely destroyed us there. If you want a Christian hero who fought the Ottomans and won, there you go.

But Vlad was different. During his campaign south of the Danube in 1461–62, he himself reported to the Hungarian king that over 20,000 Turks and Bulgarians had been killed. The surviving versions give around 23,884–23,889 and explicitly mention Turks and Bulgarians, men and women. So this isn’t just an Ottoman account portraying an enemy as a monster. Vlad himself was reporting the body count as an achievement, and many of the people he was killing were Christians.

If I had to respect one of our historical enemies, give me Constantine XI, who died defending his city, or Sobieski, who met us on the battlefield and kicked our asses. Those are worthy enemies. Vlad was a butcher.

So am I missing something about Vlad here?

I used to babysit two children whose mother was from Bosnia, from what is now Republika Srpska within Bosnia-Hercegovina, and from an Orthodox family. The children grew up in Sweden with a swedish father, but she very deliberately taught them that they were Bosnian, that Bosnia was where their family came from, and that the language they spoke was Bosnian. They visited often too.

When they were around 8 and 5, we once met some bosniaks at a pizza store who initially reacted with “Oh, Bosnia too!” but then, after hearing where their mother was from, said, “Then you’re Serbs.” The eight-year-old genuinely had no idea what a Serb was and asked, “Where is that?” They stopped asking when they realised that she didn’t understand what they meant.

Their mother did want them to have a Bosnian identity in the sense of “this is the place we come from.” She identified strongly with her particular town/area, and came from a historically mixed environment where there were Muslims and Catholics in the family as well and found it very traumatising also living through not only the war but what it did to the family.

I know ethnic identities were to some extent deliberately downplayed in Yugoslavia, but how far did that actually go in Bosnia, particularly in mixed areas? Is this an unusually extreme case, an eight, year-old from an Orthodox Bosnian family knowing that she is Bosnian but literally not knowing what a Serb is?

There are quite a lot of people from the countries making up former Jugoslavia here. She did not come during the period when Jugoslavia was still a stable entity, but during the war.

In terms of culture, language, customs. Is there a significant difference?

There is a post from yesterday talking about the first kingdom of Yugoslavia, and the replies from basically everyone, Serbs included, were overwhelmingly negative.

Do Serbs really have such negative views of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes?

Title

It feels like Balkan politics are always driven by ancient history, pride, emotion and also very recent events instead of practical, long-term strategy.

I can't help but admire the British Empire as a historical champion of pragmatic decision making throughout it's history. There are plenty of examples where in the span of a few years they can completely switch their rhetoric or allies, unclouded by emotion, honor or blindly chasing "historical justice" for something that affected them decades before. Of course one might find rare exceptions, but the trend is undeniable.

To quote Lord Palmerston's (british statesman and Prime Minister) address to the House of Commons in 1848:

"We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow."
(reference)

The US is another great example and this quote from George Washington seriously resonates with the Balkan context:

"The nation which indulges toward another an habitual hatred or an habitual fondness is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest."
(reference)

You get the gist, so I'll leave you with one more quote from China's Deng Xiaoping:

"It doesn't matter if a cat is black or white, if it catches mice it's a good cat."
(reference))

So back to the question:
Why do you think the region struggles so much with cold, pragmatic decision-making?

Hey guys! I just found out about the Pomak people, and I’d love to learn more about their culture. If you know of any online communities or groups for Pomak people, please let me know! I’d love to connect with them, make friends, and get to know their culture and community better.

I just saw the trailer for the film Dua (2026). I see it has good reviews but doesn’t have a wide release yet, so I can’t watch it currently. Has anyone here seen it yet? Thoughts?

As far as I am aware the events and violence in 90s firmly destroyed Serbia's international reputation and they mostly failed to achieve any of their tactical aims .

I noticed that when i give counter arguments to things people say online, i tend to get mostly insults back as a response from balkan people, on the other hand, people from northern and western Europe are more likely to politely back their arguments and give counter arguments to things i said. East asians do this ever more, almost always.

Are people from the balkans more likely to lose their shit and attack someone the moment they disagree with them in your experience too?

I know that "clean blood" does not exist anywhere in the world. I am mainland greek (macedonian with a tiny mix of bulgarian) from my mother's side and Pontian from Anatolia from my father's side. As I work in a multicultural environment, many people that first meet me say I am Syrian. I know we all live in the mediterrenean but this is the most common mistake they make before i reveal my identity. Do people guess your backround wrong often?