Ratovi i demografska deosmanizacija Balkana (1912-1941)
Wars and Demographic De-Ottomanisation of the Balkans (1912-1941)

Summary/Abstract: With Balkan Wars in 1912 - 1913, the process that had begun in 1877-1878 of elimination of Ottoman administration in most of the Balkan territories has been completed, transforming Muslims from a dominant community in the Ottoman Empire into the minority groups within the Balkan states. Exposed to attacks from severalsides, the Muslim population has turned to itself, having found itself in a very unenviable state of isolation, defensiveness, and hypersensitivity. Expulsions and emigration of Muslim population had an impact on the significant changes of ethnic and religious structure of the Balkans. By the end of 1912, thousands of refugees (known as muhajeer) have left and headed towards the Asia Minor and other parts of Ottoman Empire. Muslims were the undoubted losers when the new state borders have been formed. Their rights were totally neglected. Out of 1,445.179 Muslims who did not live any more in the conquered parts of Ottoman Europe, 413,992 immigrated to Turkey during and after the Balkan Wars. In 1923, only 38% of the Muslim population that had been reported in the Balkans in 1911. The others fled, died as refugees, or were killed. The trend of “demographic de-Ottomanisation” - the characteristic trait of the Balkan nation-states in XX century, started becoming part of the modern problem of minorities in the period between 1912 and 1923, where the states, in an international environment that was yet not stabilized enough, saw the threat for their security, the danger of becoming the hostages, or both of the two. In the inter-war period, the Muslim minorities in the Balkans have been exposed both to the convergent policies of expulsions and those of “repatriation”.

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