The Decisions of the Berlin Congress and Their Significance for the Peoples of the Balkan Region

Abstract

The article analyzes the Berlin Treaty of 1878, which confirmed the status of independent states for the young Balkan states. This enabled the Balkan peoples to build their own statehood. The strategic direction of their development and the factors that influenced this process are determined.

The purpose of the study is to carry out an objective and comprehensive analysis of the decisions of the Berlin Congress, which influenced the process of formation of the young Balkan states.

The methodology of the scientific study is based on the principles of historicism, scientificity, objectivity, and systematicity. General scientific and special scientific methods were used.

The study examines the events that took place in the Balkans at the end of the 19th century, which directly became the main causes of the Eastern Crisis in the Balkans, by which the question of the fate of the Turkish possessions in Europe can be understood. It is analyzed that the Berlin Congress became a turning point in the history of the Balkans. Having played a certain stabilizing role, it simultaneously laid the foundation for those fundamental Balkan contradictions that for many years, up to the present day, have secured for the Balkans the bad reputation of the “powder keg of Europe”. The article presents a description of the main provisions of the Berlin Congress, its origin and causes. The situation of the Balkan region, which became significantly more complicated after the Berlin Congress, is considered. New independent states appeared on the map of Europe, although they were severely curtailed by the Berlin resolutions. All of them had programs of “national liberation”, and all of these programs contained a clause on the annexation of new neighboring territories. The growth of contradictions between the Balkan countries was traced and the positions of European states on this issue were analyzed. It was summarized and assessed that objectively the Berlin Treaty, after which the situation in the Balkans worsened, became an expression of the real balance of power of the great European states in 1878. This balance was then not in favor of the Balkan peoples.