ISSUE: 2/2026
- Volume 30
- Number 2
- 2026
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Studia Europejskie –
Studies in European Affairs
ISSN: 1428-149X
e-ISSN: 2719-3780
License
Articles published in the journal are under a Creative Commons Attribution – Non Commercial – No Derivatives 4.0 International License
Publication co-financed by Ministry of Science and Higher Education pursuant to the Regulation of the Minister of Education and Science of 3 August 2021 (Journal of Laws of 2021, item 1514) on the “Development of Scientific Journals” programme.
Publikacja dofinansowana przez Ministerstwo Nauki i Szkolnictwa Wyższego na podstawie rozporządzenia Ministra Edukacji i Nauki z 3 sierpnia 2021 r. (Dz. U. z 2021 r. poz. 1514) w sprawie programu „Rozwój czasopism naukowych”.
Publication co-financed by the University of Warsaw within the “Excellence Initiative – Research University” programme.
Czasopismo otrzymało dofinasowanie w ramach Programu „Inicjatywa Doskonałości – Uczelnia Badawcza”.
Beyond Ancient Hatreds: The Political Construction of Division in Eastern Europe and the Balkans
Abstract
This article advances a constructivist critique of civilisational and ethnonational explanations of conflict in Eastern Europe and the Balkans. Rejecting the primordialist thesis of so-called “ancient hatreds”, it argues that the region’s most salient political divisions are historically constructed rather than naturally given. Through a historical genealogy spanning the Great Schism and the doctrine of the Third Rome, Enlightenment discourse, nineteenth-century nationalism, geopolitical theory, the Cold War, and the post-1989 international order, the article demonstrates how successive intellectual frameworks have supplied blueprints for political engineering. Two extended case studies – Bosnia and Herzegovina and Ukraine – illustrate how externally legitimised narratives of partition, identity, and geopolitical alignment have functioned as performative mechanisms that generate instability rather than resolve it. The article concludes by proposing an alternative normative framework grounded in civic sovereignty, political hybridity, and the rejection of civilisational cartography as a principle of political order.
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DOI: 10.33067/SE.2.2026.3
Language: English
Pages: 53-68
How to Cite:
Harvard
Hadžidedić, Z. (2026) "Beyond Ancient Hatreds: The Political Construction of Division in Eastern Europe and the Balkans". Studia Europejskie – Studies in European Affairs, 2/2026, pp. 53-68. DOI: 10.33067/SE.2.2026.3