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109-429: There are elements of eroticism and courtship acted out in the dance, which is usually performed by pairs of men and women dancing opposite. Another form is where all the dancers in a row follow the first dancer who moves in complex patterns. Almost every island of Aegean has a sousta dance. The Sousta originated from ancient Greece , in the island of Crete . Men working with medicine on Ancient Crete sometimes danced

218-572: A fight between Zeus and the monster/titan Typhon . Zeus injured Typhon with a thunder bolt and Typhon's blood fell on the mountains, giving them their name. The earliest mention of the name appears in an early 14th-century Arab map, in which the Haemus Mountains are referred to as Balkan . The first attested time the name "Balkan" was used in the West for the mountain range in Bulgaria

327-432: A heterosexual, lesbian and separatist point of view, respectively, seeing eroticism as both a political force and cultural critique for marginalized groups, or as Mario Vargas Llosa summarized: "Eroticism has its own moral justification because it says that pleasure is enough for me; it is a statement of the individual's sovereignty". Audre Lorde , a lesbian Caribbean-American writer and outspoken feminist , called

436-523: A high of 8 million in the late 16th-century to only 3 million by the mid-eighteenth. This estimate is based on Ottoman documentary evidence." Most of the Balkan nation-states emerged during the 19th and early 20th centuries as they gained independence from the Ottoman or Habsburg empires: Greece in 1821, Serbia, and Montenegro in 1878, Romania in 1881, Bulgaria in 1908 and Albania in 1912. In 1912–1913,

545-640: A member of the Axis, Germany, with Bulgaria, invaded both Greece and Yugoslavia. Yugoslavia immediately disintegrated when those loyal to the Serbian King and the Croatian units mutinied. Greece resisted, but, after two months of fighting, collapsed and was occupied. The two countries were partitioned between the three Axis allies, Bulgaria, Germany and Italy, and the Independent State of Croatia ,

654-457: A puppet state of Italy and Germany. During the occupation, the population suffered considerable hardship due to repression and starvation, to which the population reacted by creating a mass resistance movement. Together with the early and extremely heavy winter of that year (which caused hundreds of thousands of deaths among the poorly fed population), the German invasion had disastrous effects in

763-416: A result, the level of improvised dance practised by the males outside of formal events was necessary to present talent and grace, which in turn attracted spectators to donate and praise the lead dancer. Women could praise dancers who were either her husband or son, but were forbidden against paying young, unmarried women, or requesting a song. The Sousta exists with differing variations throughout Greece and

872-641: A revolutionary organization with predominantly Serb and pro-Yugoslav members, assassinated the Austro-Hungarian heir Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria in Bosnia and Herzegovina's capital, Sarajevo . That caused a war between Austria-Hungary and Serbia, which—through the existing chains of alliances —led to the World War I. The Ottoman Empire soon joined the Central Powers becoming one of

981-549: A symbol for purity between the couples and their love. The music to the Sousta dance is most commonly played using a lyre , violin , lauoto, and mandolin . The varying instruments that accompany the Sousta could be played by several people within the village, with the most common being a shepherd. As a part of the fame of the dance and cultural significance it carried up until the mid-twentieth century, each village would often present one key instrument player as their best. Whoever

1090-416: A transgression that dissolves the rational world but is always temporary, as well as that, "Desire in eroticism is the desire that triumphs over the taboo. It presupposes man in conflict with himself". For Bataille, as well as many French theorists, "Eroticism, unlike simple sexual activity, is a psychological quest...eroticism is assenting to life even in death". Queer theory and LGBTQ studies consider

1199-694: A whole and southern parts of Slovenia. The Province of Trieste in Italy, although by some definitions on the peninsula, is generally excluded from the Balkans. Hungary and Moldova are occasionally included in discussions of the Balkans due to cultural and historical affiliation, but are generally excluded. The term Southeast Europe is also used for the region, with various definitions. Individual Balkan states can also be considered part of other regions, including Southern Europe , Eastern Europe , and Central Europe . Turkey, including its European territory,

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1308-515: Is applied to everything with a connection to the love of the sexes; one employs it particularly to characterize...a dissoluteness, an excess". Libertine literature such as those by John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester evoked eroticism to the readers. Because eroticism is wholly dependent on the viewer's culture and personal tastes pertaining to what, exactly, defines the erotic, critics have often confused eroticism with pornography , with anti-pornography activist Andrea Dworkin saying, "Erotica

1417-461: Is dependent not just upon an individual's sexual morality , but also the culture and time in which an individual resides. Because the nature of what is erotic is fluid, early definitions of the term attempted to conceive eroticism as some form of sensual or romantic love or as the human sex drive ( libido ); for example, the Encyclopédie of 1755 states that the erotic "is an epithet which

1526-548: Is generally encompassed in the region known as Southeast Europe . Italy currently holds a small area around Trieste that is by some older definitions considered a part of the Balkan Peninsula. However, the regions of Trieste and Istria are not usually considered part of the Balkans by Italian geographers, due to their definition of the Balkans that limits its western border to the Kupa River. The borders of

1635-736: Is generally included in Western Asia or the Middle East . The Western Balkans is a political neologism coined to refer to Albania and the territory of the former Yugoslavia, except Slovenia , since the early 1990s. The region of the Western Balkans, a coinage exclusively used in pan-European parlance, roughly corresponds to the Dinaric Alps territory. The institutions of the European Union have generally used

1744-459: Is in wide use, from over 1,000 dams. The often relentless bora wind is also being harnessed for power generation. Metal ores are more usual than other raw materials. Iron ore is rare, but in some countries there is a considerable amount of copper, zinc, tin , chromite , manganese , magnesite and bauxite . Some metals are exported. The Balkan region was the first area in Europe to experience

1853-402: Is made back. The dance is often observed to be energetic, with a constant 'hopping' motion. However, due to its form as a 'couple's dance', the Sousta allows room for improvisation. Cross-linked arms were formed as an expression of unity, as well as ensuring the jump-steps of the dance were performed in unison. A dancer's right arm held the left of the dancer proceeding, with the left arm holding

1962-679: Is mostly unsuccessful because of the mountains, hot summers and poor soils, although certain cultures such as olive and grape flourish. Resources of energy are scarce, except in Kosovo , where considerable coal , lead , zinc , chromium and silver deposits are located. Other deposits of coal , especially in Bulgaria, Serbia and Bosnia, also exist. Lignite deposits are widespread in Greece. Petroleum scarce reserves exist in Greece, Serbia and Albania. Natural gas deposits are scarce. Hydropower

2071-730: Is no longer Balkan proper, but the cradle of our Western civilization. Most of the area is covered by mountain ranges running from the northwest to southeast. The main ranges are the Balkan Mountains (Stara Planina in Bulgarian language ), running from the Black Sea coast in Bulgaria to the border with Serbia , the Rila - Rhodope massif in southern Bulgaria, the Dinaric Alps in Bosnia and Herzegovina , Croatia and Montenegro ,

2180-585: Is seen on the Adriatic coasts of Albania, Croatia and Montenegro, as well as the Ionian coasts of Albania and Greece, in addition to the Aegean coasts of Greece and Balkan Turkey (European Turkey) . Over the centuries, forests have been cut down and replaced with bush . In the southern part and on the coast there is evergreen vegetation. Inland there are woods typical of Central Europe ( oak and beech , and in

2289-479: Is simply high-class pornography; better produced, better conceived, better executed, better packaged, designed for a better class of consumer." This confusion, as Lynn Hunt writes, "demonstrate[s] the difficulty of drawing... a clear generic demarcation between the erotic and the pornographic": "the history of the separation of pornography from eroticism... remains to be written". Audre Lorde recognises eroticism and pornography as “two diametrically opposed uses of

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2398-495: Is ultimately the whole of continental Europe itself that functions as a kind of Balkan Turkish global empire with Brussels as the new Constantinople, the capricious despotic center threatening English freedom and sovereignty. So Balkan is always the Other: it lies somewhere else, always a little bit more to the southeast, with the paradox that, when we reach the very bottom of the Balkan peninsula, we again magically escape Balkan. Greece

2507-519: The Aegean Sea in the south, the Turkish straits in the east, and the Black Sea in the northeast. The northern border of the peninsula is variously defined. The highest point of the Balkans is Musala , 2,925 metres (9,596 ft), in the Rila mountain range, Bulgaria. The concept of the Balkan Peninsula was created by the German geographer August Zeune in 1808, who mistakenly considered

2616-588: The Balkan Peninsula ( Peninsula of Haemus , Haemaic Peninsula ), is a geographical area in southeastern Europe with various geographical and historical definitions. The region takes its name from the Balkan Mountains (Haemus Mountains) that stretch throughout the whole of Bulgaria . The Balkan Peninsula is bordered by the Adriatic Sea in the northwest, the Ionian Sea in the southwest,

2725-849: The Baltic Sea are closer to Trieste than Odesa yet it is not considered as another European peninsula. Since the late 19th and early 20th century no exact northern border has been clear, with an issue, whether the rivers are usable for its definition. In studies the Balkans' natural borders, especially the northern border, are often avoided to be addressed, considered as a problème fastidieux (delicate problem) by André Blanc in Géographie des Balkans (1965), while John Lampe and Marvin Jackman in Balkan Economic History (1971) noted that "modern geographers seem agreed in rejecting

2834-584: The First Balkan War broke out when the nation-states of Bulgaria , Serbia , Greece and Montenegro united in an alliance against the Ottoman Empire . As a result of the war, almost all remaining European territories of the Ottoman Empire were captured and partitioned among the allies. Ensuing events also led to the creation of an independent Albanian state. Bulgaria insisted on its status quo territorial integrity, divided and shared by

2943-670: The Korab - Šar mountains which spreads from Kosovo to Albania and North Macedonia , and the Pindus range, spanning from southern Albania into central Greece and the Albanian Alps , and the Alps at the northwestern border. The highest mountain of the region is Rila in Bulgaria, with Musala at 2,925 m, second being Mount Olympus in Greece, with Mytikas at 2,917 m, and Pirin mountain with Vihren , also in Bulgaria, being

3052-657: The Ottomans several decades later. Ottoman expansion in the region began in the second half of the 14th century, as the Byzantine Empire continued to lose its grip on the region after several defeats to the Ottomans. In 1362, the Ottoman Turks conquered Adrianople (now Edirne , Turkey). This was the start of their conquest of the Balkan Peninsula, which lasted for more than a century. Other states in

3161-770: The Rhodope Mountains to be the northern limit of the Peninsula of Haemus and the same limit applied approximately to the border between Greek and Latin use in the region (later called the Jireček Line ). However large spaces south of Jireček Line were and are inhabited by Vlachs ( Aromanians ), the Romance-speaking heirs of Roman Empire. The Bulgars and Slavs arrived in the sixth-century and began assimilating and displacing already-assimilated (through Romanization and Hellenization) older inhabitants of

3270-517: The Thracian king Haemus was turned into a mountain by Zeus as a punishment and the mountain has remained with his name. A reverse name scheme has also been suggested. D. Dechev considers that Haemus (Αἷμος) is derived from a Thracian word *saimon , 'mountain ridge'. A third possibility is that "Haemus" ( Αἵμος ) derives from the Greek word haima ( αἷμα ) meaning 'blood'. The myth relates to

3379-458: The aesthetics of sexual desire , sensuality, and romantic love . That quality may be found in any form of artwork , including painting , sculpture , photography , drama , film , music , or literature . It may also be found in advertising . The term may also refer to a state of sexual arousal or anticipation of such – an insistent sexual impulse , desire , or pattern of thoughts. As French novelist Honoré de Balzac stated, eroticism

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3488-653: The Balkan Mountains the dominant mountain system of Southeast Europe spanning from the Adriatic Sea to the Black Sea. The term Balkan Peninsula was a synonym for Rumelia in the 19th century, the parts of Europe that were provinces of the Ottoman Empire at the time. It had a geopolitical rather than a geographical definition, which was further promoted during the creation of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in

3597-501: The Balkans after the Indo-European migrations in the region. In pre-classical and classical antiquity , this region was home to Greeks , Illyrians , Paeonians , Thracians , Dacians , and other ancient groups. The Achaemenid Persian Empire incorporated parts of the Balkans comprising Macedonia , Thrace (parts of present-day eastern Bulgaria ), and the Black Sea coastal region of Romania beginning in 512 BC. Following

3706-560: The Balkans and eventual creation of a joint military staff for the three countries. When the pact was signed, Turkey and Greece were members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), while Yugoslavia was a non-aligned communist state. With the Pact, Yugoslavia was able to indirectly associate itself with NATO. Though, it was planned for the pact to remain in force for 20 years, it dissolved in 1960. As

3815-403: The Balkans are due to many contrasting definitions disputed. There exists no universal agreement on the region's components. The term by most definitions fully encompasses Albania , Bosnia and Herzegovina , Bulgaria , Greece , Kosovo , Montenegro , North Macedonia , European Turkey , Romanian coast , most of Serbia and large parts of Croatia . Sometimes the term also includes Romania as

3924-537: The Balkans by using its protectorate Albania to invade Greece . After repelling the attack, the Greeks counterattacked, invading Italy-held Albania and causing Nazi Germany's intervention in the Balkans to help its ally. Days before the German invasion, a successful coup d'état in Belgrade by neutral military personnel seized power. Although the new government reaffirmed its intentions to fulfill its obligations as

4033-599: The Balkans inhabitants who were pagan beforehand. Initially, it was adopted by the Bulgarians and Serbs, with the Romanians joining a bit later. The Albanians , on the other hand due to their isolation in their mountain settlements, were not immediately affected by the spread of Christianity. The emergence of the First Bulgarian Empire and the constant conflicts between the Byzantine Empire and

4142-591: The Balkans is dominated by its geographical position; historically the area was known as a crossroads of cultures. It has been a juncture between the Latin and Greek bodies of the Roman Empire , the destination of a massive influx of pagan Bulgars and Slavs , an area where Orthodox and Catholic Christianity met, as well as the meeting point between Islam and Christianity. Albanic , Hellenic , and other Palaeo-Balkan languages , had their formative core in

4251-547: The Balkans place their greatest folk heroes in the era of either the onslaught or the retreat of the Ottoman Empire. As examples, for Greeks, Constantine XI Palaiologos and Kolokotronis ; and for Serbs, Miloš Obilić , Tsar Lazar and Karadjordje ; for Albanians, George Kastrioti Skanderbeg; for ethnic Macedonians , Nikola Karev and Goce Delčev ; for Bulgarians, Vasil Levski , Georgi Sava Rakovski and Hristo Botev and for Croats , Nikola Šubić Zrinjski . In

4360-618: The First Bulgarian Empire significantly weakened the Byzantine control over the Balkans by the end of the 10th century. The Byzantines further lost power in the Balkans after the resurgence of the Bulgarians in the late 12th century, with the forming of their Second Bulgarian Empire . After the collapse of the Second Bulgarian Empire, the Byzantine's Empire grip on power was prolonged by the inability of

4469-696: The Great Powers next to the Russo-Turkish War (1877–78) in other boundaries and on the pre-war Bulgarian-Serbian agreement. Bulgaria was provoked by the backstage deals between its former allies, Serbia and Greece, on the allocation of the spoils at the end of the First Balkan War. At the time, Bulgaria was fighting at the main Thracian Front. Bulgaria marks the beginning of Second Balkan War when it attacked them. The Serbs and

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4578-399: The Greeks repulsed single attacks, but when the Greek army invaded Bulgaria together with an unprovoked Romanian intervention in the back, Bulgaria collapsed. The Ottoman Empire used the opportunity to recapture Eastern Thrace , establishing its new western borders that still stand today as part of modern Turkey. World War I was sparked in the Balkans in 1914 when members of Young Bosnia ,

4687-399: The Ottoman occupied parts of Europe), while Yugoslavian maps also included Croatia and Bosnia. The term Balkan Peninsula was a synonym for European Turkey, the political borders of former Ottoman Empire provinces. The usage of the term changed in the very end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, when it was embraced by Serbian geographers, most prominently by Jovan Cvijić . It

4796-546: The Ottomans for a time (1443–1468) by using guerilla warfare . Skanderbeg's achievements, in particular the Battle of Albulena and the First Siege of Krujë won him fame across Europe. The Ottomans eventually conquered the near entirety of the Balkans and reached central Europe by the early 16th century. Some smaller countries, such as Montenegro managed to retain some autonomy by managing their own internal affairs, since

4905-740: The Persian defeat in the Greco-Persian Wars in 479 BC, they abandoned all of their European territories, which regained their independence. During the reign of Philip II of Macedon (359-336 BC), Macedonia rose to become the most powerful state in the Balkans . In the second century BC, the Roman Empire conquered the region and spread Roman culture and the Latin language, but significant parts still remained under classical Greek influence. The only Paleo-Balkan languages that survived are Albanian and Greek . The Romans considered

5014-526: The Slavs to unite, which was caused by frequent infighting amongst themselves. Bulgaria in the first half of the 14th century was then overshadowed by the new rising regional power of Serbia, which was a result of Stefan Dušan rising up and conquering much of the Balkans to create the Serbian Empire . The Serbian and Byzantine empires continued to be the dominant forces in the region until the arrival of

5123-407: The Sousta could be danced without music, and only singing. This approach was rarely seen at socially-recognised events, and occurred when dancers would participate informally. Eroticism Eroticism (from Ancient Greek ἔρως ( érōs )  'love, desire' and -ism ) is a quality that causes sexual feelings, as well as a philosophical contemplation concerning

5232-497: The Sousta in its popularity. This is due to the Sousta not being taught in island or village school curriculum, whereas the Syrto has continued as a staple national dance. As a sign of appreciation or recognition for the skill of a dancer, spectators could throw coins on the floor or towards the instrumentalists. This could be accompanied by the use of paper notes, being attached to instruments, belts or slapped on foreheads. The Sousta

5341-403: The Sousta is associated with a level of courtship and love between the newlyweds, and also allows for other couples at a wedding to express their affection and honour for each other. The Sousta represents the interplay of gender roles within its performance. To initiate the dance, men would invite women discreetly to protect the female's identity. Any men who did not lead the dance often sung with

5450-446: The Sousta to appease the earth goddess Rea. By dancing with large leaps, which was believed to influence growth in nature, the Sousta was seen as a dance for fertility. The Sousta was also seen as a dance of the sea, linked to its origins from the island of Crete. The dance's swaying motion, with two steps forward and one back, re-enacted boats at sea pushing against large waves. The dance in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century

5559-405: The Sousta's jumps suited younger dancers, and the courtship they portrayed in young couples. The jump-steps performed in the Sousta resemble a recoiling spring after compression, of which the dance has its name. The linking of male and female partners in the dance, through holding a handkerchief and cross-linked arms, showed the Sousta as a dance for pairs. The handkerchief used was always white, as

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5668-520: The Turkish suffix -an 'swampy forest' or Persian bālā-khāna 'big high house'. It was used mainly during the time of the Ottoman Empire . In both Ottoman Turkish and modern Turkish , balkan means 'chain of wooded mountains'. From classical antiquity through the Middle Ages , the Balkan Mountains were called by the local Thracian name Haemus . According to Greek mythology,

5777-598: The West, later even spearheaded, together with India and Egypt the Non-Aligned Movement . Albania on the other hand gravitated toward Communist China , later adopting an isolationist position. On 28 February 1953, Greece , Turkey and Yugoslavia signed the treaty of Agreement of Friendship and Cooperation in Ankara to form the Balkan Pact of 1953 . The treaty's aim was to deter Soviet expansion in

5886-499: The Western Balkans, joined the EU in July 2013. The term is criticized for having a geopolitical, rather than a geographical meaning and definition, as a multiethnic and political area in the southeastern part of Europe. The geographical term of a peninsula defines that the sea border must be longer than the land border, with the land side being the shortest in the triangle, but that is not

5995-407: The ancient war dance of the Pyrichi group, and was implemented as a means of training and testing one's agility and stamina. The Sousta as a war dance was seen to shift the dancers close together, creating a human shield. Greeks in war combat followed the rhythm and patterns learnt for the Sousta dance, as an offensive and defensive strategy. As a wedding dance, performed most frequently on Sundays,

6104-450: The area starting falling like Serbia after the Battle of Kosovo in 1389, Bulgaria in 1396, Constantinople in 1453, Bosnia in 1463, Herzegovina in 1482, and Montenegro in 1499. The conquest was made easier for the Ottomans due to existing divisions among the Orthodox peoples and by the even deeper rift that had existed at the time between the Eastern and Western Christians of Europe. The Albanians under Skanderbeg's leadership resisted

6213-483: The arrival of farming cultures in the Neolithic era. The Balkans have been inhabited since the Paleolithic and are the route by which farming from the Middle East spread to Europe during the Neolithic (7th millennium BC). The practices of growing grain and raising livestock arrived in the Balkans from the Fertile Crescent by way of Anatolia and spread west and north into Central Europe, particularly through Pannonia . Two early culture-complexes have developed in

6322-529: The basis on which understanding provides a foundation for acknowledging difference. Lorde suggests that if we suppress the erotic rather than recognize its presence, it takes on a different form. Rather than enjoying and sharing with one another, it becomes objectifying, which she says translates into abuse as we attempt to hide and suppress our experiences. Balkans The Balkans ( / ˈ b ɔː l k ən z / BAWL -kənz , / ˈ b ɒ l k ən z / BOL -kənz ), corresponding partially with

6431-469: The broad geographical, social-political and historical context of the Balkans, while the neologism Western Balkans is perceived as a humiliation of Croatia by the European political powers. According to M. S. Altić, the term has two different meanings, "geographical, ultimately undefined, and cultural, extremely negative, and recently strongly motivated by the contemporary political context". In 2018, President of Croatia Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović stated that

6540-428: The case for the Balkan Peninsula. Both the eastern and western sea catheti from Odesa to Cape Matapan ( c.  1230 –1350 km) and from Trieste to Cape Matapan ( c.  1270 –1285 km) are shorter than the land cathetus from Trieste to Odesa ( c.  1330 –1365 km). The land has too long a land border to qualify as a peninsula – Szczecin (920 km) and Rostock (950 km) at

6649-419: The concept from a non-heterosexual perspective, viewing psychoanalytical and modernist views of eroticism as both archaic and heterosexist , written primarily by and for a "handful of elite, heterosexual, bourgeois men" who "mistook their own repressed sexual proclivities" as the norm. Theorists like Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick , Gayle S. Rubin and Marilyn Frye all write extensively about eroticism from

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6758-445: The dance was for the males to socialise with the females, and eventually create serious relationships. This was necessary as the privacy or a young woman was upheld; males and females had no other form of socialisation outside of the dance. As of the late twentieth to twenty-first century, the villages and Dodecanese islands of Greece dance the Sousta less frequently. The Syrto, which is now the most common Greek folk dance, has overtaken

6867-490: The dissolution of the union as unconstitutional and the Yugoslav People's Army unsuccessfully tried to maintain the status quo. Slovenia and Croatia declared independence on 25 June 1991, which prompted the Croatian War of Independence in Croatia and the Ten-Day War in Slovenia. The Yugoslav forces eventually withdrew from Slovenia in 1991 while the war in Croatia continued until late 1995 . The two were followed by Macedonia and later Bosnia and Herzegovina, with Bosnia being

6976-409: The early 20th century. The definition of the Balkan Peninsula's natural borders does not coincide with the technical definition of a peninsula; hence modern geographers reject the idea of a Balkan Peninsula, while historical scholars usually discuss the Balkans as a region. The term has acquired a stigmatized and pejorative meaning related to the process of Balkanization . The alternative term used for

7085-415: The eighteenth century, dictionaries defined the erotic as that which concerned love...eroticism was the intrusion into the public sphere of something that was at base private". This theme of intrusion or transgression was taken up in the twentieth century by the French philosopher Georges Bataille , who argued that eroticism performs a function of dissolving boundaries between human subjectivity and humanity,

7194-400: The end of World War I, the Balkan Pact , or Balkan Entente, was formed by a treaty between Greece , Romania , Turkey and Yugoslavia on 9 February 1934 in Athens . With the start of the World War II , all Balkan countries, with the exception of Greece, were allies of Nazi Germany , having bilateral military agreements or being part of the Axis Pact . Fascist Italy expanded the war in

7303-555: The end of the 18th century, and other authors started applying the name to the wider area between the Adriatic and the Black Sea. The concept of the "Balkans" was created by the German geographer August Zeune in 1808, who mistakenly considered it as the dominant central mountain system of Southeast Europe spanning from the Adriatic Sea to the Black Sea. During the 1820s, "Balkan became the preferred although not yet exclusive term alongside Haemus among British travelers... Among Russian travelers not so burdened by classical toponymy, Balkan

7412-462: The erotic a source of power specifically identified with the female, often corrupted or distorted by oppression, since it poses the challenge of change. "For women, this has meant a suppression of the erotic as a considered source of power and information within our lives". In "The Uses of the Erotic" within Sister Outsider , she discusses how the erotic comes from the sharing of joy, "whether physical, emotional, psychic, or intellectual" and provides

7521-416: The first battleground of the emerging Cold War. The Truman Doctrine was the US response to the civil war , which raged from 1944 to 1949. This civil war, unleashed by the Communist Party of Greece , backed by communist volunteers from neighboring countries (Albania, Bulgaria and Yugoslavia), led to massive American assistance for the non-communist Greek government. With this backing, Greece managed to defeat

7630-443: The historical and political connotations of the term Balkans , especially since the military conflicts of the 1990s in Yugoslavia in the western half of the region, the term Southeast Europe is becoming increasingly popular. A European Union initiative of 1999 is called the Stability Pact for Southeastern Europe . The online newspaper Balkan Times renamed itself Southeast European Times in 2003. In other languages of

7739-601: The laouto and lyre, could represent their skill be playing behind their head, or holding their instrument up in the air. Instrumentalists with the most technical skill could go on to play for other villages, or represent their own village in larger gatherings. The songs were often vocally driven, sung predominately by women and accompanied by other folk instruments such as the clarinet and drums. However, women never played any musical instrument, with their participation regarding singing and dancing. The musical meter follows patterns of 7/8, 8/8, 2/4 as well as 3/4. On some occasions,

7848-589: The last outpost of the peaceful Mitteleuropa. For Italians and Austrians, it begins with Slovenia, where the reign of the Slavic hordes starts. For Germans, Austria itself, on account of its historic connections, is already tainted by Balkanic corruption and inefficiency. For some arrogant Frenchmen, Germany is associated with the Balkanian Eastern savagery—up to the extreme case of some conservative anti-European-Union Englishmen for whom, in an implicit way, it

7957-476: The last to be granted independence with Greece in 1947. During celebrations of the islands' liberation, and the exit from war, all villages danced the Sousta. Prior to independence, and under the control of Italy , Dodecanesian villages had separate rooms across from monasteries as a space to celebrate the dance. Between 1925–1940, the southern coastal village of Kattavia performed the Sousta to strengthen their social unity with emphasis on courtship. It relates to

8066-525: The late 19th century to the creation of post– World War I Yugoslavia (initially the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes in 1918). After the dissolution of Yugoslavia beginning in June 1991, the term Balkans acquired a negative political meaning, especially in Croatia and Slovenia, as well in worldwide casual usage for war conflicts and fragmentation of territory (see Balkanization ). In part due to

8175-413: The lead dancer. Often, the couples would dance opposite each other. However, different forms of the dance have been observed, where the dancers from a single row with a leader, who was a male and was able to execute their improvised version of the dance. In the form of the couple's dancing, the male could approach the female with a spin, or the female could twirl and embrace the male. The fast-paced nature of

8284-491: The mountains, spruce , fir and pine ). The tree line in the mountains lies at the height of 1,800–2,300 m. The land provides habitats for numerous endemic species, including extraordinarily abundant insects and reptiles that serve as food for a variety of birds of prey and rare vultures . The soils are generally poor, except on the plains , where areas with natural grass, fertile soils and warm summers provide an opportunity for tillage. Elsewhere, land cultivation

8393-727: The northern and central Balkans. This migration brought about the formation of distinct ethnic groups amongst the South Slavs, which included the Bulgarians , Croats and Serbs and Slovenes . Prior to the Slavic landing, parts of the western peninsula have been home to the Proto-Albanians . Including cities like Nish , Shtip . This can be proven through the development of the names, for example Naissos > Nish and Astibos > Shtip follow Albanian phonetic sound rules and have entered Slavic, indicating that Proto-Albanian

8502-603: The old idea of a Balkan Peninsula". Another issue is the name: the Balkan Mountains , mostly in Northern Bulgaria, do not dominate the region by length and area as do the Dinaric Alps . An eventual Balkan peninsula can be considered a territory south of the Balkan Mountains, with a possible name "Greek-Albanian Peninsula." The term influenced the meaning of Southeast Europe which again is not properly defined by geographical factors. Croatian geographers and academics are highly critical of inclusion of Croatia within

8611-518: The only non-communist countries, Greece and Turkey were (and still are) part of NATO composing the southeastern wing of the alliance. In the 1990s, the transition of the regions' ex-Eastern bloc countries towards democratic free-market societies went peacefully. While in the non-aligned Yugoslavia , Wars between the former Yugoslav republics broke out after Slovenia and Croatia held free elections and their people voted for independence on their respective countries' referendums. Serbia, in turn, declared

8720-464: The partisans and, ultimately, remained one of the two only non-communist countries in the region with Turkey. However, despite being under communist governments, Yugoslavia (1948) and Albania (1961) fell out with the Soviet Union. Yugoslavia, led by Marshal Josip Broz Tito (1892–1980), first propped up then rejected the idea of merging with Bulgaria and instead sought closer relations with

8829-502: The past several centuries, because of the frequent Ottoman wars in Europe fought in and around the Balkans and the comparative Ottoman isolation from the mainstream of economic advance (reflecting the shift of Europe's commercial and political centre of gravity towards the Atlantic ), the Balkans have been the least developed part of Europe. According to Halil İnalcık , "The population of the Balkans, according to one estimate, fell from

8938-412: The peninsula, is generally excluded. Although they have no territory on the peninsula, Hungary and Moldova are occasionally incorporated into discussions of the Balkans due to cultural and historical affiliations. The origin of the word Balkan is obscure; it may be related to Turkish bālk 'mud' (from Proto-Turkic * bal 'mud, clay; thick or gluey substance', cf. also Turkic bal 'honey'), and

9047-669: The region is Southeast Europe . The borders of the Balkans are, due to many contrasting definitions, disputed. There exists no universal agreement on the region's components. The term by most definitions fully encompasses Albania , Bosnia and Herzegovina , Bulgaria , Greece , Kosovo , Montenegro , North Macedonia , European Turkey , the Romanian coast , most of Serbia and large parts of Croatia . The term sometimes includes all of Romania , Serbia and Croatia, and southern parts of Slovenia . The Province of Trieste in northeastern Italy , although by some definitions considered part of

9156-598: The region, Starčevo culture and Vinča culture . The Balkans are also the location of the first advanced civilizations. Vinča culture developed a form of proto-writing before the Sumerians and Minoans , known as the Old European script , while the bulk of the symbols had been created in the period between 4500 and 4000 BC, with the ones on the Tărtăria clay tablets even dating back to around 5300 BC. The identity of

9265-680: The region, the region is known as: The Balkan Peninsula is bounded by the Adriatic Sea to the west, the Mediterranean Sea (including the Ionian and Aegean seas) and the Sea of Marmara to the south and the Black Sea to the east. Its northern boundary is often given as the Danube , Sava and Kupa Rivers. The Balkan Peninsula has a combined area of about 470,000 km (181,000 sq mi) (slightly smaller than Spain). The peninsula

9374-409: The right of the dancer preceding across their waists. The criss-cross pattern formed has also been seen to symbolise connections with religion, and the image of the cross. In villages, young men would prepare for a significant amount of time to create their own version of the dance. By practising their version Sousta outside of school, they further socialised with other village people and prepared to be

9483-558: The same territory, used the term Südosteuropäische Halbinsel ('southeastern European peninsula'). Another reason it was not commonly accepted as the definition of then European Turkey had a similar land extent. However, after the Congress of Berlin (1878) there was a political need for a new term and gradually "the Balkans" was revitalized, but in the maps, the northern border was in Serbia and Montenegro without Greece (it only depicted

9592-629: The sexual”, defining the erotic as “a measure between the beginnings of our sense of self and the chaos of our strongest feelings.” In her 1978 essay, Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power , Lorde identifies the erotic as a source of creative power that is deeply rooted in a spiritual plane of unrecognised or unexpressed feeling and sensation. Influenced by Sigmund Freud , psychotherapists have turned to Greek philosophy for an understanding of eros' heightened aesthetic . For Plato , Eros takes an almost transcendent manifestation when

9701-496: The southern part, winters are milder. The humid continental climate is predominant in Bosnia and Herzegovina, northern Croatia, Bulgaria, Kosovo , northern Montenegro, the Republic of North Macedonia, and the interior of Albania and Serbia . Meanwhile, the other less common climates, the humid subtropical and oceanic climates, are seen on the Black Sea coast of Bulgaria and Balkan Turkey (European Turkey) . The Mediterranean climate

9810-484: The subject seeks to go beyond itself and form a communion with the object/other: "the true order of going...to the things of love, is to use the beauties of earth as steps...to all fair forms, and from fair forms to fair actions, and from fair actions to fair notions, until from fair notions he arrives at the notion of absolute beauty". Modern French conceptions of eroticism can be traced to the Age of Enlightenment , when "in

9919-517: The term Western Balkans to mean the Balkan area that includes countries that are not members of the European Union, while others refer to the geographical aspects. Each of these countries aims to be part of the future enlargement of the European Union and reach democracy and transmission scores but, until then, they will be strongly connected with the pre-EU waiting program Central European Free Trade Agreement . Croatia, considered part of

10028-459: The territory was too mountainous to completely subdue. Another small country that retained its independence, both de facto and de jure in this case, was the Adriatic trading hub of Ragusa (now Dubrovnik , Croatia). By the end of the 16th century, the Ottoman Empire had become the controlling force in the region after expanding from Anatolia through Thrace to the Balkans. Many people in

10137-402: The third at 2915 m. The karst field or polje is a common feature of the landscape. On the Adriatic and Aegean coasts, the climate is Mediterranean , on the Black Sea coast the climate is humid subtropical and oceanic , and inland it is humid continental . In the northern part of the peninsula and on the mountains, winters are frosty and snowy, while summers are hot and dry. In

10246-476: The three empires participating in that alliance. The next year Bulgaria joined the Central Powers attacking Serbia, which was successfully fighting Austro-Hungary to the north for a year. That led to Serbia's defeat and the intervention of the Entente in the Balkans which sent an expeditionary force to establish a new front , the third one of that war, which soon also became static. The participation of Greece in

10355-663: The timetable of the planned invasion in Russia causing a significant delay, which had major consequences during the course of the war. Finally, at the end of 1944, the Soviets entered Romania and Bulgaria forcing the Germans out of the Balkans. They left behind a region largely ruined as a result of wartime exploitation. During the Cold War , most of the countries on the Balkans were governed by communist governments. Greece became

10464-514: The twentieth century Greece, females carried with them the image of the family and home life, as well as religion. The Sousta involved socialisation between the youth, with older children often inviting the younger to play. While young women would learn the three steps to the basic dance, the men would spend time practising their own versions. To formally enter the dance as a recognised community event, young girls needed to be 14 years old, while young boys must have been at least 16 years old. The aim of

10573-404: The use of the term "Western Balkans" should be avoided because it does not imply only a geographic area, but also negative connotations, and instead must be perceived as and called Southeast Europe because it is part of Europe. Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek said of the definition, This very alibi confronts us with the first of many paradoxes concerning Balkan: its geographic delimitation

10682-604: The war three years later, in 1918, on the part of the Entente finally altered the balance between the opponents leading to the collapse of the common German-Bulgarian front there, which caused the exit of Bulgaria from the war, and in turn, the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, ending the First World War. Between the two wars, in order to maintain the geopolitical status quo in the region after

10791-467: The wider Balkans . However, there are officially acknowledged versions of the dance, which range from Crete, Rhodes, Leros , Kalymnos , Karpathos , Kos, Tilos , Samos and Symi . There are some documented versions adapted to the mainland. These include the region of Thrace in north-east Greece, and Macedonia . The most common version of the Sousta is a three step dance with each dancers' hands linked. Two 'jump steps' are made forward, and one jump

10900-425: The women. This is due to the lead dancer's position to control the flow and coordination of the performance and other dancers. Only a male could lead the dance, while performing around the female to ensure her privacy was upheld. This reflected a sense of honour that the male carries through the dance. As a result of the honour the male grants the female, women in the dance reveal a sense of privacy. More prominently in

11009-858: The word popular in Bulgaria, however it is only an unscholarly assertion. The word was used by the Ottomans in Rumelia in its general meaning of mountain, as in Kod̲j̲a-Balkan , Čatal-Balkan , and Ungurus-Balkani̊ , but it was especially applied to the Haemus mountain. The name is still preserved in Central Asia with the Balkan Daglary (Balkan Mountains) and the Balkan Region of Turkmenistan . The English traveler John Bacon Sawrey Morritt introduced this term into English literature at

11118-443: Was considered to most successfully represent the village had their own variation of the song. Technique through finger-style and bowing would consist of the differences between their version and a traditional Sousta song. In the case of several performers, any instrumentalist would not leave his position to dance, having to wait for someone to replace the role and ensuring the dance can continue. Those playing smaller instruments, such as

11227-499: Was danced with a bowl, in which viewers of the dance would throw money as a form of their appreciation for the lead dancer. As well, members of the village Church body would walk around with bottles or glasses of alcohol, often Ouzo, to offer the lead dancer when a donation was made. The money received from donations to the bowl during the dance would be delivered to the Church, funding construction, salaries of priests and public events. As

11336-576: Was done with political reasoning as affirmation for Serbian nationalism on the whole territory of the South Slavs , and also included anthropological and ethnological studies of the South Slavs through which were claimed various nationalistic and racialist theories. Through such policies and Yugoslavian maps the term was elevated to the modern status of a geographical region. The term acquired political nationalistic connotations far from its initial geographic meaning, arising from political changes from

11445-430: Was in a letter sent in 1490 to Pope Innocent VIII by Buonaccorsi Callimaco , an Italian humanist, writer and diplomat. The Ottomans first mention it in a document dated from 1565. There has been no other documented usage of the word to refer to the region before that, although other Turkic tribes had already settled in or were passing through the region. There is also a claim about an earlier Bulgar Turkic origin of

11554-581: Was linked to courtship and love, away from fertility. As a couple's dance at weddings before the Independence of Greece in 1947 there are numerous variations of the dance across Greece, most notably throughout the Dodecanese Islands. The Sousta is also connected with war, and holds significance during the inter-war period of 1925–1940, in Rhodes , Greece. The Dodecanesian islands were amongst

11663-607: Was never precise. It is as if one can never receive a definitive answer to the question, "Where does it begin?" For Serbs, it begins down there in Kosovo or Bosnia, and they defend the Christian civilization against this Europe's Other. For Croats, it begins with the Orthodox, despotic, Byzantine Serbia, against which Croatia defends the values of democratic Western civilization. For Slovenes, it begins with Croatia, and we Slovenes are

11772-532: Was spoken prior to the Slavic invasion of the Balkans. During the Early Middle Ages , The Byzantine Empire was the dominant state in the region, both military and culturally. Their cultural strength became particularly evident in the second half of the 9th century when the Byzantine missionaries Cyril and Methodius managed to spread the Byzantine variant of Christianity to the majority of

11881-632: Was the preferred term". In European books printed until late 1800s it was also known as Illyrian Peninsula or Illyrische Halbinsel in German. The term was not commonly used in geographical literature until the mid-19th century because, already then, scientists like Carl Ritter warned that only the part south of the Balkan Mountains could be considered as a peninsula and considered it to be renamed as "Greek peninsula". Other prominent geographers who did not agree with Zeune were Hermann Wagner , Theobald Fischer , Marion Newbigin , and Albrecht Penck , while Austrian diplomat Johann Georg von Hahn , in 1869, for

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