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Ireland/Northern Ireland and the Balkans effectively portray and have come to represent divided and (re)united communities, providing microcosms of national, ethnic, political, military, religious, ideological and cultural conflicts in their respective regions and, hence, real and imaginary divisions. Located in composite states and divided societies, the people of these cities have fought to preserve their disparate, threatened identities and have been forced to define and re-define them. These two great European ‘trouble-spots’ have remarkable differences and similarities in their respective conflicts. Both regions have been defined and shaped by their subjugation to, and protracted relationship with, five great European Empires (British, Ottoman, Habsburg, Third Reich and Soviet Union), which shaped their religious and cultural diversity and defined the ensuing conflicts and subsequent peace settlements. The Dayton Accord for Bosnia-Herzegovina (1995) ended the war and partitioned the country in two distinct entities, the Federation of Bosnia-Herzegovina (with mostly Croatian and Muslim population) and the Republika Srpska (with mostly Serbian population). Similarly by the terms of the Good Friday Agreement (1998) the government of the Republic of Ireland renounced its claim to Northern Ireland and the British Government, for its part, provided for the re-unification of Ireland only in the case a majority consensus. Furthermore, it withdrew its troops and dismantled its security apparatus while Loyalist and Republican paramilitaries agreed to disarm.
This course attempts to sketch a comparative context for the history and literatures of two disparate, troubled regions in Europe. |
