The forgotten Balkans in Francesco Ronchi's essay

We have forgotten them, but sometimes they reappear – with dire omens – in breaking news. They cause us a sense of discomfort and helplessness. They take us back to the nightmare of the war of the nineties. Then the alarms dissolve, amidst collective indifference. Few remain aware of how close they are to sinking into the abyss again: the Balkans – lands incapable of forgetting – have once again come to terms with their past, with claims, with hatred and with blood . Foreshadowing of new troubles. For all of us. Because now their local entanglements find themselves at the center of global balances, a terrain of possible epochal clash between Russia, Europe and the entire West.

Capable of designing the balance of the wider world, The Disappearance of the Balkans (Rubbettino, p.138,15€) by Francesco Ronchi it is a precious contribution to understanding the reasons for the rediscovered centrality of a region one step away from our borders. A quarter of a century after the end of the wars in the former Yugoslavia, the author – a European official and professor at Columbia University in New York – takes a journey through the Balkans, encountering a fragile and tired region, shaken by the return of nationalism and violence . A path that helps us understand the ancestral premises of the Balkan drama and the possible outcomes of a disastrous tomorrow. A manual for everyone, especially for the younger ones who did not experience the horror of that war first-hand.

Bosnia is shaking, shaken by ethnic hatred and secessionism. The slogans of Serbian nationalism, fomented by President Vucic, return to Belgrade. An explosive context, in which the wounds of the past have never healed, brings back the specter of war. We have glimpsed this in Kosovo, in the last 24 months. Behind the call of ethnic nationalism and violence, there is probably the long wave of the twentieth century, the poisoned return of “blood and earth” whose profound reasons Ronchi reconstructs.

The author then outlines the contours of an international context that is more complex today than thirty years ago. The offensive by Russia which has its outpost in Europe in Belgrade, but also the growing influence of China and Turkey signal an explosive regional picture: a destabilization of the Balkans today would have devastating effects for all of Europe, threatening its peace. An exaggeration? After the Russian invasion of Ukraine, no. If in the last century, it was the military intervention of the United States that stopped ethnic wars, Washington today appears distant from the region. And Europe is uncertain.

With Putin’s shadow stretching across the continent, a terrain of destabilization to overturn the international order. Ronchi’s book was born precisely from the sense of urgency to understand the political dynamics of Europe’s Achilles’ heel. With a basic appeal that seems to be addressed precisely to the EU, inviting it to address the open issues head-on before it is too late, before Trump can return to the White House.