The Balkans: Europe's Forgotten Frontier (Review)

In this two-part BBC series (first shown in February 2025), reporter Katya Adler, who covered the conflicts of the 1990s, returns to the Balkans to see how the region has changed, nearly thirty years on from the end of the Bosnian War.  It’s a whistlestop two-hour tour - part travelogue, part social commentary - with archive footage dotted here and there, and a brief history of the region’s 20^th century.  Adler takes us on a fascinating, insightful journey through the former Yugoslav states of Croatia, Bosnia, Serbia and Kosovo, as well as neighbouring Romania and Albania.

The main message that the series brings home is the way outside powers are currently competing for interest in the Balkans, from Chinese investment in infrastructure, to Islamic countries funding the building of new mosques, to Russian political and religious ties (in one disturbing segment, a Bosnian Serb motorcycle group fly Russian flags with Putin’s face on it). It appears that the rest of Europe is losing the battle for influence in the Balkans, hence the tagline of the ‘forgotten frontier’.

 

The theme of wounds not healed is also prominent throughout the two episodes.  Shots of pockmarked buildings, a visit to the Srebrenica memorial and interviews with Kosovar police about the Serb incursion into Kosovo in September 2023 all serve to show how raw the region still is.  There has been no real closure for many of the victims of the wars, which is undoubtedly linked to the fact that many Serbs still see themselves as the victims.  Interviews with Kosovar Serbs were eye-opening - especially the vitriol directed towards the British for their role in the Kosovo War - but most surprising was the implication that it remains a mainstream view amongst Serbs that Kosovo belongs to Serbia.

 

The thread running through all the segments on the former Yugoslav countries is the unspoken question: how many generations removed must we get before people can move on?  Adler interviews some 14-year-olds Bosnians (speaking excellent English, of course) who argue passionately against the segregated Muslim/Croat school they attend.  Does this signify hope for the future?  This documentary would seem to suggest not.  There is now whole generation of adults who were born after the wars ended and yet underlying concerns about tension in both Bosnia and Kosovo pervade.

 

Adler also visits Romania, where the appeal of the super-rich is drawing many of its people back again, despite corruption and criminality in some areas, and Albania, with its newly flourishing tourist industry, but large numbers of migrants leaving.  Slovenia, North Macedonia and Montenegro don’t get a visit.  Slovenia, perhaps, is understandable, since with its virtually ethnically homogenous population and close ties to western Europe, it avoided the conflicts of its Yugoslav neighbours, seceding in 1991 with relatively little bloodshed.  However, I would certainly be interested in a further series, possibly examining the issues between North Macedonia and Greece, as well as Montenegro’s nationalist ties to Serbia.

 

This was a varied and comprehensive watch, as much as it is possible to truly examine such a complex region in just two hours. Like many documentaries of its type, it seeks to present a certain point of view, and interviews the right people to accomplish this.  Personally, I’ve not met that many vehement nationalists in any Balkan country, so it’s hard to know whether the voices heard here are those of the majority or the minority.  However, if you’re interested in the Balkans, this is a must-watch addition to the discourse on the region.  If you know nothing about these countries, it’s a great introduction to their history, culture and politics.  As Adler entreats us – let’s not forget about the Balkans.

 

The Balkan: Europe’s Forgotten Frontier is available on BBC iPlayer.

In Pursuit of Justice: Review of The Butcher's Trail by Julian Borger

If nothing else, Julian Borger notes in the final chapter of The Butcher’s Trail, the ICTY (International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia) has made the Balkan wars the most well-documented and catalogued conflict in history.  In this meticulously researched account of the manhunt for the Balkan war criminals, Borger draws on this evidence, as well as extensive interviews, to chronicle the pursuit in fascinating detail, with the story rattling on in places like the paciest of spy thrillers.

They say truth is often more fantastical than fiction, and that proved to be the case in the work of the ICTY; from the bungled arrest of the wrong pair of identical twins, to a plan involving a gorilla suit, to Radovan Karadžić, political leader of the Bosnian Serbs, living the flamboyant cover story of a mythical healer in Belgrade.  Borger’s tale is layered with political intrigue; in this telling, prosecutors and investigators work tirelessly on a shoestring budget, against death threats and government roadblocks from all sides.

Nearly two decades after the fighting finally ended in the region, with all the indictees arrested and only one more verdict, that of Ratko Mladić, leader of the Bosnian Serb Army, left to be handed down (as well as Karadžić’s appeal against his 40 year sentence), it feels as though a chapter has been closed on a terrible era.  Justice has been served.

Mladić and Karadžić on trial in The Hague

Or has it?  Borger muses on this in his conclusion.  Many people in the former Yugoslav states do not think so, believing the tribunal to be either too one-sided or too lenient.  Borger describes the Scheveningen prison as a place of harmony, where former enemies play football and cook together, attend yoga classes and learn new languages, without regard for ethnicity.

Many indictees have been released early or acquitted, free to return home and stir up nationalistic hatred once more.  As for the tribunal's legacy, attempts to set up an International Criminal Court have been hampered by the most powerful nations, wary of the precedent set by the ICTY of holding leaders to account for the crimes committed by those beneath them.

Nevertheless, the ICTY has completed its mission.  All the indictees on its list have been brought to some kind of justice.  It was, as the book’s tagline states, the most successful manhunt in history.  The court's place in history, however, has yet to be decided.

The Butcher's Trail by Julian Borger, published by Other Press (January 2016).