Globalizing Southeastern Europe

Brunnbauer offers a history of emigration from Southeastern Europe that provides insightful connections between Balkan diasporas in North America, nationalist movements, and state policies. He argues convincingly that emigration from Southeastern Europe was an essential part of socioeconomic development for the region and a justification for a raft of government policies. The impact of the state policies stressed in this work often had great continuity among imperial, national, and communist governments. Further, the transnational character of Southeastern European emigration is shown by the large-scale movements out of the region and the frequent return of migrants. This counters the notion of Southeastern Europe as isolated and provincial. Using archival material of the successor states of Yugoslavia and Bulgaria along with a wide variety of secondary literature, Brunnbauer firmly supports his ideas. Several maps, tables, and illustrations further buttress the work. Principally focused on the former Yugoslavia and Bulgaria, the author also incorporates examples from Greece, Albania, and Romania, although he draws these principally from secondary sources. This work shows that emigration and return become essential in understanding the development of modern Southeastern Europe. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above. * CHOICE *
This is an interesting, well-researched and well-documented volume dealing withoverseas out-migration from southeastern Europe from about 1860 to the early 1960s. There are many reasons why this work should be a welcome addition to the bookshelves of scholars interested in migration and in southeast Europe. * Slavic Review *
In this stimulating new book, Regensburg history professor Ulf Brunnbauer has managed to cover the issues of migrants, sending regions, receiving countries, intervening agents and agencies, as well as bureaucrats and policy-makers, each of which have often been treated separately in previous studies on immigration. . . . Brunnbauer references an enormous volume of literature, including less known writings and never before seen archival materials. He pays special attention to factual information and valuable statistics, but also puts a human face on the many actors involved in migration besides the migrants themselves. * Southeastern Europe *
Appearing with almost uncanny prescience at this critical and alarming moment of migration crisis, Globalizing Southeastern Europe is a pioneering work. It overturns the widely held assumption that international mass migration is a post-1945 phenomenon by painting a broad picture of overseas migration from the Balkans over the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It upends the usual conventions privileging immigration over emigration, and focuses instead on the impact of emigration on Southeastern European societies. By demonstrating that structurally the region was and has remained defined as an emigration area, it questions the usual stereotype of the static and isolated Balkans. One of the author’s bold conclusions is that no other part of Europe has displayed such a high level of migration activity. Deftly moving between aggregate numbers and personal stories, as well as between different levels of analysis from economy to culture, the book problematizes the relationship between migration, state-building, and nationalism. While it focuses mostly on Yugoslavia, it lays out a sophisticated methodological foundation that charts important directions and will serve as an inspiration for future creative research. -- Maria Todorova, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, author of Imagining the Balkans
This book is about migration from the Balkans, but it is as important and interesting for historians of Europe or world historians. The focus on the countries of departure is well-founded and enhances the most recent trends in migration history. The book also combines various levels of analysis, from micro to macro, individual stories and structural changes, in the very best way. -- Philipp Ther, University of Vienna, author of The Dark Side of Nation States: Ethnic Cleansing in Modern Europe
This important study offers a whole new perspective on the society and economy of southeastern Europe. As Ulf Brunnbauer explores the transatlantic vectors of immigration and return, he reveals a South Slavic encounter between tradition and modernity that occurred on two continents and transformed communities at both ends of the odyssey. Brunnbauer challenges our understanding of the modern history of Yugoslavia and richly complicates our appreciation of the history of American immigration. -- Larry Wolff, New York University, author of Inventing Eastern Europe: The Map of Civilization on the Mind of the Enlightenment