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Word of the Month: Balkanization

David Zapatka

This comment was printed in a recent news article: “Taleblu warned against Western attempts to divide the country. ‘The way to unite the Iranian population is not to talk about balkanization,’ he said. ‘That would be an own goal of moral and strategic proportions.’”

Balkanize—bal·​kan·​ize verb 1: to break up (a region, a group, etc.) into smaller and often hostile units 2: divide, compartmentalize

Balkanization—bal·​kan·​iz·a·tion

Origin and Etymologyverb—Balkan (Peninsula) + -ize; alluding to the fragmentation of southeastern Europe into relatively small and weak states following the withdrawal of the Ottoman Empire

First Known Use1918

Balkanization used in a sentence:

…opposes the partition of Germany, and holds that the economic consequences of Balkanizing the country would be seriousTimes Literary Supplement

…now pop culture has been balkanized; it is full of niches, with different groups watching and playing their own thingsRichard Corliss

Balkanization used on the web:

A new cold war between the United States and China threatens to balkanize the global economy and fuel painful stagflation in the West, warned Nouriel Roubini.Christiaan Hetzner, Fortune, 13 Apr. 2023

Work on energetics is balkanized among different R&D units of the military, with no senior official playing point and advocating at a high level for change.Jeremy Bogaisky, Forbes, 9 Mar. 2023

Implementing such a scheme could balkanize the web, destroying its open essence and dramatically raising the cost of doing business.Steven Levy, Wired, 25 Sep. 2020

The news comes on the heels of an Oct. 1 court win … but handed states the authority to impose stricter standards—threatening to balkanize US regulations.Michael J. Coren, Quartz, 3 Oct. 2019

The Balkan Peninsula of southeastern Europe is lapped by the Adriatic Sea in the west and the Black Sea in the east. It is named for the Balkan Mountains, a mountain range which extends across Bulgaria from its border with Serbia to the Black Sea. (Balkan comes from the Ottoman Turkish balkan, meaning “wooded mountain or mountain range.”) The Balkan States are commonly characterized as comprising Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Romania, Serbia, and Slovenia, with mainland portions of Greece and the European portion of Turkey often being included as well. The English word, which is often capitalized, is the lexical offspring of geography and history: the decline of the Ottoman Empire in the 18th century led to a series of revolts that accelerated the fracturing of the region into smaller states whose unstable coexistence led to violence that came to a head in World War I. Since the early 20th century, balkanize and its related noun, balkanization, have come to refer to the kind of divisive action that can weaken countries or groups, among other things.

Have you been to the Balkan states? There is breathtaking beauty to behold in these countries. Please submit your experiences or any word you may like to share along with your insights and comments to dzapatka@wbhsi.net.