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Olga Aganson

In Search of Equilibrium. Great Britain and the Balkan Labyrinth, 1903–1914. Saint Petersburg: Aletheia Publishing House, 2022.

At the turn of the twentieth century the Balkans became a labyrinth of world politics. Its walls were made up of passionate aspirations of newly fledged Balkan states striving to realize their national ideals. This gave rise to their mutual rivalries and predetermined their struggle with multiethnic empires (Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire). While a line between internal and foreign policies of these empires was blurring, new twists of the labyrinth emerged. The great powers, seeking to fill with their influence this geopolitical trap, were doomed to wander through its corridors where their interests would inevitably clash. Great Britain, a world power whose global leadership had begun to erode by the beginning of the twentieth century, had not escaped this fate. The search for a lost equilibrium, i.e. a state of the international system that would provide London with a comfortable international environment, turned its attention to developments taking place in Southeastern Europe. The study of Britain’s Balkan policy leads us to few core problems important for understanding the origins of World War I: the international dimension of the erosion of the Ottoman Empire and Austria-Hungary, which were multi-regional powers and performed as geopolitical staples; the transformation of small states from objects into subjects of international relations and the consequences of this regional polyphony for the European balance of power; the patterns of the great powers interaction in the remolding of the regional order in the Balkans. Particular attention will be paid to the mechanisms and methods of British policy in Southeastern Europe, including the humanitarian factor and unofficial diplomacy, amidst Balkan turbulence and realignment of forces in the international arena. The monograph is written on a wide range of various sources, some of which are used for the first time. The author has also referred to some modem approaches and concepts of the theory of international relations.

Key words: Great Britain, World War I, Balkans, Bosnian crisis, Balkan Wars, July crisis of 1914, Eastern question, Macedonian question.