Travels in Southeastern Europe

The burden of the Balkans / by M. Edith Durham.

i6 THE BURDEN OF THE BALKANS. led by its chieftain. They appear to have been closely allied in race. Their form of speech is unknown. 'If the Thracians,' says Herodotus, 'were either under the government of an individual or united among themselves, their strength would, in my opinion, render them invincible; but this is a thing impossible.' And his estimate of these people was a just one. Philip of Macedon welded the wild tribes into a power, and Thracians, Macedonians, and Illyrians formed the foundation of Alexander the Great's all-conquering armies. The Balkan Peninsula is a land of 'one-man empires.' Alexander's did not long survive him. He died in the year 303 B.c., but he is still the talk of the town in his native land. There is a surprising amount of excitement about him; for the blood of the oldest inhabitants of the land is still with us. That the modern Albanian is the more or less direct descendant of the primitive savage people of the Balkans is a fact which, I believe, no one now disputes. Alexander the Great was a Macedonian, and Olympias, his mother, a Princess of Epirus (South Albania); therefore Alexander was clearly an Albanian. So far so good; but on his father's side, according to tradition, he was of Greek originremote, it is true, but the Greeks admitted it. Today Greek and Albanian alike claim him enthusiastically, and along with him, of course, his Macedonian lands. Nor are they the sole claimants. There is no theory too wild to flourish in the Balkans, but this,
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Title
The burden of the Balkans / by M. Edith Durham.
Author
Durham, Mary Edith, 1863-1944.
Canvas
Page 16
Publication
London :: Nelson,
[1905]
Subject terms
Eastern question (Balkan)
Balkan Peninsula -- Description and travel.

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"The burden of the Balkans / by M. Edith Durham." In the digital collection Travels in Southeastern Europe. https://name.umdl.umich.edu/ans3900.0001.001. University of Michigan Library Digital Collections. Accessed April 30, 2025.
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