The Balkan Railways: of railway development in the Balkans in the late 19th, early 20th century

Abstract

Different regions of Europe have different development patterns whose historical, economic, natural, diplomatic, and political backgrounds determined directly or indirectly their development throughout history. These differences still have consequences nowadays which manifest in the present day. The Balkans are one of the regions of Europe that gets less attention than it deserves, and even today it is considered as a wild and underdeveloped region. However, the underdevelopment of the Balkans in the present day is a serious question that goes beyond its limitations for its own sake, as the Western Balkans is the next region in Europe, which is going to join the European Union in the next decade. By then this burdening underdevelopment of infrastructure should be decreased. In this research paper, the primary goal is to examine the railway development patterns of the Balkans. The comparative analysis of the region is willing to give a historical economic perspective of the Balkans during the period from the second half of the 19th century until the early 1910s in which geopolitics, geography, economy, diplomacy, and the different interests of the Great Powers will be correlated.