1st Edition

Opium in the Balkans Cultivation, Processing, and Trade during the Interwar Period

By Vladan Jovanović Copyright 2026
266 Pages
by Central European University Press

This book focuses on the cultivation, production, and trafficking of Macedonian raw opium, tracing and contextualizing both the licit and the illicit processing and trade of opium alkaloids from the Western Balkans through Turkey, and to the rest of the world between the two World Wars. The author explores this both from the angle of the League of Nations and politicians and diplomats, and by... Read more

PREFACE

Chapter 1 - EUPHORIA, PROFIT, STIGMA

Chapter 2 - ESTABLISHING CONTROL

Chapter 3 - MACEDONIAN OPIUM

Chapter 4 - YUGOSLAV-TURKISH EXPORT (CO)OPERATION

Chapter 5 - BALKAN SMUGGLING NETWORKS: THE CASE OF BULGARIA

Chapter 6 - YUGOSLAVIA BECOMES THE EPICENTER

CONCLUSIONS

SOURCES AND BIBLIOGRAPHY

INDEX

Biography

Vladan Jovanovic (1968) is a Principal Research Fellow at the Institute for Recent History of Serbia in Belgrade. His research explores the integration of Macedonia and Kosovo into Serbia and Yugoslavia, with a broader focus on nationalism, migration, and transnational crime in the Balkans. He was the editor-in-chief of Tokovi istorije/Currents of History, an academic journal, from 2020 to 2024.