ABSTRACT
Now five independent states, Southeastern Europe began the two interwar decades within borders fixed by the Paris Peace Settlements noted in the Overview to Part III and depicted here in Map 19.1. The states varied in size, population, and ethnic composition (see Table 19.1 on page 206). Albania’s population totaled slightly less than 1 million but its ethnic majority of 92 percent matched that of the larger Greece with 6.3 million. Yet Greece’s Orthodox religious majority of 94 percent contrasted with the Albanian division between Muslims, Orthodox, and Catholics, 70, 20, and 10 percent respectively. Bulgaria’s Orthodox majority was also large, at almost 84 percent but there was also a Muslim, largely Turkish minority of 14 percent. The two much larger states gained territory in the postwar settlements but had smaller ethnic majorities. Romania’s ethnic minorities of Hungarians 8 percent, Germans and Jews 4 percent each, Ukrainians 3.2 percent, and 1.5 percent Roma and others reduced its ethnic majority to 72 percent. In the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, the dominant Serbs had only a plurality at 38.8 percent. Croats and Slovenes, at 23.8 and 8.5 percent, could not match that plurality. Bosnian Muslims at 6.3 percent, Macedonian Slavs at 5.3 percent were joined by Germans, Hungarians, and Albanians all at about 4 percent of the total population.
