Opium in the Balkans : Cultivation, Processing and Trade During the Interwar Period

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 analyzing of the activities of smugglers, police, and ordinary people who participated in its production and distribution. He describes the process of relocating the illegal processing industry from Turkey and Bulgaria to Yugoslavia. He shows the implicit continuity of relations between the former Ottoman Empire and the newly constituted Yugoslav state in the form of bilateral political agreements. Special attention is paid to the illegal activities within the legal pharmaceutical industry and exposes the role of criminal networks, which the author situates in political and social context.

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.