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Nemanja Mitrović, PhD
Institute for Contemporary History, Belgrade, Republic of Serbia

 

Nikola Mijatov, PhD
Institute for Contemporary History, Belgrade, Republic of Serbia

 

BALKAN CUP WITHIN THE IDEA OF SOCIALIST SPORT (1946–1980)

God. XLIV, 1/2026, str. 187–206
https://doi.org/10.29362/ist20veka.2026.1.mit.187-206

 

APSTRAKT/REZIME:

The Bal­kan Cup re­pre­sen­ted the idea of in­te­gra­ti­on of the Bal­kan countri­es thro­ugh sport, mo­re spe­ci­fi­cally, fo­ot­ball. It to­ok its first form in the in­terwar pe­ri­od, whi­le its furt­her de­ve­lop­ment was in­ter­rup­ted by the out­bre­ak of the Se­cond World War. Af­ter the war, the cup was re­sto­red, which had a spe­ci­al sig­ni­fi­can­ce in the so­ci­a­list ide­o­logy.  In the first post-war years, the co­un­tri­es of the Ea­stern Bloc even pa­id mo­re at­ten­ti­on to this competition than, for exam­ple, the Olympic Ga­mes or world fo­ot­ball cham­pi­ons­hips. The compe­ti­ti­on al­so spre­ad beyond the Bal­kans, as Hun­gary, Czec­ho­slo­va­kia, and Po­land al­so par­ti­cipa­ted. When the con­flict with the Co­min­form bro­ke out in 1948, the Bal­kan Cup suf­fe­red the con­sequen­ces, first of all, with the exclu­si­on of Yugo­sla­via. Af­ter Sta­lin’s de­ath, the cup spre­ad out­si­de the so­ci­a­list co­un­tri­es, with Gre­e­ce and Tur­key al­so ta­king part. Gra­du­ally, the au­di­en­ce’s in­ter­est in the cup waned, whi­le in the po­li­ti­cal sphe­re, the Bal­kan co­un­tri­es mo­ved fart­her apart. All of this led to the gra­du­al shut­down of the com­pe­ti­ti­on, which es­sen­ti­ally ceased in the 1980s, alt­ho­ugh cer­ta­in di­sci­pli­nes were ma­in­ta­i­ned un­til 1995.

 

KLJUČNE REČI: Bal­kan cup, fo­ot­ball, so­ci­a­lism, sport, Yugo­sla­via

 

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