Throughout Hungarian history the Balkans has always been an ineludible reference point and seemingly this will remain so.
The land stretching from the current borders of Hungary to the former border of the Hungarian Kingdom features an intricate spatial texture which bears the marks of our former political, economic and social aspirations creating the most important reference space for us in the Balkan region. This has been and probably will continue to be the most important zone providing us some elbow-room. This is the filter that filtered and still filters the Balkan influences and the influences transmitted from Hungary and the Central European region in the opposite direction. In the future Hungarians will be able to gain the experience here related to the wider region. This is the reason why this region deserves to have special attention paid to it in Hungarian foreign policy. At the same time we are faced with having insufficient social knowledge of it.
This book is regarded as a sort of summary and completion of the decade-long research I conducted in the field of political geography in terms of the Balkans and the Mediterranean region. As this kind of mind-set is strongly determined by national perspectives, I too followed this tradition and intended to present a “Hungarian” context of a geopolitical nature, rooted in our national traditions, sensitivities and historical networks. Admittedly, my book is not neutral (I suppose there is no such thing as neutrality in this mind-set), but reflects Hungarian perspectives; however, it is both critical and at the same time self-critical.