All articles starting with B

Balkan Communist Federation

The Balkan Communist Federation (Балканска комунистическа федерация) was a Comintern section founded in Sofia in 1920 to coordinate the Balkan communist parties; it dissolved in 1934.

Balkan cuisine: the shared food tradition of the Balkan Peninsula (ajvar, sarma, baklava, burek), shaped by Byzantine, Ottoman, and Austro-Hungarian influences, distinct from Mediterranean and Slavic cuisines.

Balkan League

The Balkan League was an alliance of Serbia, Montenegro, Greece, and Bulgaria formed in 1912 with Russian backing to drive the Ottoman Empire from Europe.

Balkan Mountains (Стара планина)

Balkan Mountains (Стара планина, Stara Planina, "Old Mountain"), also called Haemus in antiquity: a 530 km west-east range across Bulgaria to Cape Emine, highest peak Botev 2,376 m, home of Central Balkan National Park.

Balkan nephropathy

Balkan endemic nephropathy (BEN), also called Balkan nephropathy, is a chronic tubulointerstitial kidney disease of rural Danube-basin villages in the Balkans, caused by aristolochic acid and linked to upper urothelial cancer.

Balkan Pact (1934)

The Balkan Pact, also called the Balkan Entente, was an alliance signed at Athens on 9 February 1934 by Greece, Romania, Turkey, and Yugoslavia, which mutually guaranteed their Balkan frontiers.

Balkan slave trade

Balkan slave trade: trafficking of enslaved people from southeastern Europe, mainly by Venetians and later Ottomans; fed Ragusa's domestic market and Mediterranean buyers; source of the word "slave" via Slavic captives.

Balkan sprachbund

The Balkan sprachbund is the first identified linguistic area: geographically adjacent Balkan languages (Albanian, Bulgarian, Macedonian, Romanian, Greek, others) converged structurally and lexically through centuries of multilingual contact, defined theoretically by Trubetzkoy (1923, 1928) and synthesized by Sandfeld (1930).

Oct 15, 2026

Balkan Stream Gas Pipeline

Balkan Stream is the onshore extension of the TurkStream pipeline carrying Russian natural gas across Bulgaria and Serbia toward Hungary, with deliveries beginning in 2020.

Balkan Wars

The Balkan Wars of 1912-1913: two conflicts in which the Balkan League (Serbia, Bulgaria, Greece, Montenegro) expelled the Ottoman Empire from most of Europe, then fought the Second Balkan War over the spoils, ending with the Treaty of Bucharest.

Balkan Wars refugee crisis of 1912–1914

The Balkan Wars refugee crisis of 1912–1914 was the mass displacement of civilians, above all Muslims, after Bulgaria, Greece, Serbia, and Montenegro defeated the Ottoman Army in 1912.

Balkanization

Balkanization, or Balkanisierung, is the division of a country or region into small hostile states, a term coined after World War I for the breakup of the Habsburg Empire.

Balkans

The Balkans: southeastern European region and peninsula named after the Balkan mountains, bounded by the Danube-Sava line; contested term also called Southeast Europe; covers Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia and neighbors, with six Western Balkans EU candidates.

Balkash - Alakul

Balkash - Alakul (FEOW ecoregion 624) is the endorheic freshwater ecoregion of lakes Balkhash, Sasykkol, and Alakol in Kazakhstan, China, and Kyrgyzstan, defined by endemic fish such as Balkhash perch and marinka now threatened by introduced species.

Balkenkreuz

Balkenkreuz: straight-armed black German military identification cross, "beam cross" in German. Adopted by the German Air Service in mid-April 1918, replaced the cross pattée, marked Wehrmacht aircraft and armor in 1935-1945; the Bundeswehr uses a different stylized Iron Cross since 1956.

Balkh (district)

Balkh District is a second-order administrative division of Balkh Province, northern Afghanistan, seat population 114,883, centered on the historic town of Balkh (Bactra), 24 km from Mazar-e-Sharif.

Balkh (بلخ)

Balkh (بلخ), ancient Bactra, is a town in northern Afghanistan about 20 km west of Mazar-e Sharif, capital of ancient Bactria, an Achaemenid, Hellenistic, and Islamic center that declined after 1220 and lost administrative status to Mazar-e Sharif in 1866.

Oct 20, 2026

Balkhash

Lake Balkhash (Balkash) is Kazakhstan's large endorheic lake, Central Asia's largest at about 17,000 km2, fresh in the west and saline in the east, fed mainly by the Ili River and threatened by upstream water use.

Balkrishan Singh

Balkrishan Singh was an Indian field hockey full-back and coach who won Olympic gold as a player at Melbourne 1956 and as coach at Moscow 1980.

Balkrishna

Acharya Balkrishna (आचार्य बालकृष्ण), born 1972, is an India-based Ayurveda scholar and businessman who co-founded Patanjali Ayurved with Swami Ramdev, leads it as managing director, chairs Patanjali Foods, and heads Patanjali Yogpeeth Trust and University of Patanjali.

Ball

Ball: the spherical object used instead of a puck in hockey-family sports such as field hockey, ball hockey (street hockey), and floorball; FIH, ISBHF, and IFF set standards for each game's ball.

Ball (association football)

The association football ball is defined by IFAB Law 2: spherical, 68–70 cm, 410–450 g, 0.6–1.1 atm, with FIFA Quality marks required in official competitions. Covers construction, panel history from the 32-panel classic to the 2026 Trionda, and aerodynamics.