The International Symposium on Balkan History Studies (UBTAS) is an international scholarly organization that aims to examine the history, culture, politics, and civilizational heritage of the Balkan region through an interdisciplinary approach, to bring together researchers from different countries on a common academic platform, and to make original contributions to Balkan studies.

Held for the ninth time in the city of St. Petersburg in the Russian Federation, the symposium’s main theme has been determined as “The Balkans and Russia.” The political, military, diplomatic, economic, cultural, religious, and intellectual relations that developed between the Balkans and Russia throughout history reflect not only the interaction between the two regions but also processes that played an important role in shaping the history of Europe and Eurasia.

UBTAS-9 aims to evaluate the multifaceted relations between the Balkans and Russia within historical continuity, to encourage the sharing of new research based on archival documents, to bring together the current approaches of scholars from different disciplines, and to enable a scholarly reassessment of the shared historical heritage.

The symposium will consider not only studies in the field of history but also research from international relations, political science, law, sociology, anthropology, economics, literature, art history, architecture, linguistics, the history of religions, cultural heritage, and other social science disciplines. In this way, it seeks to examine Balkan–Russian relations from the past to the present in a multidimensional manner and to foster new academic collaborations.