The book is the first comprehensive empirical study of transport infrastructure in two socialist countries in the years 1945-1989. In the case study of Yugoslavia, the construction of roads was interrelated with building of socialist and trans-ethnic identities, uniting all federal republics. In practice, the Brotherhood and Unity highway was an artery linking the capitals of the most industrialized republics, neglecting Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and parts of Macedonia. In Bulgaria, there existed a clear ideological link between transport and (United Socialist) nation building. Bulgarian roads' disintegrative function was best seen in the example of the Highway ring which, constructed as an inner circle, isolated the border regions and areas inhabited by Bulgarian Muslims and Turks.

Das Buch ist die erste umfassende empirische Untersuchung der Verkehrsinfrastruktur in zwei sozialistischen Ländern in den Jahren 1945–1989. In der Fallstudie Jugoslawiens ist der Bau von Straßen mit dem Aufbau sozialistischer und transethnischer Identitäten verbunden, die alle Föderationsrepubliken vereinigen musste. In der Praxis war die Brüderlichkeit und Einheit-Autobahn wie eine Arterie zwischen den Hauptstädten der am stärksten industrialisierten Republiken und vernachlässigte damit den Kosovo, Bosnien-Herzegowina, Montenegro und Teile Mazedoniens. In Bulgarien gab es eine klare ideologische Verbindung zwischen Verkehr und Nationenbildung. Die desintegrative Funktion bulgarischer Autobahnen, zeigt sich am besten am Beispiel des sogenannten Autobahnrings, der die Grenzregionen und damit die bulgarischen Muslime und Türken isoliert hat.


The book is the first comprehensive empirical study of transport infrastructure in two socialist countries in the years 1945–1989. In the case study of Yugoslavia, the construction of roads was interrelated with building of socialist and trans-ethnic identities, uniting all federal republics. In practice, the Brotherhood and Unity highway was an artery linking the capitals of the most industrialized republics, neglecting Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and parts of Macedonia. In Bulgaria, there existed a clear ideological link between transport and (United Socialist) nation building. Bulgarian roads’ disintegrative function was best seen in the example of the Highway ring which, constructed as an inner circle, isolated the border regions and areas inhabited by Bulgarian Muslims and Turks.

Dr Lyubomir Pozharliev is a research associate at the Leibniz-Institut für Länderkunde (Leibniz Institute for Regional Geography) in Leipzig. He is working within the Leibniz Junior Research group ¿Contentious Mobilities: rethinking mobility transitions through a decolonial lens¿ with a focus on mobility modes in Central Asia and other post-socialist countries. Between 2018 and 2020 he was a postdoctoral researcher within SPP ¿1981 Transottomanicä. He received his doctorate in history and cultural studies (2018) from Justus-Liebig University, Giessen at the Department of Eastern European History.