I have long looked for a Turkish word that unites the entire Balkan peninsula, and I have finally come up with the magic word. It is barut for gunpowder. It is the same in Serbian and Croatian, as well as their variations, Montenegrin and Bosnian. In Macedonian it is a slight variation, barutot. In Albanian and Bulgarian it is the same, but in Greek it is a slight variation again, μπαρσυτι. Of all the languages of former Yugoslavia, only Slovenian is different in this regard. Indeed, the Turks brought the new technology to the Balkans in the Fourteenth Century. They perfected it by the Fifteenth Century to such an extent that they took what became Istanbul with gunpowder. The gigantic cannon they used to batter the walls of Constantinople is legendary. In retrospect, this belated discovery of mine is hardly surprising, but it still gives me enormous pleasure. Yes, gunpowder is the word. And it is always the war that brings people together better even than trade.