Why do you think there is such ignorance concerning the areas of the Balkan's and the Byzantine empire?

The ignorance is due to so much happening. The names are long, and to those of us in the west, hard to pronounce. Control was always changing and the countries coalesced and then broke apart. We even got the word Balkanization from there. That area is a study on its own.

The best place to start is wikipedia.

I'm not quite sure myself. When I was studying history I had similar qualms about the completeness of our pictures--speaking of which, we know far, far more about Byzantine art and architecture. The Khazar's are another pivotal but forgotten people that historically saved europe's bacon more than a few times (pun intended, it was a nation that adopted Judaism in contrast to its Christian neighbors, Byzantines, to the west and the Islamics below them).

See if you have these available:

Try your local library and ask the reference desk for some help. There is a lot of information on this interesting part of the world. You may need to dig a little harder tho compared to Greek or Roman history. Good luck!

If you like reading, I can recommend The History of Byzantium by John Julius Norwich. Superb history. Three volumes, though, so it takes a bit of dedication.

Go to questia.com. They have loads of books and articles on a variety of subjects.