Conflicting Loyalties in the Balkans: The Great Powers, the Ottoman Empire and Nation-building

The collapse of the Ottoman Empire resulted in the birth of new nation states in the Balkans in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. 'Conflicting Loyalties in the Balkans' explores the effects of the Ottoman reform era upon Balkan societies in order to shed much-needed light on the history of this region during the early nation-state period. Focusing on developments which go beyond the over-researched dimension of political or elite discourse, this book offers insights into the complex ways in which Balkan societies were transformed from different regional viewpoints - focusing on the interplay between Great Power politics, state reforms and social dynamics on the ground. A thorough investigation of the conflicting loyalties which has shaped the political framework of the post-Ottoman Balkans, this is an important and fascinating insight into the logic and contradictions of daily life in a crucial period of Balkan and Ottoman history.

Table of Contents:
[Taken from proposal: awaiting manuscript for revised ToC] Introduction PART 1: JANUS-FACED EUROPEANISATION Vagrants, Prostitutes and Bosnians: Making and Unmaking European Supremecy in Ottoman Southeast Europe Malte Furhmann Schools for the Descruction of Society: School Propaganda in Bitola 1860-1912 Bernard Lory Amateurs as Nation Builders? The Significance of Associations for the fomration and Nationalisation of Greek Society in the Nineteenth Century Ioannis Zelepos PART 2: AMBIGUOUS ACTORS, CONFLICTING STRATEGIES The Dimensions of Confessionalisation in the Ottoman Balkans at the Time of Nationalisms Nathalie Clayer Violent Social Disintegration: A Nation-Building Strategy in Late-Ottoman Herzegovina Hannes Grandits In the Service of the Sultan, in the Service of the Revolution: Local Bulgarian Notables in the 1870s Alexander Vezenkov PART 3: REFRAINED LOYALTIES The Mobilisation of the Ottoman Jewish Population during the Balkan Wars (1912-3) Eyal Ginio Catholic Albanian Warriors for the Sultan in Late-Ottoman Kosovo Eva Anne Frantz PART 4: ELITE PROJECTS, DIVERGENT REALITIES Mission, Power and Violence: Serbia's National Turn Natasa Miskovic Nationalism at (Symbolic) Work: Social Disintegration and the National Turn in Melnik and Stanimaka Galia Valtchinova Conclusion

About the Author :
Hannes Grandits is a Professor at the Department of History at the Humboldt-University in Berlin and a former Senior Associate for Southeast European History at the University of Graz. Nathalie Clayer is a Professor at the EHESS (Paris) and a senior fellow researcher at the CNRS (Paris). She is the director of the CETOBAC (Centre d'etudes turques, ottomanes, balkaniques et centrasiatiques, CNRS-EHESS). Robert Pichler is a researcher and lecturer at the Department for Southeast European History at the University of Graz.

Review :
'The 20th century history of the Balkans cannot be understood without the careful analysis of its late- and post-Ottoman complexities of societal life. The marvellously composed volume offers surprising insights into a variety of social spheres, where local actors were exposed to contradicting constraints of multiple, restricted and competing loyalties.' - Professor Karl Kaser, Centre for Southeast European History, University of Graz; 'The historiography of Ottoman rule in the Balkans has successfully projected the image of an oppressive regime, culturally foreign to the region and a hindrance to social and economic development. Reflecting and reproducing the orientalist discourse pervasive in Western thought, this perspective has posited in the last analysis a civilisational contradiction between a stagnant and despotic East and a progressist and liberal West. What is needed are fresh approaches to the study of state-society relations, of everyday life in urban centres, in the core provinces as well as on the periphery of the empire, of the modalities of mental mapping and interregional networking, and of the ways in which intermediary groups influenced the formation of confessional, ethnic and national identities.The papers brought together in this volume address all these issues. They represent a revisionary effort to grasp and illustrate the basically fluid and ambiguous character of power relationships, political loyalties and boundaries of social belonging in late- and post-Ottoman Balkans. Many a nationalist myth is deconstructed in the process, and the veracity of master narratives are disputed convincingly.' - Dr. Fikret Adanir, Professor of History, Sabanci University, Istanbul