Entangled Paths Toward Modernity: Contextualizing Socialism and Nationalism in the Balkans

The book is a study in comparative intellectual history and discusses how socialist ideology emerged as an option of political modernity in the Balkans of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.Focusing on how technologies of ideological transfer and adaptation work, the book examines the introduction and contextualization of international socialist paradigms in the Southeast European periphery. At its core is the presentation of three case studies (Serbia, Bulgaria and Greece), intertwined at times through similar, but also divergent paths. Each case aspires to tell a different and yet complementary story with respect to the issue of modernity and socialism. The book analyses the introduction of socialism against the background and in conjunction to other prominent options of political modernity such as nationalism, liberalism and agrarianism.

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgments List of Abbreviations I. Introduction Methodology Context, Ideology, Adaptation II. Intellectuals The Russian Connection and the Geography of Revolution Models and Master Texts Balkan Disciples Intellectuals and Political Systems Social Descent and Professional Integration III. The Ambiguities of Modernity (Serbia) Some Notes on the Historiography The Ideological Roots of Serbian Socialism Modernization and its Antecedents A Moral World Imperiled The Mission: Saving Serbdom The Individual and Society The Radicals and the Nation A l’attaque The Railway The Agrarian Radicals A Popular Party The Watershed A Church and an Army Slavophilism To the People Manipulating the Past Heading for Confrontation Constitutional Philosophy In Power Legacies of Radicalism IV. Caught up in the Contradictions of Modernity (Bulgaria) The Historiography on the Schism Bulgarian Socialism Suiuz vs. Partiia: The Priority of Political or Economic Organization? Blagoev vs. the Narodniks Constructing the Social subject: a Party with two Voices Modernization Mentalities The Profile of the Party Flirting with the Peasant “Obshto Delo” “Alarm for Ghosts--Our Apostasy or their Nonsense” Historical Materialism not Economic Determinism The Debate on Private Ownership The Debate on Party Membership The Predicament of Bulgaria Theory and Practice How to Make Sense of Broad Socialism Rethinking Bulgarian Politics V. Modernity Without Socialism (Greece) Historiographical Notes Greek Nationalism: the Imaginary of Superiority Some Particularities of Greek Socio-Economic Development Intellectuals: the Discrete Temptation of Submission The Liberals: Progress, Expansion and Order The National Schism: Metamorphoses of Political Polarization “The Promise of the Impossible Revolution” VI. Epilogue Divergent Paths Towards Modernity? Legitimacy and Mass Politics Socialism Politics and the State Legacies

About the Author :
Augusta Dimou specializes in the Modern History of East and Southeast Europe from a comparative, transnational perspective. She is Privatdozentin at the Institute for the Study of Culture of the University of Leipzig and has held academic positions at the University of Ioannina, Humboldt University in Berlin, IOS-Regensburg and GWZO in Leipzig. She has been a fellow at Maison des Sciences de l’ Homme (Paris), IWM (Vienna), FRIAS (Freiburg), CAS (Sofia) and New Europe College (NEC) in Bucharest.