We, the People
Politics of National Peculiarity in Southeastern Europe
Edited by
Diana Mishkova, Centre for
Advanced Study, Sofia, Bulgaria
Analyzes the processes of nation-building in nineteenth
and early-twentieth-century south-eastern Europe. A
product of transnational comparative teamwork, this
collection represents a coordinated interpretation based
on ten varied academic cultures and traditions.
The originality of the approach lies in a combination
of three factors: [a] seeing nation-building as a process
that is to a large extent driven by intellectuals and
writers, rather than just a side effect of infrastructural
modernization processes; [b] looking at the regional,
cross-border ramifications of these processes (rather
than in a rigid single-country-by-country perspective)
and [c] looking at the autonomous role of intellectuals
in these areas, rather than just seeing south-eastern
Europe as an appendix to Europe-at-large, passively
undergoing European influences.
The essays explore the political instrumentalization
of the concepts of folk, people and
ethnos in south-eastern Europe in the “long
19th century” by mapping the discursive and institutional
itineraries through which this set of notions became
a focal point of cultural and political thought in various
national contexts; a process that coincided with the
emergence of political modernity.
"In the history of emerging national awareness
in Europe, the formerly Ottoman- and Habsburg-ruled
regions in the continent’s South-East present
a case of unusual complexity and interest. South-East
Europe combines geopolitical regional cohesion and ethno-linguistic
diversity, and witnessed the emergence of a complex
cluster of both early and tardy nation-building movements
in close proximity and overlap, antagonism and exchange.
Hitherto largely underresearched (owing to political
conditions and ingrained preconceptions), this south-eastern
microcosm of Europe now takes its proper place in the
panorama of European intellectual history thanks to
this excellent volume. We, the People is a
landmark book. It applies the latest theoretical insights
and comparatist approaches to a wealth of relevant and
fascinating case studies, which, besides their intrinsic
importance, are now made available for comparative European
and macro-regional historical research."
Prof. dr J. Th. Leerssen, Chair of Modern European
Literature, University of Amsterdam
Contents
Introduction; Part
I. Ethnos and Citizens: Versions of
Cultural-Political Construction of Identity Alexander
Vezenkov, Reconciliation of the Spirits and Fusion
of the Interests: “Ottomanism” as an Identity
Politics; Kinga-Koretta Sata, The People Incorporated:
Constructions of the Nation in Transylvanian Romanian
Liberalism, 1838-1848; Tchavdar Marinov, “We,
the Macedonians”: The Paths of Macedonian
Supra-Nationalism (1878-1912); Balázs Trencsényi
, History and Character: Visions of National Peculiarity
in the Romanian Political Discourse of the Nineteenth
Century; Part II. Nationalization of Sciences
and the Definitions of the Folk Dessislava
Lilova, Barbarians, Civilized People and Bulgarians:
Definition of Identity in Textbooks and the Press (1830-1878);
Levente Szabó, Narrating ’the
People’ and ’Disciplining’ the Folk:
the Constitution of the Hungarian Ethnographic Discipline
and the Touristic Movements (1870-1900); Stefan Detchev
, Who are the Bulgarians? “Race”, Science
and Politics in Fin-de-Siècle Bulgaria ; Călin
Cotoi, Imagining of National Spaces in Interwar
Romania. The Emergence of Geopolitics; Part
III. The Canon-Builders Bojan Aleksov,
Jovan Jovanović Zmaj and the Serbian Identity between
Poetry and History; Artan Puto, “Ottoman”
or “Western”: Two Version of Albanianness
at the turn of the 19th century; Bülent Bilmez,
A Contested Nation-Builder: Þemseddin Sami Frashëri
(1850-1904) and the Construction of Albanian and Turkish
Nations; Notes on the Contributors; Index
2009
392 pages
ISBN 978-963-9776-28-9 cloth $50.00 / €44.95 /
£40.00
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