Week 3 Balkans

Pantelic reading –

1. According to Pantelic, what are the claims of Serbian national historiography?

 The historical narrative emphasizes the memory of the old Serbian kingdom defeated by the Turks, preserved
in song and heroic story, and in the daily liturgy of the Serbian church, which had canonized most of its kings.
 This narrative also implies that feelings of allegiance and loyalty toward the Balkan medieval principalities
were shared by their subjects, and that these people continued to exist within other kingdoms and empires,
bound together by awareness of common origins and sustained by memories of past greatness.

2. How does he deconstruct the claims of nationalist narratives? What are his counter-arguments? What
evidence does he provide?

 He also questions the notion that the Serbian historical narrative represents a tradition that had been
sustained spontaneously for centuries, arguing that the story had only recently found its way into the
repertoires of folk bards and was shaped through the interaction of folklorists and peasant singers to become
an expression of the national 'spirit'.
 Evidence: The insurrection of 1804 gave impetus to the budding sense of identity and
history among the Habsburg Serb intelligentsia, but it was the transformation of
the Belgrade pashalik into an autonomous principality in 1830 that really set off
the nationalist ‘awakening’ among these elites (Stokes 1976: 87). However, the
imagination of a handful of nationalists and patriotic intellectuals was hardly
sufficient to arouse mass sentiments. Although the Serbian principality was
under a ruler of ‘Serbian blood and language’, Milosˇ Obrenovic ́, there was no
mass exodus to the liberated homeland, as one would expect of a community
bounded by feelings of ethnic affinity or national consciousness.
 Vuk Karadzic songs
 There is a class argument to be made
o That often social groups were class-based from the beginning rather than ethnicity
o No way that higher clergy would have had the same interest in the peasantry or in

3. To what extent was the Orthodox Church a nationalizing force in the centuries of Ottoman rule?

 This was not unusual in view of the Orthodox Church’s

traditional dependence on the state. Before that, the Orthodox Church was
guided by universalist principles no less than the Catholic Church and served
loyally in multinational empires and tended its multinational congregation.
There is indeed no compelling reason why the Orthodox clerical elites in the
pre-nationalist Balkans would have held a significantly different, more
‘national’, outlook than their Catholic counterparts

4. How can arguments based on class subvert the claims of nationalist historians?

 Structured around ethnic and religious boundaries, nationalism can

comprehend only with great difficulty a culture in which these are transcended
by family attachments and local customs
  The clerical and secular elites held the lower classes in contempt and
regarded the peasants as people to be ruled over, not lived with. Even those
patriotic individuals, like Orfelin and Obradovic ́ , whose devotion to the ideals
of enlightened rationalism led them to support the cultural development of the
common people, did not share the egalitarian views of Vuk Karad&ic ́ . They
did develop a sense of belonging to a wider community that was more
inclusive than the parochial allegiances of their fellow Orthodox, but the
patriotism of these men should not be confused with nationalism.

Hroch reading

1. What are the main stages of national movements in Central and Eastern Europe in Hroch’s
view?

During an initial period, which I have called Phase A, the energies of the activists were above all
devoted to scholarly enquiry into and dissemination of an awareness of the linguistic, cultural,
social and sometimes historical attributes of the non-dominant group—but without, on the whole,
pressing specifically national demands to remedy deficits (some did not even believe their group
could develop into a nation). In a second period, or Phase B, a new range of activists emerged,
who now sought to win over as many of their ethnic group as possible to the project of creating a
future nation, by patriotic agitation to ‘awaken’ national consciousness among them—at first
usually without notable success (in one sub-stage), but later (in another sub-stage) finding a
growing reception. Once the major part of the population came to set special store by their
national identity, a mass movement was formed, which I have termed Phase C. It was only during
this final phase that a full social structure could come into being, and that the movement
differentiated out into conservative-clerical, liberal and democratic wings, each with their own
programme. That is to say – mass mobilisation

2. Which social categories and historical actors does the author single out in processes
of nationalization?

 He emphasizes the importance of understanding the range of social constellations at work in the national
movements of nineteenth-century Europe, particularly focusing on Phase b of these movements. Hroch
highlights the significance of social groups mobilized once the national program acquired mass appeal, as
well as the relative importance of the cultural, political, and social aspirations within the national programs.
He also discusses the transition of leadership within national movements, typically passing from intellectuals
to professional strata in a wider sense.
 Furthermore, Hroch identifies the emergence of discontent among significant elements of the population,
loss of faith in traditional moral systems, and the decline in religious legitimacy as decisive factors for the
transformation of national movements. He also emphasizes the role of educated elites, including apprentice
politicians, veteran bureaucrats, and emergent entrepreneurs, in occupying leading positions in society
during the breakdown of the old order in Central and Eastern Europe.
 In addition, Hroch discusses the importance of nationally relevant conflicts of interest, such as clashes
between different social classes and groups, in shaping the dynamics of national movements. He also
highlights the role of historical experience and the transmission of information about reality and attitudes
towards it in the advent of national movements.
Overall, Hroch's analysis underscores the complex interplay of social categories, historical actors, and societal
transformations in the processes of nationalization.

Seminar

 Hroch
o Nationalism not just about class conflict but also about different phenomena
o Uniqueness about all central eastern European nationalism but there are broader commonalities and
patterns that can be looked at to enable comparisons.
 Pantelic
o Tries to anatomise how national traditions were created.
 Bulgarians previously never accepted Bulgarian domination.
o Theory of continuity of a perennial nation that has always existed that was rediscovered in the 19th
century.
 Gellner argues that industrial society precedes nationalisation
 Pantelic argues that the nation state was created through schools and education, not after 1878
independence
 Nation is not conceived of as organic but rather constructed
 Difference in theories that see construction in negative terms or rather like Anderson, as a process of
imagining oneself as part of a community
o A community in anonymity because people never meet every member of the community
 Ethnic vs civic nationalism
o Ethnic: a nation comprising one ethnicity
o Civic: belonging to a nation does not rest on one’s ethnicity – have to speak the language
 Nationalism
o Presupposes the merging of ethnicity with a nation state
 If you are an ethnic group, you are entitled to statehood
 Marseillaise song – song of the American revolution, was translated into various Balkan languages and
became known in these countries
 For Hroch, phase B
 Peasants were complaining of the rise of private estates or chiftliks
o First action of peasantry was to appeal to the sultan rather than revolt against the sultan
 After independence of Serbia, orthodox church began to rewrite its views and began to integrate itself within
a new tradition
 Balkan enlightenment and nationalism
o Commercial and diasporic character
 Treaty of Kucuk Kaynarca
 Enabled autonomy and mobility of an emerging merchant class
o Secularism and anti-clericalism
o Romanticism and Historicity
 Brings an interest into peoples’ historical roots
 Collects songs, folk traditions, and documents references to medieval culture like in
Serbia