The Nation-Building Process in the Balkans: Ethnic Cleansing and Massacres of
the Ottoman Muslim and Turkish Population
24-25 March 2016
Conference organized by the Collège Belgique (Académie Royale de Belgique)
and the University of Utah
Le processus de construction de la nation dans les Balkans: nettoyage
ethnique et massacre des musulmans ottomans et turcs (1912-1913)
Conference organized by the Collège Belgique (Académie Royale de
Belgique) and the University of Utah
Mars-March 24-25, 2016 Bruxelles-Brussels (Belgique-Belgium)
A. Argumentaire en français :
Le processus de construction de la nation dans les Balkans : nettoyage
ethnique et massacre des musulmans ottomans et turcs (1912-1913)
Dans le contexte de la désintégration de l’Empire Ottoman et de l’émergence du
nouveau système étatique balkanique, la guerre a joué un rôle dans les processus de construction des nations et des états. Le système étatique balkanique a été créé pour résoudre la question d’Orient, et les états concernés ont fini par devenir des états-nations homogènes suite à une série de guerres qui atteignirent leur apogée lors de ce que l’on a appelé les guerres balkaniques (1912-1913). Ce fut la première guerre totale dans les Balkans, si l’on considère que les frontières entre le front de bataille et le front intérieur ont été supprimées au moyen d’une attaque systématique de certains groupes identitaires. On peut d’ailleurs considérer que, pour l’état ottoman, la première guerre mondiale a commencé en 1912 car le ton était donné et le schéma établi pour la première guerre mondiale.
Qui plus est, les pères fondateurs de l’actuelle république de Turquie sont tous
originaires des Balkans. Cette guerre a mené à la formation du nouveau système étatique dans les Balkans par le biais de nettoyages ethniques massifs, de mouvements de population et d’atrocités à grande échelle.
Le propos théorique de ce colloque sera le lien entre la formation des identités
nationales et les nettoyages ethniques. Dans le contexte historique de la guerre
des Balkans, les questions clés sont : de quelle manière la relation dialectique
entre le « soi » et « l’autre » a-t-elle entraîné le processus de redéfinition des
nouvelles nations balkaniques au moyen de la guerre ? Comment le pouvoir
politique externe a-t-il généré les discours nationaux influents dans les Balkans
? Comment les états balkaniques ont-ils mené au caractère « irrécupérable »
des communautés musulmanes et turques ? Jusqu’à quel point la guerre a-t-elle
formé et consolidé les identités nationales et religieuses allant de pair avec la
légitimité de l’état ?
Dans leurs analyses du nettoyage ethnique moderne en Europe, les
commentateurs en général ainsi que beaucoup d’experts occidentaux, ont
longtemps éludé l’histoire du nettoyage ethnique et même du génocide perpétrés contre les populations ottomanes musulmanes dans les Balkans, la Crimée et le Caucase. Ce processus a commencé avec la question d’Orient en Europe concernant l’Empire ottoman et a continué avec les guerres balkaniques
à la veille de la première guerre mondiale. En réalité, les controverses
contemporaines autour des doubles standards et les discours concernant les
droits de l’homme et l’interventionnisme humanitaire remontent à cette époque.
Les événements de 1915 concernant la tragédie de la population arménienne
en Anatolie devraient être placés dans le contexte du nettoyage ethnique des
musulmans ottomans comme solution à la « question d’Orient » concernant
la « Turquie au sein de l’Europe ». Il ne s’agit pas de considérer cela comme
une vengeance « naturelle ». Il s’agit plutôt de se concentrer sur l’ancien
modèle d’hégémonie qui caractérisait l’interaction sociale et politique entre
les différentes communautés ou le désengagement des unes et des autres.
Cette hégémonie qui s’est établie dans les Balkans à travers les concepts
européens occidentaux du « soi » et de « l’autre » a affecté l’Anatolie, le
Caucase et le Moyen-Orient. De manière tragique, la fin de la guerre froide a
vu la résurgence de ce type de nettoyage ethnique génocidaire dirigé contre
les quelques populations survivantes de musulmans européens indigènes en
Bosnie. Cette conférence internationale mettra donc en lumière un aspect de
l’histoire européenne longtemps négligé qui continue à façonner les conflits
contemporains et les politiques contemporaines en Europe et dans le Moyen
Orient. Le nettoyage ethnique et les massacres des communautés turques attestés par les historiens contemporains sont souvent négligés ou ignorés par le grand
public.
B. English argument :
The Nation-Building Process in the Balkans: Ethnic Cleansing and
Massacres of the Ottoman Muslim and Turkish Population (1912-1913)
In the context of the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire and the emergence of the new Balkan state-system, warfare played a formative role in both processes of nation and state-building. The Balkan state-system was created as a solution to the Eastern Question and these states eventually evolved into homogeneous nation-states as a result of a series of wars, climaxing in what is known as the Balkan Wars (1912-1913). This was the first total war in the Balkans in terms of removing the frontiers between war-front and home-front by systematically targeting certain identity groups. In fact, for the Ottoman state, World War I (WWI) started in 1912 since it set the tone and the patterns of WWI. Moreover, the founding fathers of the current Republic of Turkey all originated from the Balkans. This war led to the formation of the new state-system in the Balkans in terms of massive ethnic cleansing, population movements and wide spread atrocities.
The theoretical focus of the conference will be on the relationship between
national identity formation and ethnic cleansing. In the historical context
presented by the Balkan Wars, the key questions are: How did the dialectic
relationship between “self” and “other” shape the processes of redefining new
Balkan nations through warfare? How did external political power generate
influential national narratives in the Balkans? How did the Balkan states frame
the Muslim and Turkish communities as “irredeemable”? To what extent the
warfare shaped and consolidated national and religious identities, along with the
legitimacy of the state?
General commentators and many Western scholars in their discussions of
modern ethnic cleansing in Europe have long elided the history of ethnic
cleansing and even genocide directed against Ottoman Muslim populations
in the Balkans, Crimea, and the Caucasus. This process began with the
Eastern Question in Europe concerning the Ottoman Empire and continued
with the Balkan Wars on the eve of WWI. In fact, contemporary controversies
surrounding double-standards and the discourses of universal human rights
and humanitarian interventionism also date from this period. The 1915 events
regarding the tragedy of Armenian population in Anatolia should exactly be
considered within the context of the ethnic cleansing of Ottoman Muslims in
Balkans as a solution to the “Eastern Question” of “Turkey in Europe.” This
certainly should not be understood as a ‘natural’ vengeance. Rather the focus
is the previously hegemonized pattern of social and political interaction or
disengagement amongst different communities. This hegemonization initiated
in the Balkans by the western European concepts of “self-identification”
and “otherness” consequently effected Anatolia, Caucasus and Middle East.
Tragically, the end of the Cold War saw the resurgence of such genocidal
ethnic cleansing directed against the few surviving populations of indigenous
European Muslims in Bosnia. This International Conference will thus highlight
a long overlooked aspect of European history which still continues to shape
contemporary conflicts and politics in Europe and the Middle East. The ethnic
cleansing and massacres of Turkish communities attested by contemporary
historians are often ignored and largely unknown to the general public.
Organisateurs:
Organizers:
Baudouin DECHARNEUX
Maître de recherches du FRS-FNRS
Professeur ULB - Membre de l’Académie Royale de Belgique
Université libre de Bruxelles
avenue F.D. Roosevelt 17 (CP 108)
B - 1050 Bruxelles
Tel 02 650 38 49, Fax 02 650 39 18
bdecharn@ulb.ac.be
M. Hakan Yavuz
Professor, Department of Political Science
The University of Utah
260 S. Central Campus Drive Rm 252
Salt Lake City, UT 84112
Office 801 585 7986, Cell 801 864 6337
hakan.yavuz@utah.edu
24 et 25 Mars 2016 Bruxelles, Belgique
March 24-25, 2016 Brussels, Belgium
Jeudi/Thursday, 24 Mars-March
9h30 : Accueil des participants
10H00 : Ouverture par Baudouin Decharneux (Académie royale de
Belgique) et Hakan Yavuz (University of Utah)
Panel I : Sous la présidence de Hervé Hasquin (Secrétaire Perpétuel de
l’Académie royale de Belgique et Baudouin Decharneux (Membre de
l’Académie royale de Belgique)
Keynote Lecture
Raymond Taras (Tulane University, New Orleans)
“Islamophobia never rests in the Balkans: South Slavs, Muslim communities,
and the legacy of exclusionary nationalisms and identities”
“L’islamophobie ne sommeille jamais dans les Balkans : Slaves du Sud,
communautés musulmanes, et la légalisation de l’exclusion des nationalismes et
des identities”.
Hakan Yavuz (University of Utah)
“War-Making as Nation-Building: The Case of Balkans.”
“Faire la guerre pour construire une nation: le cas des Balkans”
12H30 Buffet
Panel II : Sous la présidence de Hakan Yavuz (Univ. Utah)
13H30 : Justin McCarthy (University of Louisville)
“An Overview of the Demography of Ethnic Cleansing in the Balkans.”
“Survol de la démographie des nettoyages ethniques dans les Balkans”.
14H00 : Dimitris Stamatopoulos (Dept. of Balkan, Slavic and Oriental Studies,
University of Macedonia)
“Against Orientalism? The Ottoman Empire and the Turks in Balkan
historiographical deviations of the 19th and the 20th c.”
“Contre l’Orientalisme? L’Empire Ottoman et les Turques dans les variations
historiographiques des 19ème et 20ème siècles”.
14H30 : Mujeeb R. Khan (Dept. of Political Science, UC Berkeley)
“The Ottoman Eastern Question and International Relations: Identity and Norms
vs. Real Politik in the Destruction of ‘Turkey in Europe’.”
“La question ottomane à l’Ouest et les relations internationales: Identité et
normes contre la Real Politik dans le contexte de la destruction de la Turquie en
Europe”.
15H00 : Perparim Gutaj (University of Utah)
“Ethnic Cleansing: The Method for Nation-Building.”
“Le nettoyage ethnique : la méthode pour créer la nation”.
15H30 Pause café
Panel III : Sous la présidence de Xavier Luffin (ULB)
16H00 : Ayten Kılıç (Honorary Fellow, Department of History, University of
Wisconsin-Madison)
“Creating the Bulgarian state through “a war of race and extermination”: the
1877-78 Russo-Ottoman War as a mode of state making.”
“La création de l’Etat bulgare comme une guerre de race et d’extermination :
entre 1877 et 1878”.
16H30 : Hakan Erdogoz, (University of Utah)
“Reading the Eastern Question through the Prism of Orientalism: Hubris,
Founding Genealogy and James Bryce”
17H00 : Pamela Dorn Sezgin (Professor of Anthropology and History,
University of North Georgia, USA).
“Balkan Jews between Pluralistic Empires and Christian Nation-States (1820 –
1913).”
18H00 Brad Dennis (University of Utah),
“The Influence of the Balkan Wars on the Ideas and Tactics of Armenian
Revolutionaries.”
“L’influence de la Guerre des Balkans dans les idées et tactiques des
révolutionnaires arméniens”.
18H30 Christopher Gunn, (Coastal Carolina University)
“Taking Back ‘Europe’: Western Support for Christian Militias in the Balkans
and Western Anatolia, 1912-1923.”
“« Taking Back Europe » : le soutien occidental aux milices chrétiennes dans les
Balkans et l’Anatolie occidentale, de 1912 à 1923”.
19H00 Cocktail dînatoire
Vendredi 25 mars 2016
Panel IV : Sous la présidence de Robert Anciaux (ULB)
10H00 Amir Duranovic (University of Sarajevo)
“Uncertainty for “People without Ideals? South Slav Muslims and Yugoslav
state.”
“Incertitude pour personne sans idéaux ? Les musulmans slaves du sud et l’Etat
yougoslave”.
10H30 Senadin Musabegovic (University of Sarajevo)
“Nationalism and its dark Consequences in the Balkans.”
“Le nationalism et ses sombres conséquences dans les Balkans”.
11H00 Aliye F. Mataracı (International University of Sarajevo)
“Consuming a Memorial Site: the Commemoration of the 20th Anniversary of
the Genocide against Bosniaks in “UN Safe Haven” Srebrenica.”
“Exploiter d’un site de mémoire (mémorial) : la commémoration du 20ème
anniversaire du génocide contre les musulmans de Bosnie dans « l’ONU Safe
Haven » de Srebrenica ”.
11H30 Pause café
Panel V : sous la présidence de Baudouin Decharneux (Académie royale de
Belgique)
12H00 Olsi Jazexhi (chercheur independent)
The Balkan Wars and the de-Turkifikation of the Western Balkans.”
“Les guerres balkaniques et le “déturquification” des Balkans occidentaux”.
12H30 William Holt (Turkish Studies, Istanbul)
“Hagia Sophia as a Refugee Shelter: an Unknown Facet in One of the World’s
Most Important Architectural Monuments.”
“Sainte-Sophie comme lieu de refuge : une facette ignorée d’un des plus
importants sites architecturaux du monde”.
13H00 Buffet
14H00 : Panel VI : sous la présidence de Hakan Yavuz (University of Utah)
14H00 Tamara Scheer (Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Social Science History/
Institute for East European History at the University of Vienna)
“The Habsburg Presence in Sanjak Novipazar and the Question of Muslim
Migrants and Refugees (1879-1908)”
«La présence des Habsbourgs à Sanjak Novipazar et la question des migrants
musulmans et des réfugiés (1879-1908)»
14H30 Carl Betke (University of Tubingen)
“From peace keeping to combat mission: The Skutari Detachment in Berlin’s
symbol politics, 1913-14.”
15H00 Isa Blumi (Associate Professor of Middle East History, Georgia State
University, Atlanta, GA).
“Harnessing the World’s Economic Transformation: The Rise of Finance
Capitalism and Emerging Role of Balkan Muslims in the larger Islamic World,
1900-1919.”
“Exploiter la transformation économique du monde: l’essor de la finance
capitaliste et le rôle émergent des musulmans balkaniques dans le monde
islamique élargi, 1900-1919”.
16H00 Pause café
Panel VII : sous la présidence de Raymond Taras (Tulane University, New
Orleans)
16H30 Igor Despot, (Independent Historian, Zagreb)
“The Balkan wars - liberation or occupation?”
“Les guerres balkaniques – libération ou occupation?”.
17H00 Umut Uzer (chercheur independent)
“Ömer Seyfettin, the Balkan Wars, WWI and his criticisms of Ottomanism and
minority nationalisms.”
“Ömer Seyfettin, les guerres balkaniques, la première guerre mondiale et ses
critiques de l’Ottomanisme et des minorities nationalists”.
17H30 Mehmet Arisan, (Istanbul University)
“Nationalism as a New Means of Imperial Control: The Origins of Modern
Genocides and Ex-Western Nationalism in the Case of Balkans (1890-1913).”
“Le nationalisme comme un nouveau moyen de contrôle imperial : les origines
des genocides modernes et l’ex nationalisme de l’ouest dans le cas des Balkans
(1890-1913)”.
18H00 Ahmet Seyhun, (University of Winnipig)
“The Balkan Question in the writings of Namik Kemal and Ali Suavi.”
“La question des Balkans dans les écrits de Namik Kemal et Ali Suavi”.
18H30 Conclusions : M. Hakan Yavuz (Univ. Utah)
Cocktail dînatoire (salle des Marbres de l’Académie royale de Belgique
In the context of the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire and the emergence of
the new Balkan state-system, warfare played a formative role in both processes
of nation and state-building. The Balkan state-system was created as a solution
to the Eastern Question and these states eventually evolved into homogeneous
nation-states as a result of a series of wars, climaxing in what is known as the
Balkan Wars (1912-1913). This was the first total war in the Balkans in terms
of removing the frontiers between a warfront and a homefront by systematically
targeting certain identity groups. In fact, for the Ottoman state, World War I
(WWI) started in 1912, as it set the tone and the patterns of WWI. Moreover,
the founding fathers of the current Republic of Turkey all originated from the
Balkans. This war led to the formation of the new state-system in the Balkans
in terms of massive ethnic cleansing, population movements and widespread
atrocities.
The theoretical focus of the conference will be on the relationship between
national identity formation and ethnic cleansing. In the historical context
presented by the Balkan Wars, the key questions are: How did the dialectic
relationship between “self” and “other” shape the processes of redefining new
Balkan nations through warfare? How did external political power generate
influential national narratives in the Balkans? How did the Balkan states frame
the Muslim and Turkish communities as “irredeemable”? To what extent did the
warfare shape and consolidate national and religious identities, along with the
legitimacy of the state?
General commentators and many Western scholars in their discussions of
modern ethnic cleansing in Europe have long eluded the history of ethnic
cleansing and even genocide directed against Ottoman Muslim populations
in the Balkans, Crimea, and the Caucasus. This process began with the
Eastern Question in Europe concerning the Ottoman Empire and continued
with the Balkan Wars on the eve of WWI. In fact, contemporary controversies
surrounding double-standards and the discourses of universal human rights
and humanitarian interventionism also date from this period. The 1915 events
regarding the tragedy of Armenian population in Anatolia should exactly be
considered within the context of the ethnic cleansing of Ottoman Muslims in
Balkans as a solution to the “Eastern Question” of “Turkey in Europe.” This
certainly should not be understood as a ‘natural’ vengeance. Rather the focus
is the previously hegemonized pattern of social and political interaction or
disengagement among different communities. This hegemonization was initiated
in the Balkans by the western European concepts of “self-identification” and
“otherness” that consequently affected Anatolia, Caucasus and the Middle
East. Tragically, the end of the Cold War saw the resurgence of such genocidal
ethnic cleansing directed against the few surviving populations of indigenous
European Muslims in Bosnia. This International Conference will thus highlight
a long overlooked aspect of European history which still continues to shape
contemporary conflicts and politics in Europe and the Middle East. The ethnic
cleansing and massacres of Turkish communities attested by contemporary
historians are often ignored and largely unknown to the general public.
The conference will examine the immediate and long-term implications of
the processes of warfare and homogenization through a set of theoretically
guided and empirically based questions. The goal of the conference is to bring
together experts and scholars from different disciplines to exchange theoretical
and empirical insights, as well as to provide an academic platform for fruitful
discussion on the social and political implications of the Balkan Wars and the
birth of the nation-state system in the Balkans.
The conference organizing committee is as much interested in the causes of
the Balkan Wars as in its short-term results and long-term implications for
the Balkan region. Discussions of the construction of nationalist ideology, the
weakening of the Ottoman state, the new emerging balance of power in Europe,
escalation of tensions in the Mediterranean region, and the Ottoman response
to the outbreak of the conflicts will be encouraged, as will specific studies
on demographic engineering policies of the new Balkan states, such as the
population exchanges, forced deportations, and ethnic cleansings.
The conference will address questions on the following themes:
1. How did Orientalism and Islamophobia play a role in shaping European
public opinion throughout the nineteenth century and on the eve of WWI?
How did ethno-religious identities shape the perceptions of policies and
institutions during these wars? How were the Jewish communities affected
by the rise of nationalism among Christians in the Balkans?
2. What patterns of imperial disintegration and the emerging ethnic based
self-identification, if any, might explain the collapse of the Ottoman Empire
in the Balkans? How can one define the interplay between foreign power,
nationalist rebellion, and weakened state in the last days of the Ottoman
Empire? How does this triangle relate to modern-day cases of failing states?
Is there a particular pattern of nation-state formation in the Balkans? What
were the particular repertoires of action that the Balkan revolutionaries
followed and learned from one another? To what extent were the Comitadjis
different from their European counterparts?
3. How did the Balkan Wars impact the demographic structure of the Balkan
states, as well as in Anatolia? How did the war transform the region’s
social, political, and economic life? What considerations and options were
disregarded or underestimated following the War? What characterizes the
alliances that were formed between the major powers and local forces?
4. What is the role of external actors and discourses such as the “Terrible
Turk” in the process of ethnic cleansing against the Muslim? How did the
local and international press convey these mass atrocities? How did the
creation of national identities in the Balkans serve British imperialist goals?
5. How is the legacy of the Balkan Wars remembered and utilized in today’s
Balkans? How have perceptions of the Ottoman Empire changed over the
years?
6. What is the role of nationalist teleological approaches in writing the
histories of the late imperial settings? How is the writing of history affected
by the vantage point of modern nation-states that emerged after the collapse
of imperial orders—that is, in anticipation of the birth of nation-state
structures?
Panel I: Origins of Ethnic Cleaning and Genocidal Massacres in the
Balkans
The Keynote Lecture
Raymond TARAS (Tulane University, New Orleans)
“Islamophobia never rests in the Balkans: South Slavs, Muslim communities,
and the legacy of exclusionary nationalisms and identities”
Is it the case that following WWI, Muslim communities in the Balkans served
as the targets of Islamophobic politics pursued by South Slav Christian elites?
My paper examines whether southeastern Europe, traditionally a subject of
Orientalistic Othering by western Europeans, developed a habitus disposing it to
invoke rigid distinctions between self and other which fell into use as a template
for carrying out multiple ethnic cleansing projects in the twentieth century. Can
we speak of the historical determinism in the region comprising Islamophobia?
In my paper this term will be systematically defined and specifically refined
for use in the Balkans context. In terms of empirical research, I will critically
review constructions of pan-Slavist as well as nationalist ideologies under the
kingdom and, subsequently, socialist republic of Yugoslavia. Next, focusing
on the experience of Bosnia, I compare their different impacts on its Muslim
communities. Extending the argument about Islamophobia’s historical
determinism, I will inquire into whether the establishment of an intricate
Bosnian state structure after 1995 had the effect of internationalizing the phobia
of Muslims by locating it outside state boundaries. Was the identity of Bosniaks
transformed from the internal other to the external adversary? Developing
this theme, I will assess to what extent Bosniak refugees migrating across
Europe were subject to dual discrimination: targets of traditional Orientalizing
stigmatization of all peoples of the Balkans, and of the historic Islamophobic
thrust discernable across Europe? Were Bosniaks who left the Balkans uniquely
victimized, therefore, by their region and religion? The significance of this paper
lies also in the adoption of the perspective of la longue durée which, I will argue
in the conclusion, is indispensable to contextualizing and understanding recent
cases of ethnic cleansing and Islamophobia in southeast Europe.
M. Hakan Yavuz, (University of Utah) “War-Making as Nation-Building: The
Case of Balkans.”
Nationalism, as an idea of creating a new society and polity, presupposes
the homogenization of society. Ernest Gellner was a pioneering scholar of
nationalism in the way that he examined homogenization as the outcome of
industrialization. Industrialization, for Gellner, required cultural homogenization
this was especially the case with regard to language. Moreover, this can
only be achieved via state-sponsored education. Homogenization therefore
becomes the sociopolitical product of industrialization, and the state is the
only institution that can promote this process and expect to benefit from it.
That is to say, the state expands its legitimacy on the back of industrialization.
Based on my reading of nationalism theory and the content and evolution of
Balkan nationalisms, however, I have come to two integrated conclusions.
First, homogenization, the aim of nationalism, has been realized not through
industrialization but rather through wars, at least in the case of the Balkans;
indeed war-making was by far the most powerful tool for state-building in the
Balkans. The Balkan type of nationalism has five major characteristics: it entails
a state-led and top-down search for building a nation; war-making is the major
instrument of homogenization; religion is the co-determinant of ethnic identity
and the main instrument of mass mobilization; it is irredentist and always
seeking to restore “Greater” Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia, or Montenegro; and it
seeks recognition from Western European countries by constructing an image of
the “Muslim enemy.”
Charles Tilly’s two modes of nationalism supply us with an approach for
scrutinizing the role of war-making in the Balkans: state-seeking nationalism
and state-led nationalism. In the Balkans we find that the dominant pattern is the
state-led nationalism. The Balkan states implemented a series of strategies to
create their own nations and to subordinate “other interests to those of the state.”
The states sought a shortcut to homogeneity through war.
Indeed, war-making serves multiple purposes, such as (1) the extraction of
resources and the expansion of the state’s capacity; (2) the assertion of the
state’s control over culture by insisting on a single language, a uniform historical
narrative, a state religion, and even national artistic styles; (3) the shaping of the
perception of the “self” and “other” via conscription; and (4) the enhancement of
the state’s legitimacy and the demand for the political loyalties of its populace.
In short the state requires an organized army, and an army requires mobilizing
nationalist ideology and a cohesive society. Preparing for wars and fighting
them are important instruments for homogenization and nation-building, not
only because of the role they play in strengthening social cohesion but, as
shown later, also in the destruction or forced exile of those who are difficult
or impossible to assimilate. Rogers Brubaker argues that “war was central
to the mass unmixing of Balkan peoples. Beginning with the Russo-Turkish
War of 1877, intensifying in the Balkan wars of 1912-13, and culminating in
the aftermath of the First World War, almost all of the large-scale migrations
occurred in direct or indirect connection with military campaign.” (158) In fact
wars may be the most effective means to homogenize the population and thus
consolidate the central authority. These conflicts serve to harden group loyalty
and engender feelings of enmity against the out-group. To summarize, through
wars the states create conditions that help to construct and mobilize nationalistic
sentiment and enhance in-group cohesion.
Justin McCarthy (University of Louisville). “An Overview of the Demography
of Ethnic Cleansing in the Balkans.”
Population. In 1876, the ethnic and religious distribution of the Ottoman Balkan
population was much as it had been for more than a century: Turks in Thrace,
west to Salonica, and in the northeast, along the Romanian border; Albanians
north from Yanya to the Serbian border; Greeks in Thessaly; Slavic Muslims in
Bosnia; Bulgarians from Burgas to Manastır and north to the Romanian border;
Slavic Orthodox west of Montenegro and west of Serbia. These were only the
largest groups in each region, however; the populations in each region were
usually mixed, often at the village level.
Forced Migrations. The first major forced migrations of the nineteenth century
Balkans began in Serbia and Greece, where Muslims were expelled as a result of
revolts and great power intervention. Each stage in the creation and expansion of
the kingdoms of Serbia, Montenegro, and Greece was marked by the expulsion
of Muslims. Russian invasion in 1877-78 resulted in mass mortality and
forced migration of Muslims of Bulgaria, the Niş region, northwest Albania,
Thessaly, and the Dobruja. The Muslim population of the conquered territories
decreased by 55 percent (1,423,000, of whom 819,000 died). Some 187,000
Bulgarian Orthodox fled from Macedonia to Bulgaria. By 1900, as a result of
the expulsions and deaths, Greece, Serbia, and Montenegro were relatively
ethnically and religiously homogenous. Though much diminished, Bulgaria
retained a significant Turkish and Pomak population. What remained of Ottoman
Europe was much more diverse. The expulsions of 1877-81 had concentrated
Muslim population in what remained of the Ottoman Empire. Muslim
population (not including Istanbul province) had increased by approximately 42
percent making Muslims a slight majority of 53 percent.
The Balkan Wars ended the Muslim predominance in Western Thrace, Northern
Albania, and Macedonia, and significantly reduced the numbers of both Muslims
and Christians in central and southern Albania. Some 632,000 Muslims died
and 813,000 became refugees in the Ottoman Empire. The Christian group
that suffered most was the Bulgarians, of which approximately 100,000 were
expelled from Eastern Thrace. (Note that these Bulgarians were all members of
the Bulgarian Exarchate Church, including Macedonians. Because the Ottoman
Empire recorded population by religion, there is no way to statistically separate
peoples by ethnic group. Moreover, in their conquered territories the Serbians
refused to statistically recognize either Bulgarians or Macedonians, including
them all as “Orthodox.”). Approximately 20,000 Greeks also fled from Eastern
Thrace.
The Numbers. Although some falsely claimed to have done so, no one counted
those who were killed in the conflicts or were forced from their lands. The only
way to find the numbers of the dead and the forced migrants is by comparing
figures from before and after the events. As is always the case in demography,
the only ones who can know population numbers are those who count the
people. Prior to both the war of 1877-78 and the Balkan Wars, one can only have
recourse to Ottoman registration data, corrected for undercounting of women
and children. After the wars, census date from the successor countries must be
used. These were often more complete than Ottoman data, but, as seen above,
can be problematic in identifying religious and ethnic groups.
Scholars and politicians in the Balkan countries realized the importance of
population statistics. They were claiming the same regions and peoples, and
needed to identify them as members of their nation. Therefore, they simply
invented population numbers. Realizing that only the Ottoman government
had actually counted the population, and that the Ottoman statistics supported
none of the nationalist aims, they often falsified Ottoman data and declared it as
“official.”
Dimitris Stamatopoulos (Dept. of Balkan, Slavic and Oriental Studies,
University of Macedonia). “Against Orientalism? The Ottoman Empire and the
Turks in Balkan
historiographical deviations of the 19th and the 20th century.”
The Turks’ image in Balkan historiographies in the 19th century and much of the
20th century is directly linked to either the Orientalist perspective of rejecting
the representatives of a despotic or barbarian Orient or a continuous reminder of
the Balkans’ economic, cultural, and
social lag as a result of the Ottoman Empire. However, there are significant
divergences in this theoretical bipole upon which the canon of Balkan national
historiographies was based—divergences that tried to maintain the compatibility
of an emerging national identity with the reconciliation of its existence or
even the preservation of the Ottoman Empire. These divergences should not
be interpreted as the subjects’ inability to comply with the national rule but
rather as an objective weakness in discerning the process for reconstructing the
national space.
National states imagine their present and future based on the imperial model
(unaware of the distinction between the two types), and empires try to adjust
to the new conditions by adopting versions of national construction although
they remain multiethnic, multilingual, multireligious and especially premodern with regards to their national structure. If the Greek state (and other
Balkan states) imagine their expansion based on the imperial model, then
empires (e.g., Russian, Ottoman) unaware of their approaching end understand
themselves through the rationale of the nation-state. This contradictory and
intertwined ideological movement allows a multitude of intellectuals who
resist or have yet to adapt to the logic of a nation-state to restructure their
will to preserving the empire, insisting mainly on what it will be constructed
around: a different perspective of time from that used by the nation-state. And
here is the big problem we must deal with regarding national historiographies:
how is the continuity form served within the framework of an empire rather
than in its classic use by national historiography? Naturally, the problem of
continuity is tightly linked to the understanding of the nation as an essential
collective subject. And that may be wherein the solution to the problem lies: the
incompatibility of the nation-centric model of conceiving the collective subject
produces eccentric or divergent theories of the national historic timeline.
Mujeeb R. Khan (Dept. of Political Science, UC Berkeley). “The Ottoman
Eastern Question and International Relations: Identity and Norms vs. Realpolitik
in the Destruction of ‘Turkey in Europe’.”
War and diplomacy surrounding the 19th century dénouement of the Ottoman
‘Eastern Question’ in Europe has traditionally been viewed as the archetype of
classical realist balance of power politics in international relations (Anderson,
Gulick, and Kissinger). Modern international relations theorists have further
drawn on this classical account of the ‘Eastern Question’ in arguing for the
primacy of amoral state-centered realist models of international relations
(Morgenthau, Waltz, Mearsheimer, and Posen). More recently, scholars have
noted another very important dimension surrounding the 19th century ‘Eastern
Question’ relating to identity politics and the problematic emergence of
international norms (Bass, Khan, and Rodingo).
This paper will critically assess the Realist vs. Ideationalist/Constructivist
debate surrounding the 19th century Ottoman ‘Eastern Question’. It will argue
that while a traditionally realist balance of power politics did drive Great
Power politics in this regard, at crucial moments the logic of ethno-religious
identity and solidarity trumped that of realpolitik in the dénouement of the
Ottoman ‘Eastern Question.’ The paper will further argue that troubling racial
and religious double standards were at the very inception of international
humanitarian norms and debates surrounding the Greek Uprising of 1821 and
continuing through the Balkan Wars of 1912-13. Furthermore, the massive
ethnic cleansing of Ottoman Muslims from European Soil in the 19th century
will be presented as the fulcrum for the emergence of 20th century programs
of genocidal ethnic cleansing in Europe and the Middle East. Finally, the paper
will argue that problematic double standards derived from racial and religious
identity politics still bedevil international relations today, particularly in regards
to Western policies in the Muslim world.
Perparim Gutaj (University of Utah). “Ethnic Cleansing: The Method for
Nation-Building.”
Ethnic cleansing is defined as a violent political act aimed at removing (that
could also result in elimination of) a group of people and central aspects of
their identity and culture from a specific territory. It is an organized act directed
against a particular religious or ethnic group perceived as “the other” and
hated; and its main purpose is to create ethnically homogenous nations using
various methods including genocide. During the Balkan Wars (1912-1913),
the newly created Balkan states systematically targeted particular religious
and ethnic groups with population movements, widespread atrocities, and
massive cleansing. In short, for the invading armies and Christian insurgent,
ethnic cleansing became the method to eliminate the Muslim other and create
homogenous nations. Using the cleansing of Albanians from their homeland,
as a case study, this paper explains the conditions under which ethnic cleansing
becomes the dominant method for nation building. It outlines five conditions
where ethnic cleansing becomes the dominant method for nation building.
First, forced deportation and mass killing strategies to eliminate the difference
is the most effective way to nation building. Second, ethnic cleansing is a more
cost-effective method compared to the costs related to assimilation method.
Third, elimination of the ethnic ‘other’ quickly solves many security issues.
Fourth, the ‘other’ becomes the enemy in definition of the self, so the state
seeks to eliminate it. Fifth, the state obtains external support for carrying
out ethnic cleansing against a particular group. In highlighting prominent
structural relationships within the Balkans, proximate factors that produced the
opportunity to cleanse and kill, and international context, the paper demonstrates
the necessary and sufficient factors that make ethnic cleansing the dominant
method for nation building.
Panel II
Ayten Kılıç (Honorary Fellow, Department of History, University of
Wisconsin-Madison). “Creating the Bulgarian state through “a war of race and
extermination”: the 1877-78 Russo-Ottoman War as a mode of state making.”
It could be argued that the April uprising of the Bulgarians in 1876 led directly
to the outbreak of the Russo-Ottoman War of 1877-78, a war which changed the
map of Europe and created a new balance of power. This war also created a new
Bulgarian state.
The chain of events that led to Bulgarian autonomy and eventually independence
started in the summer of 1875 with a revolt in an obscure village in
Herzegovina. This unremarkable event marked the beginning of a crisis which
quickly spread throughout the entire Balkan Peninsula. Although it was judged
at the outset to be merely “an internal Ottoman affair,” the Herzegovina revolt
developed into a full-blown military conflict involving three of the Balkan states
and Russia in war with the Ottoman Empire.
Russian and Balkan historians have ever since tried to come up with a plausible
reason for this war, but the only justification they keep putting forward is the
claim that all “peaceful” methods have been exhausted and the only remaining
path to alleviate Christian “suffering” was war. The Bulgarian events played a
pivotal role in such justifications.
The way in which the response to the April uprising in 1876 was perceived
by Europe destroyed any good will towards the Ottoman Empire. The Great
Powers did not believe the Ottoman claims that Bulgarians had committed mass
killing of Muslims, too. Europe started to assume that it was impossible for
Christians and Muslims to co-exist. This rebellion and the way it was put down
gave Russia a pretext to launch a war on the Ottoman Empire in order to save its
fellow Orthodox Christian and Slavic brethren from a savage Oriental “yoke.”
This was to be a “war of race and extermination,” according to Prince
Cherkasskii who was in charge of the Temporary Russian Governance in
Bulgaria, an institution that was created by the Russian state prior to the war to
allegedly create a civilian Bulgarian government. The goal was to implement a
so-called demographic and agrarian revolution in the Ottoman lands claimed by
the Bulgarians.
These were fancy words for the planned and systematic extermination and
displacement of the Muslim population and taking over their lands because,
contrary to popular belief, the majority of the population that lived on the
Ottoman territory, which became today’s Bulgaria was Muslim, not Bulgarian.
The Muslims owned most of the land, too. Indeed, in the course of the war
Muslims in the path of the Russian armies perished by the thousands either
by the sword or from hunger and cold. In one case in January 1878 a refugee
convoy of 40,000-50,000 Muslims was exterminated by the Russian troops on
their way to Istanbul.
The Ottoman Empire fought isolated and alone. It soon lost the war and
with it most of its European territories and Christian subjects. The war led
to exceptionally cruel treatment of civilian Muslims, especially women and
children, and brought an influx of refugees from the lost Balkan territories.
This experience of betrayal, isolation and ethnic cleansing of the Muslims
during the war caused an enormous psychological trauma which, in turn,
fostered an intensely nationalist feeling in the post-war Ottoman population
and ultimately gave rise to the Young Turks and their takeover in 1908 and
subsequent alignment with Germany in WWI.
Hakan Erdagoz (University of Utah). “Reading the Eastern Question through
the Prism of Orientalism: Hubris, Founding Genealogy and James Bryce”
Can Edward Said’s Orientalism be a useful concept to reinterpret the widely
accepted long-lasting perceptions about the atrocities committed against the
Armenians during the Great War? And, why? It is suggested that revisiting
Orientalism can offer important insights to comprehend this issue in a more
sophisticated fashion. It is argued that the historical perception of catastrophic
events regarding the minorities prior to the collapse of the Ottoman Empire
owes more to British wartime propaganda, which ideologically and politically
demonized the Turco/Ottoman image, and forged discourses, pseudo-knowledge,
otherization, and imaginary that legitimized a self-assumed accountability to
remove the kind of anachronism the Ottoman Empire displayed than it owes the
Empire’s own failure to do its ‘homework,’ which was assigned by the Great
Powers, primarily Britain, to implement reforms for the Christian minorities. In
order to concretize the argument, the paper examines the James Bryce (1838-
1922), the British liberal, and the Orientalist discourse he often employed in
circulating disingenuous depictions of the Turks and Ottoman Empire.
Pamela Dorn Sezgin (Professor of Anthropology and History, University of
North Georgia, USA). “Balkan Jews between Pluralistic Empires and Christian
Nation-States (1820 – 1913)”
This paper documents the precarious situation of the Balkan Jewish communities
during the process of nation-state building by Christian groups, as these states
separated from the Ottoman Empire. Jews, initially were slaughtered during the
independence wars, or forced to migrate to the metropole (Istanbul) and other
large cities. Eventually in the decades that followed, the remaining Jews were
minimally tolerated, incorporated and then subjected to riots and discriminatory
laws that prohibited their very livelihoods. A chronology of Balkan
independence wars and their consequences for the local Jewish communities
is briefly surveyed, as are the provisions in the Treaty of Berlin (1878) that
sought to remedy the problems posed to Balkan Jewish co-existence in the new
nation-states. The paper culminates in a discussion of the conditions during and
immediately after the Balkan Wars (1912-1913), particularly as new territories
were added to Greece, with case studies of the impact on several of the Balkan
Jewish communities.
European concepts of “self-identification” and “otherness” were inextricably
linked to the formation of national identities in the Balkans over the turbulent
years of the nineteenth century. Many factors constituted the basis for the
formation of “national” identities: language, regional affiliation, shared
perceptions of history, kinship, and religion. Of these, religion was a powerful
factor for both inclusion in the new political entities, as well as a basis for
exclusion. Citizenship was guaranteed for Christian groups, as long as they
were in the ruling sect, but denied to non-Christians (e.g., Muslims). Jews,
though, presented a liminal category. They were neither Christian nor Muslim,
and some were foreign but the majority were local, going back centuries to
the Roman Empire in some instances, or at least several hundred years from
the immigration after the fall of Muslim Spain (post-1492). Jews were also
demonized in the Christian liturgy, both in its original Roman Catholic and
Orthodox versions, as Christ-killers. It was no surprise, then, that ritual blood
libel accusations were rampant during the years that the Ottoman Rumelia was
breaking into individual Balkan Christian states, particularly in the later portion
of the nineteenth century.
Religion also became a mechanism for legitimizing the interference of European
powers in the Balkans, from the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca (1774), which
enabled Russian commercial interests in the Eastern Mediterranean to be masked
as support for “our Orthodox [Christian] brethren,” forward to the end of the
nineteenth century. Religion allowed the European powers, both East (Russia)
and West (Great Britain), a rhetorical advantage for their hegemonic strategies
in the Balkan peninsula, a way to justify their military interference, their support
and training of separatist groups, and their utilization of peace treaties as a way
to further their own imperial interests.
Brad Dennis (University of Utah). “The Influence of the Balkan Wars on the
Ideas and Tactics of Armenian Revolutionaries.”
There is a clear connection between Armenian revolutionary figures and rebel
leaders in the Balkan Wars. Andranik Ozanian, a militarily active Armenian
revolutionary in WWI, helped the Bulgarian Army fight the Ottoman Empire
during the First Balkan War. Other significant leaders of the Armenian
liberation movement, such as Stepan Zorian, Drastamat Kanayan, Garegin
Nzhdeh, were also present in the Balkans during the war and provided direct
and indirect support for rebel groups. While a few scholars have already
looked at how Balkan insurgents influenced the organizational aspects of the
Armenian liberation movement, they have generally not shed much light on
Balkan revolutionaries’ ideological influences on Armenian leaders. In fact,
many English-language books written by Armenian scholars such as Vahakn
Dadrian and Richard Hovannisian mention the Armenian rebellion at Van and
the activities of the Armenian Volunteer Units (on which there is a tremendous
amount of documentary evidence informing us of the fine details of these
movements) in passing. Yet considering the fact that organizational aspects
(fundraising, recruiting, etc.), tactical maneuvering, and general strategy cannot
be explained without ideology, a focus on ideological influence is of utmost
importance. This paper explores the extent to which the Balkan Wars directly
influenced subsequent Armenian liberation attempts, particularly during WWI.
This question is significant, especially that it is well known that key Balkan
military leaders carved out political space by cleansing Muslims from the region.
Did Armenian leaders also see cleansing as a viable option for establishing an
Armenian independent state? This study will look for clues in the words and
actions of Armenian leaders. It will compare the rhetoric of Balkan rebels with
regard to Muslims to that of Armenian revolutionaries in the Caucasus, Russia,
Balkans, and Europe. Emphasizing sources of key information, this study
consults contemporary revolutionary journals written in Armenian, including
Droshak and Azatamart, official Ottoman, Russian, and British reports, and
journals of contemporary observers written in Russian and Armenian.
Christopher Gunn (Coastal Carolina University). “Taking Back ‘Europe’:
Western Support for Christian Militias in the Balkans and Western Anatolia,
1912-1923.”
Between 1875 and 1923, the centuries-old demographic composition and
balance of the Balkan Peninsula and Anatolia were irrevocably altered. As the
Ottoman Empire began to lose control of its northwestern provinces in the last
quarter of the 19th century, Greeks, Serbs, Bulgarians and Montenegrins sought
territory, independence, religious homogeneity and, perhaps most importantly,
redemption by emptying the region of its Muslim population through mass
expulsion, forced migrations, terror and large-scale massacres. By 1923, with
the exceptions of Bosnia, Kosovo, and Albania, over four centuries of Muslim
existence in the Balkans was erased in less than fifty years. The last decade of
this period also saw massacres and the selective expulsion of some Christian
populations in Anatolia, as the Ottoman government responded to national
security concerns arising from Greek and Armenian collaboration with the Allied
Powers. Despite similar experiences, however, the vast majority of the literature,
scholarly or otherwise, has focused exclusively on the plight of Ottoman
Christians between 1915 and 1923 rather than on the region as a whole, or on
the much longer period of ethnic violence (1875-1923) faced by the Ottoman
Muslims. While reprehensible, given the West’s historical apathy for the wellbeing of non-Christians, this is not surprising. Much more disturbing, however,
is the fact that an analysis of the coverage of the Balkan Wars and the Turkish
War of Independence exhibits tacit, if not explicit, approval for the atrocities
being committed against Muslim (more specifically ‘Turkish’) civilians in
pursuit of Balkan nationalism. This approval not only fueled the violence of the
Balkan Wars, Armenian militias on the eastern front and the Greek invasion of
Anatolia, but the double standard it implies has skewed the context in which
all of these events are analyzed and discussed. The entire period and region,
from the Balkans to the Caucasus, must be taken together if scholars hope to
understand the tragedies experienced by both the Christians and Muslims who
lived there.
Panel III:
Amir Duranovic (University of Sarajevo). “Uncertainty for “People without
Ideals” South Slav Muslims and Yugoslav state.”
As the end of WWI was approaching, in the beginning of 1918, famous Bosnian
writer and public figure Šemsudin Sarajlić wrote that ‘”Bosnian Muslims were
people without ideals, without a single goal to which all its members would tend
in their mutual concurrence,” thus pointing out the key question of that time
for Bosnian Muslims as well as for all South Slav Muslims – of their political,
social and economic perspective. As the global and regional political landscape
was evolving into a totally new era, South Slav Muslims, once part of a major
sociopolitical entity in the Ottoman Empire, entered the newly formed kingdom
of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes as a minority. Similarly as during the AustroHungarian rule over Bosnia and Herzegovina, they were a minority in terms
of numbers, as well as political and economic potential. Nevertheless, the first
Yugoslav state introduced international and national regulations providing a
normative framework for their normal existence.
In the case of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the question of Yugoslav unification
still opens many others worthy of research. This is particularly the case in the
understanding of the position of Bosniaks regarding the newly formed country.
To understand their position at the end of the war in 1918, it is important to
understand their attitude towards Austro-Hungary at the beginning of the war
in 1914. From the experiences during the Balkan wars from 1912 to 1913,
Bosniaks passionately accepted the Austro-Hungarian monarchy and they
understood the WWI as ‘their war,’ which they were dragged into as loyal
subjects of the Habsburg monarchy. Events during the Balkan wars helped
Bosniaks to understand that the alternative of the Austro-Hungarian governance
is not the Ottoman Empire but Serbia, and this strongly determined their loyalty
to the Habsburg monarchy. By the end of the war, they were dragged into a
Yugoslav state whose political and ideological foundations were very much
different compared to those of the Habsburg Empire.
This paper tends to draw main lines of South Slav Muslim history and their
attitude towards the Yugoslav state in terms of their political activities, social
and economic potential as well as the question of loyalty towards the ruling
political elites. The paper examines these major issues by analyzing the
historiography about South Slav Muslims and Yugoslavia. By doing so and
juxtaposing given narratives, their origins and ideological background, the
discussion focuses on present-day historical debates in regards to the character
of the Yugoslav attitude towards South Slav Muslims.
Senadin Musabegovic (University of Sarajevo). “Nationalism and its dark
Consequences in the Balkans.”
It is usually believed that nationalism uses mythical pre-modern symbols
to generate collective intolerance. This is true to a large extent, but, at the
same time, in former Yugoslavia, ethno-nationalism results from the process
of transition from the real-communist to the liberal way of thinking. Thus
the ethno-nationalism collective – as an alternative to capitalist atomizing
individualism, since it fosters the values of an organic community – accepted
all the principles of transition logic and destroyed the social system. The logic
of ethno-nationalism, therefore, functions as a schizoid system that, on the one
hand, advocates family and community values, while on the other destroys and
atomizes the family through rampant capitalism.
Relying on the social analysis of Slavoj Žižek, the essay focuses on the way in
which the schizoid social logic of ethno-nationalism is ingrained in turbofolk
songs. The problem of ethno-nationalism is that it should negate hybridism, but
turbofolk – as the collective expression of ethno-nationalist hysteria – relies on
hybridism and mixing codes. If we assume that culture itself is a hybrid, then
we must ask how turbofolk, with its elements of the local and global discourse,
remained at the level of kitsch, of exclusiveness, and why it did not provide an
alternative for creative encounters between different cultures. The answer lies
precisely in the schizoid, mutually exclusive border between ethno-nationalism
and rampant capitalism aided by its very exclusionary nature.
Aliye F. Mataracı (International University of Sarajevo). “Consuming a
Memorial Site: the Commemoration of the 20th Anniversary of the Genocide
against Bosniaks in “UN Safe Haven” Srebrenica.”
During the Balkans conflict of 1992-1995, the Bosnian town of Srebrenica was
declared a United Nations Safe Area in 1993, under the watch of the United
Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR). In July 1995, General Ratko Mladić
and his Serbian paramilitary units overran and captured the town, despite its
designation as an area “free from any armed attack or any other hostile act”. In
the days following Srebrenica’s fall, more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and
boys were systematically massacred and buried in mass graves. Thousands of
women, children and elderly people were forcibly deported and a large number
of women were raped. It was the greatest atrocity on European soil since WWII.
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the International Criminal Tribunal
for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) ruled that the mass execution of Bosniak
men and boys in Srebrenica constituted genocide. The Srebrenica Genocide
Memorial, officially known as the Srebrenica-Potoćari Memorial and Cemetery
for the Victims of the 1995 Genocide, is the memorial-cemetery complex
established in lower Potocari, Srebrenica to honor these victims. Past July 11
was the 20th Anniversary of the Genocide against Bosniaks in “UN Safe Haven”
Srebrenića and the commemoration took place in the aforementioned memorial
site. The commemoration was commonly attended by various parties consisting
of relatives of the victims; statesmen, bureaucrats and military personnel from
various countries; members of the international community in BiH; members
of local and international media, etc. The author’s personal experience of
the event helped to form certain questions regarding the varying patterns of
consumption of the memorial site by varying parties: Do our motivations for
visiting a memorial site reveal themselves in how we visit them? It was striking
for me to observe the difference in the visit/consumption of the memorial site
by varying parties and to be able to read certain agendas via their participation
in the commemoration. This work is an attempt to analyze the commemoration
for the 20th Anniversary of the Genocide against Bosniaks in “UN Safe Haven”
Srebrenica via its participants and the memorial site as well as its visitors in the
light of personal observation.
Olsi Jazexhi (University of Elbasan). “The Balkan Wars and the deTurkifikation of the Western Balkans.”
The First Balkan War which lasted from October 1912 to May 1913, and led to
the invasion of the European territories of the Ottoman Empire and the creation
of the Albania, had major implications for the future of Muslim communities in
Southeastern Europe.
The invasions by Serbia, Greece, Montenegro and Bulgaria of the Western
Balkan vilayets of the Ottoman Empire, and the policies of religious cleansings
that these states undertook during and after the invasion, forced hundreds of
thousands of Albanian, Turkish, Greek and Slavic speaking Muslims to flee their
native homelands. While many of the vilayets of Manastir, Yanina and Kosova
were scrambled between Serbia, Bulgaria and Greece, Albania was created as a
principality by the Great Powers of Europe in 1913.
During the Balkan Wars and WWI, Balkan nation-states were involved in a
process of hegemonization of their populations. Influenced by ideas of European
nationalism and Orientalism all these nation-states rushed to project their
enemies upon their local Muslim and Turkish populations. The Muslims had to
either be assimilated, deported or exterminated. While in most Balkan states the
Muslims were perceived as enemies within, in Albania the situation was quite
different. Albania was a country with a Muslim majority population. The two
powers who patronized the creation of Albania, Austro-Hungary and Italy, had
to deal with Muslim populations who called themselves Turkish and were very
loyal to Turkey. While the Great Powers of Europe decided not to deport the
Muslims of Albania to Turkey or exterminate them, as other Balkan Christian
nations did, they were faced with the challenge of “civilizing” these Muslim
populations and turning them into a nation. To do this, the European supervisors
and their Albanian partners had to:
1. Subdue the Muslim majority to the Christian prince that Europe nominated
to Albania.
2. Diminish the Muslim majority’s loyalty towards Turkey.
3. De-Turkify the Muslim population.
This paper analyzes the steps that the Great Powers of Europe undertook through
their International Committee of Control and counsels stationed in Albania to
make sure that the Muslims of Albania would forget their links with Turkey,
become a secular nation and “Occidentalize” themselves. The investigation
stretches until the end of WWI and shows how the policies of de-Turkification
designed by the powers of Europe were finalized by the post-war Albanian
government.
William Holt (Turkish Studies, Istanbul). “Hagia Sophia as a Refugee Shelter:
an Unknown Facet in One of the World’s Most Important Architectural
Monuments.”
The loss of European territories entailed masses of Muslim refugees within
the shrunken borders of the Ottoman Empire. None of these episodes were as
dramatic as the refugee situation in 1877-78, as a result of the war with Russia.
Istanbul was deluged with refugees numbering in the hundreds of thousands,
arriving pitifully after terrible circumstances. While the refugee crisis is still
little known, even less known is the conversion of Istanbul’s mosques into
refugee shelters.
Hagia Sophia, the former cathedral constructed by the Emperor Justinian in the
sixth century, was the largest haven for refugees. At its peak, 15,000 refugees
found shelter under the Mosque’s dome. Refugees stayed there for more than
four months, and towards the end of this period, disease was rampant. Dozens
of corpses were being removed from the mosque each day. The mosque, which
is to this day the most visited destination in Istanbul, remained something of a
tourist site throughout this ordeal. Through the collection of descriptions left
by foreign visitors, including a very important doctor’s report on the sanitary
situation within, we gain an unprecedented level of understanding about what
this building’s stint as a refugee shelter entailed.
25 Mars-March
Panel IV
Tamara Scheer (Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Social Science History/
Institute for East European History at the University of Vienna). “The Habsburg
Presence in Sanjak Novipazar and the Question of Muslim Migrants and Refugees (1879-
1908)”
Public opinion is often referred to as the “fourth estate”. Even if it influenced the
rulers not to react immediately, it shows in an indirect way prevailing opinions
and demands which are maybe indicative for future sovereign decisions.
Therefore the discussion in the Habsburg media on the Second Balkan War is
of importance because it caused a long term effect – especially on the (violent)
treatment on certain Habsburg ethnic groups, perceptions and expectations on
loyalties and disloyalties during WWI.
An earlier paper by the author examined how Habsburg public opinion was
shaped by the First Balkan War through the prism of the German speaking media
– due to the self-understanding of its authors and readers, as a leading and loyal
force in the empire. There had been German speaking elites in most of the larger
cities of the Dual monarchy. As the Habsburg empire – due to its territorial
belongings was a Balkan/South East European country (still more Serbs lived
under Habsburg rule than in the kingdom of Serbia) – the debate soon changed
from reporting about a foreign war to the expression of possible negative effects
for the own future stability. The First Balkan War shaped friend/foe perceptions
on certain ethnic groups in the Habsburg monarchy such as the Muslims and
Serbs/South Slavs but also shed an interesting light on the political relationship
between the two main parts of the Habsburg empire: Austria and Hungary. The
war created an image of Germans and Hungarians as the loyal members of the
monarchy. While (Bosnian) Muslims were more strongly propagated as loyal
victims and the Ottoman Empire as a future ally, it destabilized the positive
and loyal image of the Croat population and worsened the perceptions on the
Habsburg Serbs and the whole Habsburg South Slav question. The author’s
findings were published in a volume edited by William Mulligan and Dominik
Geppert this year (see publication list below).
Now, the author raises similar questions but also deals with the discussion in
the media during the Second Balkan War. Although the Ottoman Empire did not
take part, still the young Balkan nation-states were multiethnic and inhabited
by a Muslim/Turkish population, and had a strong interest in enlarging their
territories upon the costs of their neighbors. Therefore it must have had a
similar impact on public opinion regarding Habsburg Slav, Serb, and Muslim
inhabitants and expected outcomes on their loyalties. It also had an impact
on perceptions about the own South Slav question. As Romania emerged as a
warring country in the Second Balkan War, it would be of interest how public
opinion was shaped towards the Habsburg Romanian population.
The analysis focuses mainly on two major liberal newspapers in the two capitals
(Neue Freie Presse in Vienna and Pester Lloyd in Budapest) as well as some
provincial newspapers, where the seat was characterized by a (strong) German
(speaking) minority (e.g. Prager Tageblatt, Marburger Zeitung, Bukowinaer
Post), as well as a counter-example of purely “German” cities (e.g., Innsbruck
newspaper). In addition, the written word caricatures and rhymes in the satirical
magazines seemed to be especially influential on public opinion and the ruling
elites (e.g., Kikeriki).
Carl Betke (University of Tubingen). “From peace keeping to combat mission:
The Skutari Detachment in Berlin’s symbol politics, 1913-14.”
During the Balkan wars the city of Shkodari in Northern Albania became
encircled by Montenegrin troops in October 1912. During the ensuing
battles, there were many casualties, especially among the Albanian civilian
population. The Montenegrins, supported by Serbia and backed by Russia,
finally defeated the Ottoman defenders, the city was put within the borders
of a future Albania at the London Peace Conference (22/3/1913). To enforce
this decision, and to end the siege “within 24 hours,” the European powers
agreed on a “naval demonstration” of an international fleet, composed of ships
from Great Britain, France, Italy, Austria-Hungary – and the German cruiser
Breslau. The ultimatum was followed by a blockade, causing Montenegro to
finally hand the city over to an international administration on May 14 of that
year. Soldiers including a German platoon of 100 men were assigned to the
city. During the Balkan wars, Germany had mostly followed the course of its
Austro-Hungarian allies, although it showed more restraint in confronting the
other powers. The commander of the Breslau (von Klitzing) became temporary
head of the civil administration, until the Breslaus soldiers were replaced by a
battalion of “marine infantry” (115 men) were sent from Wilhelmshaven under
Major Paul Schneider in July. The administration put some effort in building
up infrastructure, but the goal of transforming Albania into a principality ruled
by a German duke failed. Wilhelm II, who would have preferred a Muslim
ruler, considered an end of the operation as early as 1913, but rivalries between
German and Austro-Hungarian forces and the other contingents made the
situation in Shkodari even more sensitive and difficult.
At the outbreak of WWI in 1914, the German detachment joined the AustroHungarian troops in retreat to Mostar (August 7). Here and a few days later in
Sarajevo (August 10) the soldiers received a “hearty welcome” with festivities,
gifts, and ovations “especially by the Muslims” (Schneider). Official receipts
and public manifestations turned the mission into a propagandist one. After
a symbolic ceremony on the spot of the assassination of Franz Ferdinand the
detachment was sent to Visegrad in Eastern Bosnia where it took part in fights
against Serbian forces (August 20). It suffered a significant number of losses and
was ordered back to Germany the very next day. However, the German speaking
press exposed the symbolic meaning of these fights. When the detachment
passed Vienna on their way back, it was celebrated enthusiastically, Schneider
was received and honored by the Emperor (September 3) himself. On September
6, the unit reached Berlin and was dissolved. It did not leave a lasting trace in
public memory, maybe due to the battle of Tannenberg (August 26-30) during
this time. The presentation is based on archive material from the German
Foreign Office and the German Military Archives, as well as memorabilia and
newspapers in German and Bosnian language.
Isa Blumi (Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA). “Harnessing the World’s
Economic Transformation: The Rise of Finance Capitalism and Emerging Role
of Balkan Muslims in the larger Islamic World, 1900-19.”
Until the mid-19th century, the Eastern Mediterranean, Red Sea, and Arab Gulf
regions constituted important channels of exchange that linked the Balkans
with the larger Ottoman world. The paper charts the development of cultural,
political, and economic relations that are directly impacted by the rise of a
new global order of finance, centered in the North Atlantic region, and the
subsequent collapse of Muslim polities in the Balkans during the 1900-1930s
period. As new regimes of wealth extraction shifted geographically to the
centers of financial capitalism emerging in Western Europe/North America, the
once formidable political enterprises in this complex that included the Balkans
and was filtered through administrations on behalf of the Ottoman state became
increasingly subordinated to the whims of Euro-American finance capital.
Through a close analysis of Ottoman, Italian, and British documentation, this
paper will offer a critical assessment of the impact transfers of political power
in other parts of this network, which had long-term consequences for Balkan
Muslim polities. The increased measures to suppress indigenous channels of
trade linking the Balkans to the Arabic speaking world –primarily through the
suppression of the Muhammad Ali regime (and those regimes established by his
sons) – offers an ideal medium to explore the changing relations between the
Balkans, which had long thrived within an Ottoman order that had been linked
culturally, politically, and economically with the larger Islamic world. The
transformation of the relations among Balkan natives, by way of the Egyptian/
Syrian/Palestinian regime that is linked to Muhammad Ali and his “dynasty”
over the entire 19th century, offers crucial new perspectives to the forces that
led to the disastrous WWI and the subjugation of the Islamic world to EuroAmerican imperialism. Considering these transformations through the prism of a
Balkan-origin regimes soon to be entrenched in the Arabic-speaking world after
1918, this paper will also suggest we can reconsider the nature of the impact
of “globalization” processes that reflected a real shift of power—financial
and military—from these regions to the Euro-American world. As such, the
proposed paper, relying on years of research on Balkan-Arabic World relations,
aspires to open new speculative channels of debate to perhaps help us appreciate
how the world may be changing today, a reorientation as epochal as the one
ultimately leading to WWI and the occupation of much of the Islamic world – in
Southeast Europe, the larger Mediterranean, and the rest of the World – by the
Euro-American empire.
Igor Despot (Independent Historian, Zagreb). “The Balkan wars - liberation or
occupation?”
The Balkan states in 1912 created a system of alliances ultimately aimed
at the expulsion of the Ottoman Empire from the Balkan territory and from
Europe. In the preparation for war, the need for the liberation of Christian
brothers – who, in their opinion, suffered under inhuman and non-European
rule – was emphasized. The Balkan states engaged in strong propaganda in
order to get a larger percentage of the population ready for the wars and, at
the same time, to convince Europe that the status quo, supported by the great
powers, was unsustainable. Through those actions, they also tried to prepare the
Christian population of the Ottoman Empire to support other Balkan countries
in conquering wars. Obviously, the results were good: they received, as the
Balkan countries praised, the best response to the mobilization call in the history
of warfare and most of the Macedonian Christian population were involved in
the volunteer units of the Balkan states. The Entente powers, led by Russia,
achieved non-interference of superpowers in the initial conquests of the Balkan
countries.
Ultimately, this led to the massacres of Muslims, setting fire to as much as 80
percent of their villages and triggering a massive flight of the Muslim population
to Asia. The Serbian, Bulgarian and Greek sides had a great deal of problems
with the irregular troops (komitadjis, chetniks) who would just ignore the
orders to respect the rule of wartime laws. The response to the pressure from
Europe was often the verbal assurances that the irregulars had been disbanded
or put under control. The liberated Christian population also showed initial
excitement with the “liberators”, but after the war campaign administration in
the liberated parts of the Balkans was often such that the population quickly
cooled off because of false liberators. With the outbreak of the Second Balkan
War the conflict between the Cross and the Crescent was over, but the magnitude
of crimes was not scaled down. The victor of the propaganda campaign was
Venizelos. He set up a commission for investigating the Bulgarian crimes
and had its report translated in several languages making Europe believe that
the Bulgarians had outdone everybody else in abuses and crimes, while the
Greeks were seen as the defenders of the civilization. The course of the wars,
war crimes, and fear of the conquerors deeply changed the ethnic landscape of
the Balkans. The masses of population followed the armies and took refuge in
their ethnic mother states. The exchanges of population took place on a vast
scale. Of course, some chose to stay at their original homes and ended up being
assimilated. That resulted in a complete change of Macedonia’s ethnic picture,
which is most evident in the Aegean Macedonia where, according to statistics of
the League of Nations, at the end of the 1920s, 88 percent were Greeks.
Panel VI
Umut Uzer (Istanbul technical University). “Ömer Seyfettin, the Balkan Wars,
WWI and his criticisms of Ottomanism and minority nationalisms.”
Ömer Seyfettin (1884-1920) was one of the important propagators of Turkish
nationalism and in this regard he closely collaborated with Ziya Gökalp in the
articulations and defense of Turkish nationalism. In the journal Young Pens
published in Ottoman Salonica, he and Gökalp laid the foundations of Turkish
nationalist thought as well as national policies towards the Turkish language.
In his plays as well as his articles and books, Ömer Seyfettin had been critical
of the Ottomanist ideology and was aware of Albanian, Bulgarian and Greek
nationalisms, denoting the irrelevance of Ottomanism as a territorial nationalism
and the dominance of ethnic nationalisms. As a consequence, Seyfettin argued
for Turkish nationalism as the only viable option for the Turkish speaking people
of Balkans and Anatolia.
In order to analyze Ömer Seyfettin’s thought, primary sources will be utilized
including his diary of the Balkan Wars as well as his plays, books and articles.
His ideas are noteworthy for their clarity as far as the formula for the future
of the Turkish people is concerned. Undoubtedly, his death at an early age
prevented him from having more influence on Turkish politics.
Mehmet Arisan (Istanbul University). “Nationalism as a New Means
of Imperial Control: The Origins of Modern Genocides and Ex-Western
Nationalism in the Case of Balkans (1890-1913).”
This paper focuses on the relationship between violence and the process of
nation-state building in the case of Balkans in the late nineteenth and early
twentieth century. The paper tries to emphasize two basic points about nationstate building, particularly in the ex-Western world. The first one is that the
endeavors to create nations in the ex-Western world were mostly carried out by
formerly formed powerful nation-states as a new means of imperial extension,
colonization, codification, hegemonization, management and control. In this
sense the construction of nation-states in the ex-Western world were mostly
quite far away from spontaneous evolution of social and economic dynamics in
a given region. Therefore it cannot be compared to the spontaneous development
of modern nation-states in Europe between 15th and 19th centuries depending
upon a relatively egalitarian form of conflict and competition between different
status groups, classes and religious groups which finally led to European nationstates. So, the second point to be emphasized is the “historical baselessness”
of national upheavals in the ex-western world and particularly in Balkans. As
will be presented in detail, the rise of nationalist sentiment in the Balkan region
can neither be considered as a popular movement nor a revolution. Rather
nationalism appeared to be the product of Western-oriented elite, which to a
certain degree intermingled with the insurgency organizations, also referred
to as komitadji movements. The paper will also emphasize the point that these
insurgency movements had little or no popular basis. They did not rely on any
specific group or class and mostly they tended to distance themselves from the
traditional and primordial bases of belonging and self-identification.
In this sense what appeared to be the most functional tool for constructing an
ethnic-based pattern of self-identification was “violence,” which was carried
out by those insurgency movements. In the lack of a powerful connection with
a historical base of nationalism, nationalist discourse generally appears with
a strong emphasis on otherness. Discourses such as “enemy”, “being under
oppression” and “being victimized by a dark and long-lasting power” are
utilized in order to drag masses into rage and a baseless struggle of emancipation
in which the masses are not clear about ‘from what’ they will be emancipated.
In such cases the level of rage, hatred and violence rise and such outcomes as
ethnic cleansing, genocide, forced deportations can be seen. It was exactly the
basis, which the Balkan nationalisms built upon in the early 20th century that
resulted in the annihilation and ethnic cleansing of Ottoman Muslims in the
region.
The paper will also deal with how this process of violent nationalization
influenced Ottoman sense of self-identification. Instead of the widely believed
thesis that Balkan nationalisms triggered the emergence of Turkish nationalism,
the paper contends that the rising nationalism in the Balkans caused further
turmoil and confusion for developing a unifying pattern of self-identification in
the Ottoman Empire that would last until the foundation of the Turkish Republic
in 1923.
Ahmet Seyhun (University of Winnipeg). “The Balkan Question in the writings
of Namik Kemal and Ali Suavi.”
Both Namık Kemal (1840-1888) and Ali Suavi (1839-1878) showed interest on
the issues of the Balkan politics. Namık Kemal published many articles in his
journals Ibret and Hürriyet on the situation in Serbia and Montenegro. Ali Suavi
wrote even more extensively on the Balkan issues. In Paris in 1876 he published
a book on the Revolt of Herzegovina which occurred a year earlier entitled “A
Propos de l’Herzegovine”. Suavi also published also a pamphlet in London
on the Bulgarian Revolt of 1876 entitled The Truth About Bulgarian Affairs
where he tried to encounter the anti-Turkish and anti-Muslim propaganda of the
British politician William Gladstone (1809-1898) and, in particular, inform the
European and British public about the misinformation given by Gladstone in
his Bulgarian Horrors. In his pamphlet Suavi depicted the atrocities committed
by the Bulgarian rebels against the Turkish and Muslims which was largely
ignored by the European public. Suavi’s work constitutes a perfect example
of the “Other Side of the Story”. The paper highlights the views of these
Young Ottoman thinkers in a historical perspective by using extensively their
writings. Both Namık Kemal and Ali Suavi are Ottoman patriots and Islamic
nationalists. Their main objective was the rejuvenation of the Ottoman state and
its survival in an age of aggressive European imperialism. Both authors used
Ottomanism but also Islamism as the ‘cement’ to keep together different ethnic
nationalities living under Ottoman rule. Their understanding of Islamism was
closely interweaved with the Ottomanist ideology and non-Muslim ethnicities
were also considered as a part of the Ottoman nation. The authors argued that
it was only under Ottoman rule non-Muslim Balkan nations could live happily
and be prosperous. Their secession from the Ottoman Empire would jeopardize
even their national existence by exposing them to the designs of the European
imperialist powers.
Discussion and Conclusion