The Balkans as Europe, 1821-1914

[T]his collection sheds light on the evolution of identity politics from one based on religion and ethnicity to one based on modern ideas of belonging to a state, a change that resulted in new loyalties that ultimately enveloped the rest of the continent by the 1930s. This book promises to help readers rethink the origins of European consciousness in the 20th century. Essential. * CHOICE * [G]iving agency to Balkan players is laudable and has been altogether successful. * AUSTRIAN HISTORY YEARBOOK * Innovative, well written for a broad audience, and timely, The Balkans as Europe, 1821-1914 offers fresh insight about the region, in ways that demand attention from specialists in other areas. The contributors advance a coherent set of interpretations--all pointing to the modernity and relevance of Balkan models for other parts of Europe and the world. This is cutting-edge work. --Mount Holyoke College -- Jeremy King The Balkans as Europe, 1821-1914 is a timely, superbly documented, and truly persuasive contribution to the symbolic geography of Europe. It challenges and transcends the semantically dubious and politically supercilious characterization of the Balkans as a marginal, underdeveloped backwater, fiercely nationalist and devoid of civil society. The volume is a strong and necessary refutation of frozen (and condescending) conceptualizations which contrast the Habsburg legacies (often idealized) with the inescapable 'Balkan ghosts. -- Vladimir Tismaneanu, University of Maryland Together, the authors of the book present a multifaceted yet coherent story of the region in the long nineteenth century. . . . [T]he book succeeds in placing the history of the region into a broader European context. * Ab Imperio *

TIMOTHY SNYDER is the Richard C. Levin Professor of History at Yale University. He is the author of numerous books on East and Central European history. KATHERINE YOUNGER is a historian and Research Director of the program Ukraine in European Dialogue at the Institute for Human Sciences (Vienna).

Introduction Balkan Initiatives to Make Europe: Two Cases from Mid-Nineteenth-Century Dalmatia The Homeland as Terra Incognita: Geography and Bulgarian National Identity, 1830s-1870s Liberation in Progress: Bulgarian Nationalism and Political Economy in a Balkan Perspective, 1878-1912 Emigrants and Countries of Origin: The Politics of Emigration in Southeastern Europe until the First World War The Quiet Revolution: Consuls and the International System in the Nineteenth Century The Hollow Crown: Civil and Military Relations during Serbia's "Golden Age," 1903-1914 List of Contributors Index