Poslední úprava: SISTEK (19.02.2013)
Modernizing the Balkans
František Šístek, Ph. D.
e-mail: frantsistek@volny.cz
Course Description
Modernization has been a crucial theme of Balkan history since the 19th century until present. In this course, we will chronologically explore diverse topics from different periods and areas of Southeastern Europe that can be broadly summed up under the label of modernization: technological and institutional modernization, urbanization, industrialization, nation-building and ethnic homogenization, mixed local rections to the process of "Westernization" and "Europeanization", erradication of blood feuds in the name of state centralization, racial nationalism and eugenics of the interwar period, forced migrations and ethnic cleansing, post-WWII socialist experiments, post-communist transition, neotraditionalism, the role of gender and sexuality, the impact of tourism, the post-modern return of religion into social life...
The aim of the course is to present the Balkans as a lively, constantly changing region whose inhabitants have been - sometimes tragically, but often very creatively - struggling to overcome its peripheral status and backwardness in the hope for a better, more secure and prosperous future. The reading materials for each class have been selected with the aim of presenting the students primarily with the results of recent scholarship, written either by young researchers or respected experts in the particular field.
Requirements
Regular attendance and meaningful participation in discussions. In case that you cannot participate in a weekly class, please inform the teacher in advance.
Regular reading of the required texts for each class is obligatory for all participants. For most texts, a principal presenter will be selected in advance. After he/she outlines the main ideas of a particular text in an oral presentation (15-20 minutes), a general discussion will follow.
A final paper (15 pgs), closely linked to the content of the course, due after the course. Students are encouraged to discuss the proposed topics in advance. Topics can also be assigned by the teacher instead.
1 Introduction: Traditional Societies and Modernization in the Balkans
Introduction, methodological questions regarding modernization in the context of our region. Traditional Balkan societies before the age of nationalism and industrial revolution. Modernization within the Ottoman Empire.
Required Reading: None.
Recommended Reading
Roumen Daskalov: Ideas about, and Reactions to Modernization in the Balkans, East European Quarterly, Vol. 31, 1997, available at:
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_7063/is_n2_v31/ai_n28700133/?tag=content;col1
Leften Stavrianos: The Balkans since 1453, New York 2000.
Donald Quataert: The Ottoman Empire 1700-1922, Cambridge 2005.
2 Modernization in the Newly Established Balkan National States
Required reading
Constantin Iordachi: "The California of the Romanians": The Integration of Northern Dobrogea into Romania, 1878-1913, In: Balázs Trencsényi et al. (eds.): Nation Building and Contesting Identities: The Romanian and Hungarian Cases, Budapest - Iasi 2001, 121-152.
Recommended Reading
Charles and Barbara Jelavich: The Establishment of the Balkan National States, 1804-1920, Seattle and London, 1993.
Diana Mishkova: Modernization and Political Elites in the Balkans, 1870-1914
http://www.cas.umn.edu/assets/pdf/WP941.PDF
3 Modernization under the Habsburg Monarchy
Required Reading
Chapter "The Nature of the Kállay Regime," In: Robin Okey: Taming Balkan Nationalism. The Habsburg "Civilizing Mission" in Bosnia, 1878-1914, Oxford 2007, 55-73.
Recommended Reading
Liviu Maior: In the Empire. The Habsburgs and Romanians: From Dynastic Loyalty to National Identity, Cluj 2008.
Zijad Šehić, ed.: Bosna i Hercegovina u okviru austro-ugarske, 1878-1918, Sarajevo 2011.
4 Tribal Society, Patriarchalism and the Modern State
Required Reading
Christopher Boehm: Blood Revenge. The Enactment and Management of Conflict in Montenegro and Other Tribal Societies, Philadelphia 1986, 3-12, 39-63.
Recommended Reading
Zorka Millich: A Stranger´s Supper: An Oral History of Centenarian Women in Montenegro, Farmington Hills 1996.
Elizabeth Roberts: Realm of the Black Mountain: A History of Montenegro, Ithaca and New York 2007.
5 Technological Modernization and Urbanization
Required Reading
Momir Samardžić: Roads to Europe: Serbian Politics and the Railway Issue, 1878-1881, Pisa 2010, 7-44.
Recommended Reading
John R. Lampe, Marvin R. Jackson: Balkan Economic History 1550-1950: From Imperial Borderlands to Developing Nations, Bloomington 1982.
Maria Kaika: Dams as Symbols of Modernization: The Urbanization of Nature Between Geographical Imagination and Materiality
http://manchestersalon.co.uk/Documents/Dams_as_symbols_of_modernization.pdf
6 Debates about Modernity, Tradition and the "National Character"
Required Reading
Katherine Verdery: "The National Character and National Ideology in Interwar Romania," In: Ivo Banac, Katherine Verdery (eds.): National Character and National Ideology in Interwar Eastern Europe, New Haven 1995, 103-134.
Alexander Kiossev: "The Debate about the Problematic Bulgarian: A View on the Pluralism of National Ideologies in the Interwar Period," In: Ivo Banac, Katherine Verdery (eds.): National Character and National Ideology in Interwar Eastern Europe, New Haven 1995, 195-217.
Recommended Reading
John R. Lampe, Mark Mazower (eds.): Ideologies and National Identities: The Case of Twentieth-Century Southeastern Europe, Budapest and New York 2004.
Diana Mishkova (ed.): We, the People: The Politics of National Peculiarity in Southeastern Europe, Budapest and New York 2009.
7 Racial Nationalism and Eugenics in the Balkans
Required Reading
Rory Yeomans: Of "Yugoslav Barbarians" and Croatian Gentlemen Scholars: Nationalist Ideology and Racial Anthropology in Interwar Yugoslavia, In: Marius Turda, Paul J. Weindling (eds.): Blood and Homeland. Eugenics and Racial Nationalism in Central and Southeastern Europe 1900-1945, Budapest and New York 2007, 83-122.
Christian Promitzer: Taking Care of the National Body: Eugenic Visions in Interwar Bulgaria, 1905-1940, In: Marius Turda, Paul J. Weindling (eds.): Blood and Homeland. Eugenics and Racial Nationalism in Central and Southeastern Europe 1900-1945, Budapest and New York 2007, 223-252.
Recommended Reading
Marius Turda: Modernism and Eugenics, London 2010.
Nevenko Bartulin: The Ideal Nordic-Dinaric Racial Type: Racial Anthropology in the Independent State of Croatia
http://hrcak.srce.hr/index.php?show=clanak&id_clanak_jezik=77575
8 National Homogenization and Ethnic Cleansing as a Road to Modernity?
Required Reading
Cathie Carmichael: Ethnic Cleansing in the Balkans: Nationalism and the Destruction of Tradition, London and New York 2002, 1-38.
Recommended Reading
Anastasia Karakasidou: Fields of Wheat, Hills of Blood: Passages to Nationhood in Greek Macedonia 1870-1990, Chicago 1997.
Mary Neuburger: The Orient Within: Muslim Minorities and the Negotiation of Nationhood in Modern Bulgaria, Ithaca 2004.
9 The Socialist Experiment
Required Reading
Chapter "Romanian Communism," In: Lucian Boia: Romania: A Borderland of Europe, London 2001, 111-51.
Recommended Reading
Dejan Jović: Yugoslavia: A State that Withered Away, West Lafayette 2008.
John R. Lampe: Yugoslavia as History, Cambridge 1997
Breda Luthar, Maruša Pušnik: Remembering Utopia: The Culture of Everyday Life in Socialist Yugoslavia, Washington, D.C. 2010.
Ivaylo Znepolski, Alexander Vezenkov, eds.: Istoriya na Narodna Republika Balgaria: rezhimat i obshtestvoto, Sofia 2009.
10 Tourism in the Balkans
Required Reading
Rory Yeomans: "From Comrades to Consumers: Holidays, Leisure, and Ideology in Communist Yugoslavia," In: Hannes Grandits, Karin Taylor (eds.): Yugoslavia´s Sunny Side: A History of Tourism in Socialism (1950s - 1980s), Budapest and New York 2010, 69-105.
Recommended Reading
Michael Herzfeld: A Place in History: Social and Monumental Time in a Cretan Town, Princeton 1991.
11 Post-Communist Transformations: Politcs, Economy and Demography
Required Reading
Anders Stefansson: "Urban Exile: Locals, Newcomers and the Cultural Transformation of Sarajevo," In: Xavier Bougarel, Elisa Helms and Ger Duijzings, eds.: The New Bosnian Mosaic: Identities, Memories and Moral Claims in a Post-War Society, London 2007, 59-77.
Chapter "Religion, Politics and Sexuality," In: Lavinia Stan, Lucian Turcescu: Religion and Politics in Post-Communist Romania, Oxford 2007, 171-197.
Recommended Reading
Robert Bideleux, Ian Jeffries: The Balkans: A Post-Communist History, New York 2007.
Maria Todorova, Zsuzsa Gille, eds.: Post-communist Nostalgia, New York 2010.
12 Neotraditionalism in Post-Communist Societies
Required Reading
Kristen Ghodsee: Muslim Lives in Eastern Europe: Gender, Ethnicity, and the Transformation of Islam in Post-Communist Bulgaria, Princeton 2010, 1-33.
Recommended Reading
Xavier Bougarel, Nathalie Clayer, dir.: Le nouvel islam balkanique. Les musulmans - acteurs du post-communisme, 1990-2000, Paris 2001.
Eric Gordy: The Culture of Power in Serbia: Nationalism and the Destruction of Alternatives, Philadelphia 1999.
Vjekoslav Perica: Balkan Idols. Religion and Nationalism in Yugoslav States, Oxford 2002.
