Abstract
The thesis studies national conflict within the Slav-speaking Christian communities of Macedonia during the last decades of Ottoman rule, from mid-19th century to the eve of the Balkan Wars, as a primarily political phenomenon. An Apple of Discord between the rival Balkan nationalisms who laid claim to their region (Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia), the Slav-speaking Macedonian Christian communities were transformed into a battleground of different collective entities, usually mentioned in contemporary sources as “parties” or “factions” (κόμμα or μερίς in Greek, партия in Bulgarian, партиjа or странка in Serbian) − each of them supporting (and supported by) the respective nation state and cultivating a local version of collective identity that was more or less adjusted to the main traits of the latter’s standardized narrative. The peculiarity of one and the same population group being simultaneously coveted by a number of rival and mutually exclusive claimants, allows thus a more clear study ...
The thesis studies national conflict within the Slav-speaking Christian communities of Macedonia during the last decades of Ottoman rule, from mid-19th century to the eve of the Balkan Wars, as a primarily political phenomenon. An Apple of Discord between the rival Balkan nationalisms who laid claim to their region (Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia), the Slav-speaking Macedonian Christian communities were transformed into a battleground of different collective entities, usually mentioned in contemporary sources as “parties” or “factions” (κόμμα or μερίς in Greek, партия in Bulgarian, партиjа or странка in Serbian) − each of them supporting (and supported by) the respective nation state and cultivating a local version of collective identity that was more or less adjusted to the main traits of the latter’s standardized narrative. The peculiarity of one and the same population group being simultaneously coveted by a number of rival and mutually exclusive claimants, allows thus a more clear study of the mechanisms who define the emergence, construction and diffusion of national consciousness than in other, less complicated cases of ethnogenesis. The thesis begins with an examination of the social conditions and cleavages that defined the emergence of nationalism(s) in late Ottoman Macedonia: a mosaic of religions and languages; the development of towns and subsequent cleavages along the urban/rural divide; agrarian relations of production and their interaction with traditional forms of peasant family organization; the impact of seasonal migration on local economies and collective identities; last but not least, the actual dimensions of institutional or social discrimination in a theocratic Islamist state, a discrimination that provided Christian irredentism with a real mass base and substance. The second part of the thesis deals with the emergence and clash of Greek and “Slav-Bulgarian” nationalism in Macedonia, thoroughly studying the latter’s development in each diocese and subsequent conflicts, looking for the social cleavages and alliances who defined the evolution and the outcome of the struggle between the rival local national parties, as well as the role played by factors such as external support or Ottoman state intervention. The emergence of the first wave of “Macedonian separatism” within the Slav-Bulgarian movement is also studied as a political phenomenon, i.e. by-product of social tensions and new cleavages produced by the latter’s own transformation, from a movement of opposition to the established authorities of the Orthodox millet into a replica of its former adversaries.The third and final part of the thesis analyzes the “national party” system per se, during the last phase of Ottoman domination in Macedonia (1878-1912). It begins with the examination of the policy planning of the rival national centres, including the abortive negotiations among them for a mutual delimitation of “spheres of influence”. It proceeds then to an extensive description of Church institutions, School networks and money allocations as the main agents of nation formation; with the constituent parts of the rival national ideologies, their common traits and their points of divergence; with the forms actually taken by national party antagonism at the micro level, as well as with the extend -but also the limits- of the subsequent division of local societies into hostile camps. The final chapter of this part deals with “early Macedonian nationalism” (macedonism) as a reaction to new cleavages created by the deficiencies of the national party system, examining its various (and often contradictory) versions who were either sponsored by interested foreign powers (Belgrade, St Petersburg, Vienna, Athens) or generated as a result of the internal contradictions of the Bulgarian party and movement.The thesis is mostly based on a wide array of archival and other primary sources (diaries, memoirs, local histories etc) in eight languages: Greek, Bulgarian, Macedonian, Serbian, French, English, Italian and Russian.
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