Balkans : A Mirror of the New International Order

The eight articles and book chapters included in this volume were written in the course of several decades during which I worked, be it as graduate student, research assistant or professor of history, at the universities of Frankfurt am Main, Gießen, Berlin (Freie Universität) and Bochum. They address questions and issues related to the social, economic and political history of the Balkans under Ottoman rule in general and how they were answered or discussed in the framework of national historiographies in particular. Although some of the arguments propounded in these texts may seem today rather outdated or of little relevance to current discourses, there are others that might be considered as still valid. At any rate, I have been persuaded to publish these texts, not least in order to make them easily accessible to students in the field.
Contents

Preface and Acknowledgements 5
Contents 7
The Macedonian Question: The Socio-Economic Reality and Problems
of Its Historiographic Interpretation 11
Land Tenure Relationships, 1878-1913 13
Urban Development in Macedonia under the Ottomans 26
The Razlovech Uprising of 1876 35
Tradition and Rural Change in Southeastern Europe During Ottoman Rule 45
Agriculture and Settlement at the Time of the Ottoman Conquest 49
The Classical Ottoman Land Regime 54
Rural Change During the Seventeenth Century 63
Export-Oriented Agriculture and the Ottoman Landholding 74
Category Çiftlik 74
Conclusion 89
The Macedonians in the Ottoman Empire, 1878-1912 93
Introduction 93
General Conditions 94
Social and Economic Conditions 94
Political System 99
The Millet System 100
The Secular Concept of Ottomanism 100
The Influence of the Great Powers 101
Macedonia and the Neighbouring Nation-States 102
The Young Turk Opposition 103
The National Movement and its Activists 104
History of the National Movement 104
The Church Question in Macedonia 104
Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization 105
The Ilinden Uprising of 1903 107
The Young Turk Revolution of 1908 109
The Balkan Wars of 1912-3 and the Partition of Macedonia 110
Formation of the National Elite 111
Organisational Structure, Channels of Communication and the National Elite 115
The Ottoman Government and the National Elite 119
State of Research 121
The National Question and the Development of Socialism:
The Case of Ottoman Macedonia 125
Social and Economic Conditions in Ottoman Macedonia 126
The Emergence of the Macedonian Question 131
Socialists and the Macedonian Liberation Movement 133
The Attempted Uprising of 1895 and the Socialists 135
Socialist Polemic about Participation in the Macedonian Movement136
The Macedonian Socialist Group 138
Anarchists in the Macedonian Revolutionary Movement Socialists and the Ilinden Uprising 140
Federalism, Socialism and the IMRO 141
The Young Turk Revolution and the Socialists 144
The Young Turk Programme of 1908 150
The Strike Movement of 1908 and the CUP 153
Conclusion 157
The Ottoman Peasantries, c. 1360 - c. 1860 159
Agriculture and Settlement in the Late Medieval Period 164 Peasantries in an Expanding Empire: The Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries 171
Status and Taxation 171
Settlement, Agriculture, Population 185
Tax-Farmers, Brigands and Sharecroppers: Rural Life in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries 195
From Sipahi to Tax-Farmer 195
Çiftliks and Commercial Agriculture 202
Forms of Peasant Protest 209
Peasants and Petitioners 209
Haiduks and Klephts 210
Peasantries and Agriculture at the End of the Ottoman Ancien Régime: First Half of the Nineteenth Century 216
The Socio-political Environment of Balkan Nationalism: the Case of Ottoman Macedonia, 1856-1912 221
Historiographical Traditions 222
The Orthodox Church and Ottoman Legitimacy 222
The Cultural Isolation of Balkan Christians from Europe 224
The Paradigm of Ottoman Decline 228
Nationalist Challenge and Ottoman Response 230
The Ottoman State and the European State System 232
The Uprisings in Serbia and Greece 232 Ottomanism as State Nationalism 233
The Ottoman Constitution of 1876 233
Ottoman Macedonia and the Macedonian Question 239
Social and Economic Conditions 239
The Emergence of the Macedonian Question 242
Attitudes and Possible Solutions 244 The Bulgarian Cause 244
The Regime of Abdulhamid II 245
The Young Turks and the IMRO 247
Concluding Remarks 247
Balkan Historiography Related to the Ottoman Empire since 1945 255
The Formation of a ‘Muslim' Nation in Bosnia-Hercegovina:
A Historiographic Discussion 275
Introduction: Bosnian Muslims and South Slav nationalism 275
Bosnia under Ottoman rule: history-writing and nation-formation 293
Bosniaks – why did they embrace Islam? 295
Questions of ethnic origin – Muslim Slavs or 'Turks'? 301
Conclusion: historiography and national politics 314
Bibliography 319
Index 389