Balkan Identities: Nation and Memory

by Maria Todorova

Overview

Balkan Identities brings together historians, anthropologists, and literary scholars all working under the shared conviction that the only way to overcome history is to intimately understand it. The contributors of Balkan Identities focus on historical memory, collective national memory, and the political manipulation of national identities. They refine our understanding of memory and identity in general and explore and assess the significance of particular manifestations of Balkan national identities and national memories in the region.
The essays in Balkan Identities grapple with three major problems: the construction of historical memory, sites of national memory, and the mobilization of national identities. While most essays focus on a single country (e.g. Croatia, Romania, Turkey, Cyprus, Albania, Serbia, Bulgaria, Greece, Macedonia), they are in dialogue with each other and share an opposition to rigid isolationist identities.
Illuminating and challenging, Balkan Identities demonstrates the ever-changing nature of a troubled and culturally vibrant region.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780814782798
Publisher:	New York University Press
Publication date:	04/01/2004
Pages:	350
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Maria Todorova is Professor of History at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

Table of Contents

The Contributors
Introduction: Learning Memory, Remembering Identity
Maria Todorova
I. CREATING HISTORICAL MEMORY:
THE INTERPLAY OF INDIVIDUAL, LOCAL
AND NATIONAL IDENTITIES
National Memory as Narrative Memory: The Case of Kosovo
Internal Colonialism: Nation and Region in Nineteenth century Greece
Exploring Memory Through Oral History in Turkey
Communal Memory and Turkish Cypriot National History: Missing Links
Times Past: References for the Construction of Local Order in Present-day Albania
Conversions to Islam as a Trope in Bulgarian Historiography, Fiction and Film
II. THE MASONRY OF NATIONAL MEMORY:
MONUMENTS, HEROES, ANTI-HEROES
Edifices of the Past: War Memorials and Heroes in Twentieth century Romania
Affections of a Greek Hero: Pavlos Melas and Heroic Representations in Greece
Villains and Symbolic Pollution in the Narratives of Nation: the Case of Boris Sarafov
A Criminal-National Hero? But who Else?
III. NATIONAL IDENTITY: PROBLEMS OF
TRANSMISSION AND MOBILISATION
The Use of Tradition and National Identity in the Development Debates in the Balkans
Greek Identity: A Long View
Construction of Historical Consciousness: The Case of Serbian History Textbooks
Memory in Romanian History: Textbooks in the 1990s
Bulgarian Textbooks of Literary History and the Construction of National Identity

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"Although the essays explore different events from various historical periods in individual countries, the authors are animated by a common denominator: opposition to rigid isolationism, preserving space for a creative dialogue, and opposition to political manipulation of national identities."

-Multicultural Review,

"Todorova kept her authors engaged with each other and with the current scholarly literature on memory, history and nationalism. Their efforts to create such a rich and diverse volume must be commended."

-American HIstorical Review

Editorial Reviews

"Although the essays explore different events from various historical periods in individual countries, the authors are animated by a common denominator: opposition to rigid isolationism, preserving space for a creative dialogue, and opposition to political manipulation of national identities."

Multicultural Review

"Todorova kept her authors engaged with each other and with the current scholarly literature on memory, history and nationalism. Their efforts to create such a rich and diverse volume must be commended."

American HIstorical Review

"Todorova kept her authors engaged with each other and with the current scholarly literature on memory, history and nationalism. Their efforts to create such a rich and diverse volume must be commended."

-American HIstorical Review

"Although the essays explore different events from various historical periods in individual countries, the authors are animated by a common denominator: opposition to rigid isolationism, preserving space for a creative dialogue, and opposition to political manipulation of national identities."

-Multicultural Review

From the Publisher