The emergence of the Balkan national states in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries has long been viewed through an Orientalist lens, and their birth and evolution traditionally seen by scholars as the effect of the Ottoman Empire's decline. As a result, the role played by the great European revolutions, wars and intellectual developments is often neglected. Rejecting these traditional Orientalist narratives, this work examines Balkan nationalist movements within their broader European historical contexts. Drawing on a range of unused archival research and ranging from the Napoleonic era to the Bolshevik Revolution, contributors variously consider the complex roles played by Europe's internal geo-political ruptures in forming the Balkan states, and demonstrate how the Balkan intelligentsia drew inspiration from, and interacted with, contemporary European thought. Shedding light onto the strong intellectual, political and military interconnections between the regions, this is essential reading for all those studying Balkan and European history, as well as anyone interested in the question of national identity. Published in Association with the British Institute at Ankara

This volume is critical to the two dominant historiographical paradigms on the topic of Balkan revolutions. This new treatment does not adopt a description of the national movements resulting from the dissolution of the territories of the “Sick man of Europe” from the Great European Powers (Eastern Question Paradigm). Nor is it based on the autonomous process of repetitive awakenings of sleeping Nations, drugged from the Oriental influence of their ruler (Balkan Nationalism Paradigm). Instead, the author attempts a classification as well as a new description of the Balkan national movements as a continuous feedback with the internal sociopolitical schisms in Western Europe, as expressed in the great revolutionary crises from the end of the eighteenth to the beginning of the twentieth century.

In his book on constitutional revolutions in the Ottoman Empire and Iran in the early twentieth century, Nader Sohrabi considers the global diffusion of institutions and ideas, their regional and local reworking and the long-term consequences of adaptations. He delves into historic reasons for greater resilience of democratic institutions in Turkey as compared to Iran. Arguing that revolutions are time-bound phenomena whose forms follow global models in vogue at particular historical junctures, he challenges the ahistoric and purely local understanding of them. Furthermore, he argues that macro-structural preconditions alone cannot explain the occurrence of revolutions, but global waves, contingent events and the intervention of agency work together to bring them about in competition with other possible outcomes. To establish these points, the book draws on a wide array of archival and primary sources that afford a minute look at revolutions' unfolding.

In 1807 the reformist Sultan Selim III was overthrown in a palace coup enacted by the elite special forces of the day-the Janissaries. The Ottomans were bankrupt and had been forced to make peace with Napoleon after Austerlitz, but it was Selim III's efforts to reform an empire that had suffered successive military defeats, and to reform along the lines of modern principles-with an end to the privileged 'feudal' position of many in elite Ottoman civil-military society-which sealed his fate. This book seeks to situate Turkey's reactionary revolutions of 1807 into a wider European context, that of the French Revolution and the outbreaks of revolutionary activity in the German states, Britain and the US. The Ottoman Empire was an interconnected and crucial part of this early-modern world, and therefore, Aysel Yildiz argues, must be analyzed in relation to its European rivals. Focusing on the uprising, and the socio-economic and political conditions which caused it, this book re-orientates Ottoman history towards Western Europe, and re-situates the late-Ottoman Empire as a key battle-ground of political ideas in the modern era.

The Young Turk Revolution of 1908 reverberated across the Middle East and Europe and ushered in a new era for the Ottoman Empire. The initial military uprising in the Balkans triggered a constitutional revolution, in which social mobilization and the political aspirations of the Young Turks played a crucial role. The Young Turk Revolution and the Ottoman Empire provides a newanalysis of this process in the Balkans and the Anatolian provinces, outlining the transition from revolutionary euphoria to increasing tensions at local and central levels. Focusing on the compromises, successes and failures in the immediate aftermath of 1908, and based on new primary material and Ottoman-Turkish sources, this book represents an essential contribution to our understanding of late Ottoman and modern Turkey.

"The Young Turk Revolution of 1908 reverberated across the Middle East and Europe and ushered in a new era for the Ottoman Empire. The initial military uprising in the Balkans triggered a constitutional revolution, in which social mobilization and the political aspirations of the Young Turks played a crucial role. The Young Turk Revolution and the Ottoman Empire provides a newanalysis of this process in the Balkans and the Anatolian provinces, outlining the transition from revolutionary euphoria to increasing tensions at local and central levels. Focusing on the compromises, successes and failures in the immediate aftermath of 1908, and based on new primary material and Ottoman-Turkish sources, this book represents an essential contribution to our understanding of late Ottoman and modern Turkey."--Bloomsbury Publishing.

Examines the origins of political violence in the Balkans since the 19th century, while treating the region as an integral part of modern European history, reminding us that political violence and ethnic cleansing are hardly unique to this region.