The Social Origins of Balkan Politics: Nationalism, Underdevelopment, and the Nation-State in Greece, Serbia, and Bulgaria, 1880-1920

What is the relationship between nationalism and modernization in Balkan political culture? Any complete answer must take into account the broader debate over whether the Balkan states' pursuit of irredentism in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was detrimental to their modernization efforts. While in this essay I make the case for a common pattern of historical development in Greece, Serbia, and Bulgaria, I caution against interpretations that call for a Balkan exceptionalism. The factors present in the Balkan nation-states in the nineteenth and early twentieth century were also present in other European states. My analysis attempts to situate the Balkan experience in the broader European context while simultaneously arguing in favor of regional specificity. These two features are not mutually exclusive but complementary. The Balkan nation-states have strived for a long time to imitate Western European currents and social patterns, frequently with considerable success, but this effort should not be viewed as having eroded their peculiarities.

Nationalism versus Modernization: A False Dilemma?

While a long line of critics considers Balkan irredentism a force that diverted valuable resources from modernization, opposing voices point to the considerable achievements of the Balkan states in nation building and state building. ¹ The terms of the debate between these groups, however, are not adequately clarified, and this leads to a conceptual ambiguity that perpetuates the inconclusiveness of the debate. In its broadest sense, nationalism may come in both civic and ethnic-oriented varieties, a feature making it a concept considerably broader than irredentism, that is, the vision of national integration or unification common to the Balkan national societies of the second half of the nineteenth century. Conducting the discussion about the Balkan states in terms of nationalism instead of irredentism entails a high level of abstraction that obscures a simple point, namely, that not all nationalists were in favor of irredentist claims. Take the case of Athanasios Souliotes and Ioannes Dragoumis, Greek agents combating Bulgarians in Ottoman Macedonia and Thrace in the early 1900s. The two men developed an ideological viewpoint that called for the coexistence and cooperation of Greeks and Turks. This agenda directly clashed with the state-sponsored nationalism of the Greek government. In fact, Dragoumis was murdered by Venizelists for his opposition to the so-called Greek Great Idea. ²

Additionally, in the debate about the Balkan road to modernity, the arrow of causality is often seen as flying along the path of irredentism's contribution to modernization. The relationship ought to be reversed. The substantive issue should not be whether irredentism was a positive or negative element in the modernization of the Balkan national societies, for this narrow political ideology is in fact an expression of modernity itself. Irredentism is conceptually impossible without nation-states that assume the role of national homelands for a particular people. It is therefore necessary to narrow the scope of the inquiry. Because of the complexity of nationalism, I have restricted my discussion to the political articulation of irredentism in the political culture of the Balkan nation-states from 1880 to 1920. ³ This restriction does not discard the importance of intellectuals in providing the intellectual edifice for Balkan irredentism, but ideas alone are never sufficient, and the decisive factor in their success or failure is the existence of political constituencies that will endorse or oppose particular ideological viewpoints.

My analysis focuses on the key political constituencies of the Balkan nation-states and the social factors responsible for their emergence. My goal is to show that underdevelopment in conjunction with the class structure of the Balkan nation-states and their statism promoted the consolidation of political constituencies that favored irredentism. ⁴ That is, the creation of an independent free-holding peasantry in Greece, Serbia, and Bulgaria coupled with the peasantry's ability to influence electoral results led the Balkan elites...