Balkan Identities
Nation and Memory
Published on 23. February 2004
Book
Hardback
374 pages
978-1-85065-659-3 (ISBN)
Description
The 17 essays in this volume, written by historians, anthropologists and literary historians, concentrate on four main themes: the construction of historical memories on different levels, from the individual to the nation; the sites of national memory; the transmission of national memory; and the mobilization of national identities. The aim is to contribute to theoretical refinement of the understanding of memory and, especially, to explore the significance of their particular manifestations in the Balkan region. The contributions demonstrate that the Balkans are a normal object of study like any other area: memories there, though not the non-existent "Balkan memory", are like memories elsewhere but have their local specifics, and identities, though not the missing "Balkan identity", are like identities everywhere. It is their peculiarities in time and space that have inspired this collection.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Dimensions
Height: 225 mm
ISBN-13
978-1-85065-659-3 (9781850656593)
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Schweitzer Classification
Content
Learning memory, remembering identity; national memory as narrative memory - the case of Kosovo; internal colonialism - nation and region in 19th-century Greece; exploring memory through oral history in Turkey; communal memory and Turkish Cypriot national history; times past - references for the construction of local order in Albania; conversions to Islam in Bulgarian historiography, fiction and film; edifices of the past - war memorials and heroes in 20th-century Romania; the monument in the main city square - constructing and erasing memory in contemporary Croatia; nation and ancestor -reflections on Pavlos Melas and national historiography; villains and symbolic pollution in the narratives of the nation - the case of Boris Sarfoff; a criminal - national hero? But who else - construction of historical consciousness; the case of Serbian history textbooks; national memory in Romanian history - textbooks in the 1990s; positivism, Romantic metaphors, institutional metaphysics - Bulgarian textbooks of literary history and the construction of national identity; Greek identity - a long view; encounter with modernity - modern Greek historiography in the last quarter of the 20th century; the use of tradition and national identity in development debates in the Balkans.