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Muslim Identity in the Balkans before the Establishment of Nation States

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Florian Bieber
Florian Bieber*
Affiliation:
International Relations and European Studies Program, Central European University, Hungary
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Extract

In analyzing national and ethnic identities in the Balkans, one notices a “delay” in the development of the Muslim national identity. The Bosniaks and Albanians, for example, developed a national consciousness in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. In contrast to the Southeastern European Christians, the Muslim inhabitants followed the official religion of the dominant political class of the Ottoman Empire—Islam—a faith that (theoretically, at least) privileged religious belief over ethnicity or nationalism. These two concepts, alien to Ottoman intellectual tradition, became fully understood by the Ottoman elite only in the early twentieth century. Although the Muslims under Ottoman rule often perceived themselves as different from their co-religionist rulers in Istanbul, as shall be demonstrated in this paper, they nevertheless shared the religion of the rulers of the Empire and practised a religion that suppressed the development of national identity far more explicitly than did Christianity. Thus, it was the decline of the Ottoman Empire in the nineteenth century, and the consequent recognition that this state was ceasing to protect the interests and identity of the Muslim population in Southeastern Europe, which led to the development of ethnic and national identity among the Muslims.

Type
The Historical Background
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 28 , Issue 1 , March 2000 , pp. 13 - 28
Copyright
Copyright © 2000 Association for the Study of Nationalities 

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References

Notes

1. “Bosniaks” here refers to the Slavic Muslim population of Bosnia and Sanjak.Google Scholar

2. In 1875 an estimated two-thirds of the 600,000 northern Albanians (Gegs) were Muslim, while three-quarters of the 800,000 southern Albanian Tosks followed Islam. Georges Castellan, Histoire des Balkans (Paris: Fayard, 1995), p. 358.Google Scholar

3. On this subject see Alexandre Popovic, “Représentation du Passé et Transmission de l'Identité Chez les Musulmans des Balkans,” in Culture Musulmanes Balkaniques (Istanbul: Les Editions Isis, 1994), pp. 275–281; Castellan, Histoire des Balkans, pp. 219–212. Nationalist historiography has frequently misused the Ottoman period to justify persecution of Muslim inhabitants of the new nation states. Most recently this occurred in Serbia with several leading Orientalists helping to justify the war against the Muslims in Bosnia and Kosovo; see H. T. Norris, Islam in the Balkans: Religion and Society between Europe and the Arab World (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1993), pp. 295–298.Google Scholar

4. One can generally differentiate between the indigenous population, which converted to Islam under the Ottoman rule, and the Muslims who settled in the region during and after the conquest. The first group encompasses the Pomaks and Muslim Slavs in Macedonia and Albania, among several other, smaller groups. The two most important Muslim populations that settled in all Balkan countries were the Turks and the Muslim Roma. The Turkish population has been greatly reduced in number since the Balkan states achieved independence in the nineteenth century, many Turks being forced either to emigrate to the Turkish heartland or to assimilate. Today only Bulgaria, Greece, and Macedonia have sizeable Turkish minorities. The Roma continue to be present in all Balkan countries in large numbers and remain marginalized and discriminated against, irrespective of their religion.Google Scholar

5. Along the Black Sea coast in the area south of the Danube delta.Google Scholar

6. Smail Balić, “Der Islam und seine geschichtliche Bedeutung für Südosteuropa (mit besonderer Berücksichtigung Bosniens,” in Hans-Dieter Döpman, ed., Religion und Gesellschaft in Südosteuropa (Munich: Südosteuropa-Gesellschaft, 1997), pp. 71–72.Google Scholar

7. Sugar, Southeastern Europe , pp. 31–44, 271–273. The non-Muslims were organized in self-governing units, the millets, administered by the respective religious hierarchy. See Hugh Seton-Watson, Nation and States. An Enquiry into the Origin of Nations and the Politics of Nationalism (London: Methuen, 1977), pp. 143–146; and Georges Corm, L'Europe et l'orient. De la balkanisation à la libanisation: histoire d'une modernité inaccomplie (Paris: La Decouverte, 1991), pp. 28–36, 44–59.Google Scholar

8. Sugar, Souteastern Europe , pp. 55–56.Google Scholar

9. The latter were essential for the development of national movements in the Balkans in the nineteenth century. Sugar, Souteastern Europe , p. 218. See also Gilles Veinstein, “Les provinces balkaniques (1606–1774),” in Robert Mantran, ed., Historie de L'Empire Ottoman (Paris: Fayard, 1994), p. 321.Google Scholar

10. After the abolition of the child levy (devshirme), the Janissary corps of the Ottoman Empire became a hereditary occupation, greatly expanding in number and becoming increasingly a burden of the Sublime Porte rather than playing its original role of an important pillar of the Ottoman military system. The force was finally abolished in 1826.Google Scholar

11. Sugar, Souteastern Europe , pp. 227–230.Google Scholar

12. Repairs and expansions of churches and synagogues were generally banned, however, and could be carried out only with a special permit. Balić, “Der Islam und seine geschichtliche Bedeutung für Südosteuropa,” pp. 77–78.Google Scholar

13. George G. Arnakis quotes the Greek historian of the country's revolution: “Blessed is the nation that professes one and the same faith.” George G. Arnakis, “The Role of Religion in the Development of Balkan Nationalism,” in Charles and Barbara Jelavich, eds, The Balkans in Transition (Hamden, CT: Archon Books, 1974), p. 115.Google Scholar

14. Josef Bata, “Das Verhältnis von Christentum und Islam bei den Albanern in Geschichte und Gegenwart,” in Hans-Dieter Döpman, ed., Religion und Gesellschaft in Südosteuropa (Munich: Südosteuropa-Gesellschaft, 1997), pp. 159–160.Google Scholar

15. Peter Bartl, Albanien (Regensburg and Munich: Verlag Friedrich Pustet & Südosteuropa Gesellschaft, 1995), pp. 51–52. As the center of the Catholic Church was beyond the reach of the Ottoman Empire and mostly hostile to the Empire, the Catholic Church was mostly viewed with suspicion. The Catholic Church was occasionally placed in the Armenian millet for administrative purposes and received some privileges through the capitulations signed by the declining Ottoman Empire with France; see Veinstein, “Les provinces balkaniques (1606–1774),” pp. 318–319.Google Scholar

16. Both the Orthodox and the Catholic Church suffered from a lack of priests. Most of the few priests were illiterate and often too old to perform the mass. Bartl, Albanien, p. 53; Wilma Löhner, “Religiöse Kultur in Albanien,” in Hans-Dieter Döpman, ed., Religion und Gesellschaft in Südosteuropa (Munich: Südosteuropa-Gesellschaft, 1997), p. 168.Google Scholar

17. Ramadan Marmullaku, Albania and the Albanians (London: C. Hurst & Co., 1975), p. 16.Google Scholar

18. Barbara Jelavich, History of the Balkans. Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), pp. 80–81.Google Scholar

19. Bata, “Das Verhältnis von Christentum und Islam bei den Albanern in Geschichte und Gegenwart,” pp. 159–160.Google Scholar

20. Löhner, “Religiöse Kultur in Albanien,” p. 169; Bartl, Albanien, pp. 54–55.Google Scholar

21. Arnakis, “The Role of Religion in the Development of Balkan Nationalism,” p. 141.Google Scholar

22. Stanford J. Shaw, History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey, Vol. I, Empire of the Gazis. The Rise and Decline of the Ottoman Empire, 1280–1808 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976), pp. 154–155; Arnakis, “The Role of Religion in the Development of Balkan Nationalism,” pp. 124–126.Google Scholar

23. It is important to note that, unlike in Western European feudal society, even people of a modest background could rise high in the state apparatus. The only precondition for such mobility was Islamic faith.Google Scholar

24. Marmullaku, Albania and the Albanians , p. 16.Google Scholar

25. Löhner, “Religiöse Kultur in Albanien,” p. 168; Bata, “Das Verhältnis von Christentum und Islam bei den Albanern in Geschichte und Gegenwart,” p. 160.Google Scholar

26. Norris, Islam in the Balkans , p. 48.Google Scholar

27. Miranda Vickers, The Albanians. A Modern History (London and New York: I. B. Tauris, 1995), pp. 16–17.Google Scholar

28. Norris points out that the comparison of Albanians to eagles can be seen as a pun involving the similarity of the Albanian words for “Albania” ( Shqipëria ) and “eagle” (shqipe). It should also be borne in mind that the flag of Skenderbeg in the fifteenth century already carried a double-headed eagle as the symbol of Albanians. Norris, Islam in the Balkans, pp. 62–63.Google Scholar

29. Bartl, Albanien, pp. 90–91. Writing in Albanian with the Latin alphabet began substantially earlier, with the first book published in 1555. These books were, however, mostly published in Italy. Marmullaku, Albania and the Albanians, p. 17.Google Scholar

30. Bartl, Albanien, pp. 77–82.Google Scholar

31. Norris, Islam in the Balkans , pp. 240–241.Google Scholar

32. Marmullaku, Albania and the Albanians , p. 19. See also Norris, Islam in the Balkans, p. 237.Google Scholar

33. See Vickers, The Albanians , p. 15.Google Scholar

34. The best writings on the Bosnian Church can be found in John V. A. Fine, The Bosnian Church. A New Interpretation: A Study of the Bosnian Church and Its Place in State and Society from the Thirteenth to the Fifteenth Centuries (Boulder and New York: Columbia University & East European Monographs, 1975).Google Scholar

35. Ludwig Steinhoff, “Von der Konfession zur Naton: Die Muslime in Bosnien-Herzegowina,” in Hans-Dieter Döpman, ed., Religion und Gesellschaft in Südosteuropa (Munich: Südosteuropa-Gesellschaft, 1997), pp. 255–256. Both Croatian and Serbian nationalist historiography have claimed the Muslims to be converted Croats or Serbs. On this matter see Francine Friedman, The Bosnian Muslims. Denial of a Nation (Boulder: Westview, 1996), pp. 20–21. A prominent example is the Croatian President and historian Franjo Tudjman: “An objective examination of the numerical composition of the population of Bosnia and Hercegovina cannot ignore that the majority of the Moslems is in its ethnic character and speech incontrovertibly of Croatian origin.” Franjo Tudjman, Nationalism in Contemporary Europe (Boulder and New York: Columbia University & East European Monographs, 1981), pp. 113–114.Google Scholar

36. Fine, The Bosnian Church , p. 387.Google Scholar

37. Balić, “Der Islam und seine geschichtliche Bedeutung,” p. 74.Google Scholar

38. Noel Malcolm, Bosnia. A Short History (London: New York University Press, 1994), pp. 83–84.Google Scholar

39. Ibid., pp. 86–87.Google Scholar

40. See Mustafa Imamović, Historija Bošnijaka (Sarajevo: Preporod, 1997), pp. 290–304.Google Scholar

41. John V. A. Fine, “The Historical Roots of Bosnia's Unique Ethnic Identity,” paper presented at the conference “The Bosnia Paradigm” (Sarajevo, 18–21 November 1998).Google Scholar

42. Obradović played a pivotal role in promoting enlightenment in Serbia. He conceived the South Slavs as one nation and promoted the Serbian language. He sought to reduce religious differences in order to promote the unity of the South Slavs. Cited in Arnakis, “The Role of Religion in the Development of Balkan Nationalism,” pp. 142–143.Google Scholar

43. See, for example, the extensive description of the cultural life in Ottoman Bosnia in Smail Balić, Das Unbekannte Bosnien. Europas Brücke zur islamischen Welt (Cologne, Weimar, and Vienna: Böhlau Verlag, 1992). For discussion on the Ottoman heritage see Edin Hajdarpašić, “Glorious Epochs, Ghastly Ages, and the Meanings of History: Views on Ottoman Bosnia,” unpublished essay (1999).Google Scholar

44. Ivo Andrić, The Development of Spiritual Life in Bosnia under the Influence of Turkish Rule (Durham, NC and London: Duke University Press, 1990), p. 67.Google Scholar

45. Ibid., p. 69.Google Scholar

46. The term “voluntary” is not to claim that the population decided to convert purely for their own advantage. The situation was frequently such that the population had only little reason to remain Christian, in the light of economic, social, and spiritual hardship. See Maria Todorova, “The Ottoman Legacy in the Balkans,” in L. Carl Brown, ed., Imperial Legacy. The Ottoman Imprint on the Balkans and the Middle East (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996), pp. 49–50.Google Scholar

47. Hans-Joachim Härtel, “Die muslimische Minorität in Bulgarien,” in Michael Weithmann, ed., Der ruhelose Balkan (Munich: DTV, 1993), p. 209.Google Scholar

48. Sugar, Southeastern Europe , p. 44.Google Scholar

49. Ibid., pp. 50–51.Google Scholar

50. On the role of the Balkan Christian populations in the wars between European powers and the Ottoman Empire, see Veinstein, “Les provinces balkaniques (1606–1774),” pp. 315–321.Google Scholar

51. Andrić, The Development of Spiritual Life in Bosnia , p. 19.Google Scholar

52. Majer, “Gesellschaftliche und religöse Auswirkungen der Osmanenzeit in Südosteuropa,” p. 119.Google Scholar

53. Balić, Das Unbekannte Bosnien. Europas Brücke zur islamischen Welt , p. 101.Google Scholar

54. Majer, “Gesellschaftliche und religöse Auswirkungen der Osmanenzeit in Südosteuropa,” p. 128.Google Scholar

55. Ibid., p. 129.Google Scholar

56. Sugar, Southeastern Europe , p. 55.Google Scholar

57. Arnakis, “The Role of Religion in the Development of Balkan Nationalism,” p. 124.Google Scholar

58. Balić, “Der Islam und seine geschichtliche Bedeutung für Südosteuropa,” p. 73.Google Scholar

59. Ibid.Google Scholar

60. Arnakis, “The Role of Religion in the Development of Balkan Nationalism,” p. 121. Arnakis points to the lack of empirical evidence of a link between conversion and devshirme. He notes, however, that large-scale conversions took place in rural areas, since the urban commercial centers, where few conversions took place, were mostly exempted from the child levy. Large rural areas were also not affected and an explanation of the difference between urban and rural conversion would necessitate taking into account a multitude of factors, well beyond the devshirme (i.e. ethnic composition, penetration of Christian churches, role of folk churches).Google Scholar

61. Andrić, The Development of Spiritual Life in Bosnia , pp. 20–21.Google Scholar

62. Amra Mahmutagić, “Some Considerations on the Process of the Acceptence of Islam in Bosnia and Herzegovina,” paper presented at the conference “The Bosnia Paradigm” (Sarajevo, 18–21 November 1998).Google Scholar

63. Balić, “Der Islam und seine geschichtliche Bedeutung für Südosteuropa,” p. 73.Google Scholar

64. Ibid. George G. Arnakis on the other hand concludes that these cases of cross-religious cooperation of children divided through the devshirme are rare. The Sokolovići are for him the exception rather than the rule. Arnakis, “The Role of Religion in the Development of Balkan Nationalism,” p. 123.Google Scholar

65. Ibid., p. 116.Google Scholar

66. Todorova, “The Ottoman Legacy in the Balkans,” p. 46.Google Scholar