Introduction: the Search for a Narrative of Transition 1
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Notes Introduction: The Search for a Narrative of Transition 1. Keith Brown (2003) offers a helpful corrective study to this history. 2. With respect to Mihal Grameno, Skendi’s outdated work (1967: 210–214) relies on problematic sources that inevitably come to certain conclusions about his motivations over the summer of 1908. One of the more question- able sources is the purported memoirs of Mihal Grameno (1959), published many years after his death by the fiercely revisionist regime of the Albanian dictator Enver Hoxha. 3. Many post- Ottoman states faced considerable difficulties with imposing new ethnonational criteria to their citizenship regime, largely because large pockets of still polyglot and heterogeneous communities violently resisted state efforts to impose a singular ethnonational “identity” on them. Of the more interesting cases of former Ottoman subjects “navigating” national- ity, the Republic of Turkey (Gingeras 2009), Bulgaria (Dragostinova 2009), and Greece (Hirschon 1989) stand out. For a theoretical explanation of this decidedly “modern” practice, see Brubaker (1996). 4. Mignolo (2000) suggests how to effectively realize this reorientation of our focus. 5. Unlike most academics, writers such as Leo Tolstoy treat history as a multi- leveled complex of human emotions, possibilities, and structures. As dem- onstrated by Morson’s insightful reading of Tolstoy’s strategies to deal with time and perspective in “historical” events (1996: 155–162, 271–272), the creative writer has often proven that it is possible to master the complexities of representing the passage of time and thus shine an uncomplimentary light on the narrative methods used by many historians and social scientists. 6. Many prefer to evoke the “decline narrative” to explain periods of violence and subsequent transformations in the Balkans. This method of explaining the rise of nationalism as a natural progression in face of Ottoman decline is especially popular in Europe (Hitzel 2002; Mantran 2003; Ternon 2005), despite considerable revisionist work done in Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States. 7. Ramet (2005: 200–219) offers an excellent critique of the literature emerging out of the 1990s crisis in the Balkans that emphasized this frame of analysis. 8. This tragic juxtaposition of worldviews has already been explored in simi- larly heterodox Ottoman societies such as Lebanon (Makdisi 2000: 1–14, 28–50) and Yemen (Blumi 2010b). 192 Notes 9. Attempts to identify parallel and, some would say, conflicting fields of con- sciousness for nineteenth- century Ottoman “Greeks” or nomadic peoples in Anatolia have addressed some of the questions raised here (Kasaba 1999, 2009). 10. The use of the Ottoman Empire has flourished in the past 30 years in order to make a larger theoretical point about modern states (Anderson 1974: 360–394; Sohrabi 2005). 11. Gawrych (2006: 22–26) offers details in how specific Albanian regional categories such as Gegë and Toskë were used at the Ottoman bureaucratic level. French scholar Nathalie Clayer (2006: 59–150) goes further to assert that the regional configurations that distinguish northern Gegë from south- ern Toskë should be the medium through which we understand the variable nature of Albanian nationalism as it emerges in the late nineteenth century. 12. From this point forward, in order to make a methodological point, I sub- stitute the English “Albanians” with the Ottoman Turkish and Albanian Arnavutlar/Shqiptarë, and when appropriate the region-specific terms of Toskë/Gegë to identify groups as they were likely identified at the time. 13. Norris’s study (1993: 43–81) offers the best description of the opportuni- ties that the Ottomans provided for talented Toskë exposed to the empire’s multicultural radiance. 14. Another important way of distinguishing Toskë was the proximity each sub- group lived to other multidimensional communities, the trade routes they operated through or the level of integration into the Ottoman state their members enjoyed (Wassa Effendi 1879b: 76). 15. For a comprehensive survey of the cultural vibrancy in Toskalık/Toskëni as well as an invaluable history of Sufism in the region, see Clayer (2006: 45–58, 104–131). 16. Scholars of the Eastern Mediterranean in the nineteenth century have long identified an effendiyya phenomenon directly linked to capitalist develop- ments I suggest begin to take place only after the 1830s. The effendiyya would include students, teachers, lawyers, journalists, and the lower and middle- level government functionaries who fused their immediate needs as a self- identified class and their disparate associations with their homelands in the western Balkans. For some definitions of the effendiyya as they were seen as primary actors in Egypt, see Benin and Lockman (1987: 10). 17. For discussions on stereotypes of certain groups in the western Balkans throughout late Ottoman media, consult Brummett (2000) and Heinzelmann (1995: 134–139). 18. As with the Albanian terms, the Slavic- speaking communities in the same mountainous region differentiated according to which bratstvo or exoga- mous group clusters of families belonged. More is made of these important regional divisions among Slavic groups when discussing the creation of an independent Montenegro in chapters 4 and 5 (Durham 1909: 88–89). 19. Detailed descriptions of the regions and the communities may be found in Ymeri (2004). 20. This is important, as most scholars today still resort to using the notion of “tribes” or “nations” to represent the nature of intercommunal relations in a non- European setting (Blumi 2005: 43–56). Notes 193 21. Among the more important studies by Austro- German regional experts are Theodor Ippen (1892, 1907), Nopcsa (1907, 1910), and (Jokl 1923). 22. Pasi further distinguishes the region by identifying under the rubric of the lesser mountains (Malcija e Vogel) the “tribes” of Shala, Shoshi, Toplana, Kiri, Plani, and Gjani (Cordignano 1933: 126). 1 Retrieving Historical Processes: Transitions to a Modern Story 1. A debate rages between the Kosovar Rexhep Qosja and a number of other prominent Albanians, including Ismail Kadare, over Albania’s place in the world (Ceka 2006; Sulstarova 2006). To the latter group, the only way for Albanians to be recognized as “Western” is to abandon the religion that “Turks” imposed on them, an argument Qosja finds antithetical to all what modern “Europe” is supposed to stand for (Brisku 2006; Çabej 1994; Kaser 2002: 30–36; Puto 2006). 2. In the Balkan context, Malcolm (1998: 28–40) offers a useful discussion on the use and misuse of claims to ancient history by modern peoples. 3. Prior to the nineteenth century, the term referred to an officially recognized religious community; after 1800, millet became increasingly used as a mod- ern equivalent of “ethnicity.” 4. In one example of the misappropriation of the term, Clayer rightly notes (2006: 277–284) that post- Ottoman scholars misread Sami Frashëri’s use of “millet” as a marker of “ethnonational” identity (i.e., Albanian or Turk), when in fact, he was using it in a much broader, premodern sense of religious community. Contrary to what hopeful Albanian or Turkish nationalist historians claim, Sami evoked the Muslim “millet” not the Albanian or post-Ottoman Turk. 5. As noted by anthropologist R ichard Jenkins (1997: 13–14), “Ethnicity is no more fixed or unchanging than the culture of which it is a component or the situations in which it is produced and reproduced.” See also Cooper (2005: 59–90). 6. The ayanlık has long been the topic of discussion in Balkan studies (Adanır 2006; Zens 2002). 7. They were, after all, engaged in a local struggle that had pitted the city- state of Kotor against Dubrovnik, while the Venetians consolidated their hold of the Albanian coast. This all took place in the context of a rebellious prince Vojislav Vojinović creating alliances as a result of the breaking up of the Nemanjići dynasty, instigated by Hungary’s King Louis I and Ottoman Sultan Murad I’s invasions of the Balkans (Jens- Schmitt 2001; Živković 1989: 1: 255). 8. This logic became central to the ambitions of nineteenth-century intellectu- als and the European industrialists who patronized them, an instrumental- ist link that deserves deeper study, not the blind appropriation we find today (Kitromilides 1994: 185). 9. It is acknowledged, for instance, that King Dušan relied almost entirely on Albanian-speaking troops with whom the newly crowned king conquered much of the land south of Kosovo to the Gulf of Corinth (Malcolm 1998: 48). 194 Notes 10. While this concern with our uncritical use of modern ethnonational terms to speak of medieval kingdoms is not explored further here, another study of Kosovo’s long history has raised some of these questions in less direct ways. Malcolm (1998: 55–57) studied some known medieval sources of the region and discusses the problems with drawing conclusions on which ethnic group lived where based on monastic estate records. 11. The concept of aman in Islamic law demands that Muslims guarantee the safety of both people and property when a community peaceably surrenders during battle. As for “the people of the book” (i.e., Christians and Jews), under Islamic law the ahl al- kitâb are protected as subjects of the Muslim ruler. They are guaranteed rights of worship and certain privileges deter- mined by their respective religious leadership, known as dhimmi. At the heart of the policy to preserve the communities absorbed by newly created Muslim states, Christians and Jews were not obliged to serve in military campaigns in return for a head- tax or jizya, charged at various rates, which almost certainly meant paying fewer taxes to Muslims than were previously charged by their former Christian leaders (Esposito 1998: 36–41). 12. The process is usually characterized as “Serbian–Turkish osmosis,” a phrase reflecting the uncritical use of modern ethnographic and ethnonational terms that confuse medieval processes with modern terminology linked to identity (Malcolm 1998: 86).