Southeast Europe

2021 ◽  
pp. 712-729
Author(s):  
Vasilios N. Makrides
Keyword(s):  
Roman Catholicism ◽  
Southeast Europe ◽  
Religious Identities ◽  
Orthodox Christian ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
Long Period ◽  
Modernization Process ◽  
Religious Landscape ◽  
Geographical Context

This chapter charts the religious landscape of Southeast Europe and considers its religious specificities in their historical and geographical context. To this purpose, it discusses the significance of the Orthodox Christian heritage of Byzantium; the cleavage between Eastern and Western Christianity (both Roman Catholicism and Protestantism) and inter-confessional dynamics; the presence of Islam and the long period of Ottoman rule; the existence of other religions in the region; the role of Russia in Southeast European affairs; ethno-religious identities and the rise of nationalism; the communist and the post-communist periods; and finally, the negative discourse about the Balkans in the context of Southeast European distinctiveness, the modernization process, and the potential for religion in this.

scholarly journals Russia’s Foreign Policy Evolution in the New Balkan Landscape

2020 ◽  
Vol 56 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 179-199
Author(s):  
Ekaterina Entina ◽  
Alexander Pivovarenko
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Regional Security ◽  
Southeast Europe ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
Current Trends ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
The Difference

The article reflects on the issue of the foreign policy strategy of modern Russia in the Balkans region. One of the most significant aspects of this problem is the difference in views between Russia and the West. Authors show how different interpretations of the events in former Yugoslavia in the 1990s and the beginning of the 2000s predetermined the sense of mutual suspicion and mistrust which spread to other regions such as the post-Soviet space. Exploring differences between the Russian and the Western (Euro-Atlantic) views on the current matters, authors draw attention to fundamental differences in terminology: while the Western narrative promotes more narrow geographical and political definitions (such as the Western Balkan Six), traditional Russian experts are more inclined to wider or integral definitions such as “the Balkans” and “Central and Southeast Europe”. Meanwhile none of these terms are applicable for analysis of the current trends such as the growing transit role of the Balkans region and its embedding in the European regional security architecture. Therefore, a new definition is needed to overcome the differences in vision and better understand significant recent developments in the region. Conceptualizing major foreign policy events in Central and Southeast Europe during the last three decades (the 1990s, 2000s and 2010s), authors demonstrate the significance of differences in tools and methods between the Soviet Union and the modern Russia. Permanent need for adaptation to changing political and security context led to inconsistence in Russian Balkan policy in the 1990s. Nevertheless, Russia was able to preserve an integral vision of the region and even to elaborate new transregional constructive projects, which in right political circumstances may promote stability and become beneficial for both Russia and the Euro-Atlantic community.

On the Asphalt Path to Divinity

2013 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 53-71 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marta Kołczyńska
Keyword(s):  
Local Community ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
Micro Scale ◽  
Asphalt Road ◽  
Societal Changes ◽  
The Many ◽  
Role Of Religion ◽  
Religious Landscape ◽  
Globalising World

This article presents one of the many faces of contemporary Islam in the Balkans, that of the Bektashi community in Albania, and specifically the Sari Saltik teqe (sanctuary) on Kruja mountain. In so doing, it sheds light on the role of religion in 'post-atheist' Albania, while taking into account major changes to the religious landscape in the post-communist, and arguably post-transformation context. The essay ethnographically examines the challenges posed by societal changes for the Kruja teqe, which is undergoing its own micro-scale technological revolution in the form of a newly constructed asphalt road to the top of the mountain, which will likely have far-reaching consequences for the shrine and the whole local community. The essay thus illustrates how Albanian society has become entangled with the turbulent processes of modernisation, increased mobility and the globalising world.

Civic Cults between Continuity and Change

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ryan Boehm
Keyword(s):  
Religious Community ◽  
Social Response ◽  
Focal Points ◽  
Sacred Landscape ◽  
Religious Identities ◽  
Continuity And Change ◽  
Before And After ◽  
New City ◽  
Religious Landscape

This chapter considers the important role of the polis as a religious community. Reconstructing cultic continuities and changes reveals aspects of social response to the rupture and discontinuity posed by population movement, settlement shift, and political change. The epigraphic, literary, and archaeological evidence allows us to piece together important indications of how traditional cultic and religious identities intersected with innovation. The chapter first maps the changing religious landscape of regions before and after urban mergers and considers how and why particular cults survived or died out and what this meant for the community that resulted. It then shows the ways in which central sanctuaries and civic cults served as focal points for integrating the discrete citizen groups into the polis, and the ways in which the traditional sacred landscape was simultaneously respected and replicated in the center of the new city. Finally, it examines the ways in which these synoikized communities—and, at times, their original constitutive parts—participated in religious and theoric networks such as koina and Panhellenic festivals.

The Muslim Experience in the Balkan States, 1919–19911

2000 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-66 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hugh Poulton
Keyword(s):  
Minority Populations ◽  
Southeast Europe ◽  
Orthodox Christian ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
Muslim Minority ◽  
New States ◽  
The One ◽  
Muslim Communities ◽  
Balkan States

During the nineteenth century, the Ottoman Empire retreated from the Balkans, and underwent a steady decline culminating in its final demise in the early part of the twentieth century. Sizeable communities of Muslims, derived both from those who had arrived with the Ottomans and from indigenous inhabitants who had converted to Islam, remained in the new successor states of southeast Europe. With the exception of Albania, where the Muslims formed the majority of the population, these communities became established as minorities within the new states. Upheld as ethno-national states each based on one dominant nation, the new states suffered from irredentism on the one hand, and internal tension between majority and minority populations on the other. Tension was particularly evident in the relations between the new Orthodox Christian rulers and their Muslim minority populations, which were seen as undesirable relics from the Ottoman past. In spite of such attitudes and the continuing waves of emigration, however, these Muslim communities remain an integral part of the present-day Balkans.

scholarly journals Milletic Secularism in the Balkans: Christianity, Islam, and Identity in Bulgaria

2019 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-103
Author(s):  
Simeon Evstatiev
Keyword(s):  
Religion And Politics ◽  
Religious Communities ◽  
Collective Identities ◽  
Orthodox Christianity ◽  
Muslim Identity ◽  
Orthodox Christian ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
Structural Force ◽  
Secular Religion

AbstractThe article introduces the concept of “milleticsecularism” which invokes the Ottomanmilletsystem to refer to divergent and competing transnational collective identities, loyalties, and frames of reference coexisting within the same nation-state. These identities are conceptualized as resembling the way religious communities functioned under the Ottomanmilletsystem but in a reverse, upended way, as today Muslims are the minority in a pluralist society and secular state governed on the basis of non-Muslim procedures and values symbolically overarched by Orthodox Christianity. Foregrounding the case of Bulgaria, the article highlights the role of the Ottoman legacy vis-à-vis Orthodox Christian heritage for the accommodation of diversity. Milletic secularism draws on the implicit social knowledge that evokes differing antecedents and values underlying the shared identities of Christians and Muslims. Since the 1990s, after half a century dominated by the “secular religion” of Communism, the intersection of religion and politics in Bulgaria is reshaped by the reemergence of religion as a structural force. Milletic secularism has both integrative and emancipatory potential, fostered and challenged today by a variety of factors. Among them, this article foregrounds the increasingly transnational Sunnī Muslim identity and the ongoing re-Islamization in the form of Ḥanafism and Salafism.

Сирия (аш-Шам) в системе османских владений (XVI – начало XX в.)

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
D.R. Zhantiev
Keyword(s):  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
19Th Century ◽  
Social Mechanisms ◽  
Checks And Balances ◽  
Local Elites ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
The Face ◽  
High Level ◽  
The 19Th Century

Аннотация В статье рассматривается роль и место Сирии (включая Ливан и Палестину) в системе османских владений на протяжении нескольких веков от османского завоевания до периода правления султана Абдул-Хамида II. В течение четырех столетий османского владычества территория исторической Сирии (Билад аш-Шам) была одним из важнейших компонентов османской системы и играла роль связующего звена между Анатолией, Египтом, Ираком и Хиджазом. Необходимость ежегодной организации хаджа с символами султанской власти и покровительства над святынями Мекки и Медины определяла особую стратегическую важность сирийских провинций Османской империи. Несмотря на ряд серьезных угроз во время общего кризиса османской государственности (конец XVI начало XIX вв.), имперскому центру удалось сохранить контроль над Сирией путем создания сдержек и противовесов между местными элитами. В XIX в. и особенно в период правления Абдул- Хамида II (18761909 гг.), сохранение Сирии под османским контролем стало вопросом существования Османской империи, которая перед лицом растущего европейского давления и интервенции потеряла большую часть своих владений на Балканах и в Северной Африке. Задача укрепления связей между имперским центром и периферией в сирийских вилайетах в последней четверти XIX в. была в целом успешно решена. К началу XX в. Сирия была одним из наиболее политически спокойных и прочно связанных со Стамбулом регионов Османской империи. Этому в значительной степени способствовали довольно высокий уровень общественной безопасности, развитие внешней торговли, рост образования и постепенная интеграция местных элит (как мусульман, так и христиан) в османские государственные и социальные механизмы. Положение Сирии в системе османских владений показало, что процесс ослабления и территориальной дезинтеграции Османской империи в эпоху реформ не был линейным и наряду с потерей владений и влияния на Балканах, в азиатской части империи в течение XIX и начала XX вв. происходил параллельный процесс имперской консолидации.Abstract The article examines the role and place of Greater Syria (including Lebanon and Palestine) in the system of Ottoman possessions over several centuries from the Ottoman conquest to the period of the reign of Abdul Hamid II. For four centuries of Ottoman domination, the territory of historical Syria (Bilad al-Sham) was one of the most important components in the Ottoman system and played the role of a link between Anatolia, Egypt, Iraq and Hijaz. The need to ensure the Hajj with symbols of Sultan power and patronage over the shrines of Mecca and Medina each year determined the special strategic importance of the Syrian provinces of the Ottoman Empire. Despite a number of serious threats during the general crisis of the Ottoman state system (late 16th early 19th centuries), the imperial center managed to maintain control over Syria by creating checks and balances between local elites. In the 19th century. And especially during the reign of Abdul Hamid II (18761909), keeping Syria under Ottoman control became a matter of existence for the Ottoman Empire, which, in the face of increasing European pressure and intervention, lost most of its possessions in the Balkans and North Africa. The task of strengthening ties between the imperial center and the periphery in Syrian vilayets in the last quarter of the 19th century was generally successfully resolved. By the beginning of the 20th century, Syria was one of the most politically calm and firmly connected with Istanbul regions of the Ottoman Empire. This was greatly facilitated by a fairly high level of public safety, the development of foreign trade, the growth of education and the gradual integration of local elites (both Muslims and Christians) into Ottoman state and social mechanisms. Syrias position in the system of Ottoman possessions clearly showed that the process of weakening and territorial disintegration of the Ottoman Empire during the era of reform was not linear, and along with the loss of possessions and influence in the Balkans, in the Asian part of the empire during the 19th and early 20th centuries there was a parallel process of imperial consolidation.

Brain Circulation and the Role of the Diaspora in the Balkans - Albania, Kosova and Macedonia

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hristina Cipusheva ◽  
Sokol Havolli ◽  
Fatmir Memaj ◽  
Abdul-Ghaffar Mughal ◽  
Abdulmenaf Sejdini ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Brain Circulation ◽  
The Balkans

Goddess on the Frontier

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Megan Bryson
Keyword(s):  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Yunnan Province ◽  
Eighth Century ◽  
Religious Identities ◽  
Local Identities ◽  
Frontier Region ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Ethnicity And Gender ◽  
Shifting Identities

This book follows the transformations of the goddess Baijie, a deity worshiped in the Dali region of southwest China’s Yunnan Province, to understand how local identities developed in a Chinese frontier region from the twelfth century to the twenty-first. Dali, a region where the cultures of China, India, Tibet, and Southeast Asia converge, has long served as a nexus of religious interaction even as its status has changed. Once the center of independent kingdoms, it was absorbed into the Chinese imperial sphere with the Mongol conquest and remained there ever since. Goddess on the Frontier examines how people in Dali developed regional religious identities through the lens of the local goddess Baijie, whose shifting identities over this span of time reflect shifting identities in Dali. She first appears as a Buddhist figure in the twelfth century, then becomes known as the mother of a regional ruler, next takes on the role of an eighth-century widow martyr, and finally is worshiped as a tutelary village deity. Each of her forms illustrates how people in Dali represented local identities through gendered religious symbols. Taken together, they demonstrate how regional religious identities in Dali developed as a gendered process as well as an ethno-cultural process. This book applies interdisciplinary methodology to a wide variety of newly discovered and unstudied materials to show how religion, ethnicity, and gender intersect in a frontier region.

Saddam Takes Control

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuel Helfont
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Good Deal ◽  
Intellectual Heritage ◽  
Role Of Religion ◽  
Religious Landscape

Chapter 1 discusses Saddam Hussein’s rise to the presidency in Ba’thist Iraq in which he inherited an existing relationship between his regime and the Iraqi religious landscape. Saddam also inherited a rich Ba‘thist intellectual heritage, which had a good deal to say about religion, and Islam in particular, and offered what he considered to be powerful tools to face the challenges that lay before him. Chapter 1 highlights the the role of religion in Saddam’s rise to power and the secret polices on religion that he enacted. It will then discuss the initial steps he took to consolidate his power and contain uprisings within Iraq’s religious landscape. His polices reflect a Ba’thist interpretation of Islam that was first articulated by the Syrian Christian intellectual, Michel Aflaq, in the mid-20th century. Under Saddam’s leadership, the Ba’thist regime attempts to impose its ideas on religion.

6600–6000 cal BC Abrupt Climate Change and Neolithic Dispersal from West Asia

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bernhard Weninger ◽  
Lee Clare
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Abrupt Climate Change ◽  
Western Anatolia ◽  
Southeast Europe ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
Farming Communities ◽  
Anatolian Plateau ◽  
Decadal Scale ◽  
Early Farming ◽  
New Hypothesis

Recent advances in palaeoclimatological and meteorological research, combined with new radiocarbon data from western Anatolia and southeast Europe, lead us to formulate a new hypothesis for the temporal and spatial dispersal of Neolithic lifeways from their core areas of genesis. The new hypothesis, which we term the Abrupt Climate Change (ACC) Neolithization Model, incorporates a number of insights from modern vulnerability theory. We focus here on the Late Neolithic (Anatolian terminology), which is followed in the Balkans by the Early Neolithic (European terminology). From high-resolution 14C-case studies, we infer an initial (very rapid) west-directed movement of early farming communities out of the Central Anatolian Plateau towards the Turkish Aegean littoral. This move is exactly in phase (decadal scale) with the onset of ACC conditions (~6600 cal BC). Upon reaching the Aegean coastline, Neolithic dispersal comes to a halt. It is not until some 500 years later—that is, at the close of cumulative ACC and 8.2 ka cal BP Hudson Bay cold conditions—that there occurs a second abrupt movement of farming communities into Southeast Europe, as far as the Pannonian Basin. The spread of early farming from Anatolia into eastern Central Europe is best explained as Neolithic communities’ mitigation of biophysical and social vulnerability to natural (climate-induced) hazards.

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