scholarly journals Costas Lapavitsas et Pinar Cakiroglu, Capitalism in the Ottoman Balkans: Industrialization and Modernity in Macedonia

Balkanologie ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Umberto Gritti
Keyword(s):  
Ottoman Balkans

scholarly journals Orthodox Christian Bulgarians Coping with Natural Disasters in the Pre-Modern Ottoman Balkans

Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (5) ◽  
pp. 367
Author(s):  
Raymond Detrez
Keyword(s):  
Natural Disasters ◽  
World View ◽  
Cultural Influences ◽  
Religious Community ◽  
Religious Communities ◽  
Moral Value ◽  
Secondary Importance ◽  
Orthodox Christian ◽  
Christian Communities ◽  
Ottoman Balkans

Premodern Ottoman society consisted of four major religious communities—Muslims, Orthodox Christians, Armenian Christians, and Jews; the Muslim and Christian communities also included various ethnic groups, as did Muslim Arabs and Turks, Orthodox Christian Bulgarians, Greeks, and Serbs who identified, in the first place, with their religious community and considered ethnic identity of secondary importance. Having lived together, albeit segregated within the borders of the Ottoman Empire, for centuries, Bulgarians and Turks to a large extent shared the same world view and moral value system and tended to react in a like manner to various events. The Bulgarian attitudes to natural disasters, on which this contribution focuses, apparently did not differ essentially from that of their Turkish neighbors. Both proceeded from the basic idea of God’s providence lying behind these disasters. In spite of the (overwhelmingly Western) perception of Muslims being passive and fatalistic, the problem whether it was permitted to attempt to escape “God’s wrath” was coped with in a similar way as well. However, in addition to a comparable religious mental make-up, social circumstances and administrative measures determining equally the life conditions of both religious communities seem to provide a more plausible explanation for these similarities than cross-cultural influences.

scholarly journals Orthodox culture and collective identity in the ottoman balkans during the eighteenth century

1997 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
pp. 81
Author(s):  
Paschalis M. Kitromilides
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Collective Identity ◽  
Ottoman Balkans

<p>Τό ζήτημα τής συλλογικής ταυτότητας στήν ’Οθωμανική Βαλκανική καί ή<br />συμβολή τής ’Ορθόδοξης εκκλησιαστικής παράδοσης στή διάπλαση τού<br />αύτοπροσδιορισμοΰ τών πληθυσμών τής περιοχής κατά τον δέκατο όγδοο<br />αιώνα εξετάζονται σέ πολλαπλά επίπεδα. ’Αρχικά σκιαγραφειται ή εικόνα<br />όπως αναδύεται από τις πηγές, μέ άφετηρία απόπειρες νά άναπαραστηθεΐ<br />γραφικά ή εθνολογία τής περιοχής σέ γλωσσικούς χάρτες τής Εύρώπης. Πε-<br />ριγράφεται εν συνεχεία τό φαινόμενο τών επάλληλων διασπορών ώς συνεκτικός<br />παράγοντας πού ενοποιούσε τή Βαλκανική κοινωνία πριν τή διάσπασή<br />της από τά εθνικά κράτη. Εξετάζεται επίσης ό ρόλος τής ’Ορθόδοξης<br />Εκκλησίας, τού συστήματος τής άνώτερης παιδείας καί τού εμπορίου<br />ώς οί δυναμικοί συντελεστές πού διαμόρφωναν τήν ενιαία κοινότητα τών<br />λαών τής περιοχής καί σημειώνεται ή ρευστότητα καί συνεχής μεταλλαγή<br />τών γλωσσικών ταυτοτήτων, Έπισημαίνεται ότι άποτέλεσμα τής έπενέρ-<br />γειας τών τριών αύτών συντελεστών ύπήρξε ή εύρύτατη διάδοση καί καθιέρωση<br />τής ελληνικής γλώσσας ώς οργάνου τής επικοινωνίας στή Νοτιοανατολική<br />Ευρώπη πριν τό 1821. Τονίζεται ότι πολλές άπό τις πολιτισμικές<br />εκδηλώσεις πού είχαν ώς όργανο τήν ελληνική γλώσσα δέν πρέπει νά έρμη-</p><p>γεύονται ώς εθνικά καθορισμένα φαινόμενα καί μέ το ίδιο πνεύμα άνα-<br />σκευάζεται ό ιστοριογραφικός αναχρονισμός ότι δήθεν ή Εκκλησία τής<br />Κωνσταντινουπόλεως κατά την εποχή αυτή δοκίμασε να «έξελληνίσει» τούς<br />αλλόγλωσσους ’Ορθόδοξους πληθυσμούς τής Βαλκανικής.<br />Οί γενικότερες ερμηνευτικές θέσεις τής μελέτης εικονογραφούνται μέ<br />συγκεκριμένα παραδείγματα, πού άναδεικνύουν τή ρευστότητα των ταυτοτήτων<br />στήν προεθνική κοινωνία. Τα παραδείγματα περιλαμβάνουν τις περιπτώσεις<br />τού Θεοδώρου Καβαλλιώτη, τού Ναούμ Ramniceanu καί τού Διονυσίου<br />Φωτεινού, πού εμφανίζονται ώς εκπρόσωποι μιας κοινωνικής καί<br />πολιτισμικής πραγματικότητας, τήν όποια σάρωσε από τό προσκήνιο τής<br />Ιστορίας ή Ισχύς των εθνικισμών.</p>

Exodus from the West

1997 ◽  
pp. 4-28
Author(s):  
Jonathan Israel
Keyword(s):  
Fifteenth Century ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Jewish Life ◽  
Hebrew Literature ◽  
The West ◽  
European Jewish ◽  
Anti Jewish ◽  
Ottoman Balkans ◽  
Modern Era ◽  
New Phase

This chapter discusses the mass exodus of Jews from western and central Europe, which began in the later fifteenth century and shifted the focus of European Jewish life to Poland, Lithuania, and the Ottoman Balkans. It was the outcome of a rising tide of anti-Jewish agitation which swept the whole of Europe from Portugal to Brandenburg and from the Netherlands to Sicily. This new and vast process continued relentlessly down to the 1570s, by when the exodus was almost complete. Thus, this new phase, a sequence of expulsions which drastically restricted Jewish life west of Poland, was essentially a product of the dawning modern era — of the age of the Renaissance — rather than of the Middle Ages. Paradoxical though it may seem, this new and more thorough-going rejection of Jews and Judaism coincided with what in other respects represented a dramatic broadening in culture and attitudes, including a deeper Christian involvement in Hebrew and Hebrew literature than had ever been seen previously.

Crypto-Christianity and Religious Amphibianism in the Ottoman Balkans

2020 ◽  
pp. 55-67
Author(s):  
Noel Malcolm
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Islamic Law ◽  
Economic Incentive ◽  
Roman Catholicism ◽  
Catholic Priests ◽  
History Of ◽  
Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries ◽  
Ottoman Balkans ◽  
Tax Payers ◽  
The Church

Christianity—secret adherence to Christian religious practices by people who outwardly professed Islam—is known to have occurred in several parts of the Ottoman Empire; this essay concerns the crypto-Christians of Kosovo, who were very unusual in adhering to Roman Catholicism. Distinctions are made here between crypto-Christianity and a range of other practices or circumstances that have been partly confused with it in previous accounts: the fact of close social coexistence between Muslims and Christians; the existence of religious syncretism, which allowed the borrowing and sharing of some ritual practices; and the principle of ‘theological equivalentism’ (the claim, made by some Muslims, that each person could be saved in his or her own faith). These things were not the same as crypto-Christianity, but they involved different kinds of religious ‘amphibianism’, creating conditions in which crypto-Christianity could survive more easily. The story of Catholic crypto-Christianity in Kosovo and northern Albania begins with reports from Catholic priests in the seventeenth century. Contributory factors seem to have been the economic incentive for men to convert to Islam to escape the taxes on Christians, and the fact that women (who were not tax-payers) could remain Christian, as Christian wives were permitted under Islamic law. This essay then traces the history of the crypto-Catholics of Kosovo, who survived, despite the strong official disapproval of the Church, into the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

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