Melissa Bokovoy                                                                                                                 History 425/625

Office:  2080 Mesa Vista                                                                                                     Fall 2004

Phone: 277-7854 (o)

Office Hours:  M 10-12; F10-11                                                                         

(mbokovoy@unm.edu)                                                                                      

 

History 425/625:  Europe and the Balkans

                The cultural and political diversity of the Balkans stems from the fact that the region is situated at the crossroads of different religious, political, geographical, and socio_economic worlds.  The successor states of the Roman and Byzantium empires and the world of Islam have been interacting, colliding, and reshaping this region for a millennium.  The area consists of: a central European belt__Slovenia, northern Croatia, Vojvodina, and Transylvania; an Eastern Orthodox belt__Romania, Bulgaria, Macedonia, and Serbia; an Islamic belt__Bosnia, Hercegovina, and Albania; and a Mediterranean belt__the littoral of Slovenia, Croatia, Montenegro, Greece, and the European parts of Turkey. 

                As a recent historian noted, "In Mostar, Hercegovina, one was able not too long ago to sip Viennese coffee and read newspapers mounted on wooden frames, listening all along to a muezzin's call in the shadow of a Franciscan church (where the priests chanted in Latin), and then walking into a fig grove that surrounds a Byzantine_style church (where the priests chanted in Old Church Slavonic)."  None of this was imported for the Italian or Chicago tourists who stopped in Mostar on their pilgrimage to Medjugorje where sightings of the Virgin Mary are common.

                The course will explore this diverse cultural crossroads not only as a geographical region but also as an "imagined" place.  We will chronicle the emergence of the idea of "Balkan," both as a concept of outsiders and as a self_perception.  To do so, we will read travel narratives, histories, novels, and view paintings, photographs, and film written and produced by a variety of Europeans.  British, Russian, and Yugoslav authors will figure prominently in the reading. 

Qualified students with disabilities needing appropriate academic adjustments should contact me as soon as possible to ensure your needs are met in a timely manner.  Handouts are available in alternative accessible formats upon request.

 

Required Reading:  

                Mark Mazower, The Balkans

                Vesna Goldsworthy, Inventing Ruritania:  The Imperialism of the Imagination

                Ismail Kadare, The Three Arched Bridge

                Orhan Pamuk, The White Castle 

                Bram Stoker, Dracula          

                Ivo Andric, Bridge on the Drina

                Julie Mertus, The Suitcase: Refugees’ Voices from Bosnia and Croatia

 

Websites: 

                    http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/map/yugoslavia/       

                    http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/modsbook25.html

 

THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE

Thomas Thorton: The Phanariots of Moldavia (1809)

Adam Neale: The Romanian Principalities (1818)

William MacMichael: The Court at Bucharest (1819)

Captain Spencer: The Perils of Travel Through Moldavia (1854)

The Firman of Investiture of Prince Charles of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen asPrince of the United
        Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia (1866)

Sarajevo:   http://www.friends-partners.org/bosnia/cb1.html - 1

 

Eastern European Countries

·  Ottoman Empire: Weakness

·  The Balkans: Conflict

 

·  Austria Hungary

The New States of Eastern Europe

Greco-Turkish War, 1919-1922

The Roma [Gypsies]

Eastern European Countries

After 1989

 

 

Course Requirements

                1)  Completion of two in class exams.  Each exam is worth 100 points and will be given on

                2)  Completion of 2 short response papers (500 words).  Due on specified days of discussion.  Each paper is worth 50 points. 

                3)  Completion of a critical review essay (8-10 pages, doubled spaced) on either a novel, a series of newspaper/magazine articles about a specific event or travel account.   of the student's choice.  This essay is worth 200 points and is due April  14.  

                4)  Map exercise.  Create a map of the Balkans using the geograpical terms found at the end of the syllabus.  Due January 28

                5)  Participation in class discussion is worth 100 points for the semester.  Discussion is an important component of this class and students must come prepared to discuss the readings based on the discussions questions.  Quizzes may be given on occasion.

               

Class Topics and Assignments

 

August 23             Introduction                                         

August 25             Europe and the Balkans Today

August 27             Historical Background

Reading:                Begin, The White Castle

 

August 30             Historical Background

September 1          Who are the Ottomans?

September 3     Life in the European Provinces(Maps Due)

Reading:  Inventing Ruritania, pp. 1-13; Continue, The White Castle

 

September 6          Labor Day (No Class)

September 8          Europe and the Ottoman Empire

September 10 Discussion:  What are the Balkans?

Reading: Finish, The White Castle

 

*****The Week of September 13-17.  We will not meet because of the lecture series, “Islam and Europe.”   All lectures in Room 101 of Woodward Hall.   You may write one of your response essays for one of the following lectures:

 

September 13        Dr. Jay Rubenstein, "Islam in the Medieval Imagination” 4 p.m.

Dr. Andrew Rippin,  “European Muslim Intellectuals and  the Qur'an." 7 p.m.

 

September 14        Dr. Jim Boone, "The Contested Islamic Past in Spain and Portugal." 4.p.m.

Dr. Mary Neuburger, "The Orient Within:  Muslim Minorities and the Negotiation of Modern Nationhood in Bulgaria"                7 p.m.

 

September 15        Dr. Stephen Bishop, "French identity, 'Muslim Hordes' and the Chanson de Roland." 4 p.m. 

                                Dr. Robert D. Crews, “Russia’s Islamic Past_Europe’s Future?”   7 p.m.

September 16        Dr. Eleni Bastea, "Memory and Architecture in Greece and Turkey" 4 p.m. 

Dr. Jytte Klausen, "Banning the Muslim Headscarf: Europeans Debate Religious Toleration and Gender Equality" 7 p.m.

Reading: Begin, Bridge on the Drina

 

Class Topics and Assignments

September 20        Romanticism

September 22        Nationalism

September 24  Discussion:   

Reading: Finish, Bridge on the Drina

 

September 27        Greek Liberation Movement in the 19th century

September 29        Guest Lecturer

October 1               Guest Lecturer

Reading:  Inventing Ruritania, pp. 14-41; Begin Dracula

 

October 4               The Greek Revival in Britain

October 6               National Liberation Movements and Ideology among Balkan Slavs

October 8               The European Powers, Russia and the Balkans

Reading:                Continue Dracula

 

October 11             Discussion:  Early 19th Century European Views of the Balkans

October 13             Exam

October 15             Fall Break (No Class)

Reading:  Continue Dracula

 

October 18             Transylvania and Romania

October 20             Popular Literature in the 19th century

October 22             The Eastern Question Reprised, 1875-1912

Reading:   Continue Dracula

 

October 25             Victorian Travelers in the Balkans and the Balkan Wars

October 27             Everyday Life

October 29             Discussion:  Dracula

Reading:                Finish Dracula 

 

November 1           World War One

November 3           The Third Balkan War

November 5           Making a New Europe

Reading:                Inventing Ruritania, pp. 42-111

 

November 8           The Unending War

November 10         The Unliberated Nations:  Bosnian Muslims, Macedonians, and Albanians

November 12         Discussion: Legacies of the Great War

Reading: 

November 15         Interwar Politics and Society

November 17         National Questions

November 19         Revisiting Versaillies

Reading:  Inventing Ruritania, 112-159

 

November 22         World War II

November 24         Postwar Settlements in the Balkans

                                Draft:  Critical Review Essay Due

November 26         Thanksgiving Break (No Class)

 

November 29         The Greek Civil War and its Aftermath 

December 1           Good Communists vs. Bad Communists           

December 3           1989

 

December 6           Wars of Yugoslav Succession

December 8           Memory and History in the Balkans

December 10         Discussion