Balkan Wars Research Articles

Refugee rituals: continuity and change in the Anastenaria festival in Macedonian Greece

ABSTRACTThe Anastenaria festival is celebrated by descendants of refugees from the village of Kōsti in eastern Thrace, now in Bulgaria, who settled in Greek Macedonia by 1924, after the Balkan Wars. The festival is dedicated to saints Kōnstantinos and his mother, Elenē, depicted on holy icons brought from Kōsti. Participants’ primary focus is an ecstatic dance over red-hot coals while possessed by the saint. Proscribed by official Orthodox religion, it was formerly conducted in secret. Though the Church still considers the festival a combination of paganism and Christianity, tension between official religion and the Anastenarides has eased. Based on fieldwork in two villages inhabited by both Anastenarides and other ‘indigenous’ Greeks, this article explores how ritual spaces of the Anastenarides replicate the original space in Kōsti. Belonging to ‘former days,’ cultic practices constitute an ancestor cult linked to their original home, the ‘Thracians’ celebrating their ‘Kōstilidian’ identity through religious rituals.

Marion PoschmannThe Pine Islands by Jen Calleja

premise of a collegiate backpacker is given complexity and drama as Anna unexpectedly deviates from the typical European tourist cities to explore the Balkans in the summer of 1968. Even twenty years out from World War II, the persistence of anti-Semitism makes her mountain passage fraught with danger. The story slopes suddenly into one of political intrigue, cultural identity, and the fight to resist erasure by the dominant power structures. Levy has previously published nonfiction on the history and culture of the Balkans, and her expertise shines as Anna is pulled deeper into the world of underground political resistance. Anna’s Dance is sometimes surreal with its hairpin twists and turns and can feel breathless at times. It is difficult to say whether this is done purposefully, to mimic the tempestuous history of the Balkans and its shifting political allegiances, or whether the book could have used more time and space to foster a connection between its readers and the heroine. In many ways, Anna is not a heroine at all or even a true protagonist. The events of the story seem to just happen to her as she thumbs a ride on a half-hearted and fearful search for an identity she would often rather run from. The people she meets along the way, however, have a depth, strength, and deep devotion to their heritage that is compelling and engaging. The history as told by these rebels and resistance fighters is fascinating and personal, and where Levy comes into her own as a storyteller. The history of the Macedonian Question and the Balkan Wars, as told by freedom fighters Spiro and Kosta in the dim light of kitchens and dance halls, becomes as relevant as today’s social justice movements, a grim but hopeful reminder of the constancy of civil unrest and the fight of the underdog for a fairer world. Ultimately, their passion transforms Anna, who comes to a deeper understanding of the importance of her heritage and the preservation of the traditions of those that came before her, and those who will come after. Elizabeth Stevens University of Oklahoma Marion Poschmann The Pine Islands Trans. Jen Calleja. Toronto. Coach House Books. 2020. 160 pages. THE DELIGHT IN CLASSIFICATION in classical Japan, or perhaps the taste for precision, extended even to the aesthetic appearances of matsu, or pine trees, which could be divided according to their forms. Chokkan: upright trunk tapering off at the top. Mōyogi: the S-shape. Shakkan: trunk bent at a forty-five-degree angle. Fukinagashi : the windswept form. Kengai: the cascade. Bunjingi: the weathered, timeworn look, beloved of poets. Matsu were an important subject in classical Japanese literature, and none more so than the pine islands of Matsushima. “Matsushima, ah! / Aa-ah, Matsushima, ah! / Matsushima, ah!” wrote the haiku master Matsuo Bashō (1644–94), lost for words at the sight of them, in a famous but possibly apocryphal poem. His dream of seeing the moon rise over the pine islands was the impetus for the journey recounted in his classic Narrow Road to the Interior (1702). Gilbert Sullivan, the protagonist of German author Marion Poschmann’s first novel translated into English, The Pine Islands, travels to Japan on a whim, convinced by a dream that his wife is cheating on him. He is a middle-aged scholar, unsuccessful and disappointed with life, the foremost expert on a subject so ridiculous one can just imagine it as the fiercely defended turf of some embittered junior academic: beard styles or, to be precise, beard fashions and representations of the divine in art. A copy of Bashō’s Narrow Road, bought at the airport, convinces him to repeat the journey across the north of Japan, though instead of walking 2,400 kilometers to Matsushima and back, Sullivan travels mostly by bullet train. According to Sam Hamill, who translated Bashō’s Narrow Road, the haiku master ’s poem of wordless rapture in front of the famous pine islands reveals hints of mono no aware, an aesthetic category central to classical Japanese literature. Mono no aware—literally, the pathos of things—described a sense of rapture over the ephemeral, a perception of “natural poignancy in the beauty...

Pregovori Milovanovića i Gešova u stvaranju Balkanskog saveza 1912. godine

Years before the First Balkan War 1912/13 marked by intense diplomatic activities aimed at creating alliances between Serbia, Bulgaria, Greece and Montenegro. Its goal was the liquidation of Ottoman rule in the territory of the so-called European Turkey, the liberation of compatriots from centuries-old occupation and the return of the territory to their countries of origin. The Serbian-Bulgarian agreement formed the basis of a broader alliance. It was established primarily through agreements between two prominent statesmen - Milovan Milovanović and Ivan Evstratiev Geshov, who at the final stage of negotiations were simultaneously prime ministers and foreign ministers. The results of the negotiations were translated into an interstate agreement with a secret annex of March 13, 1912. Despite the great temptations that followed the creation of the Serbian-Bulgarian agreement, Milovanović and Geshov still managed to bring the whole process to a successful end. The great powers persistently insisted on maintaining the status quo in the Balkans, which did not favor the Allies policy. The Alliance, however, was most concerned with the Ottoman Empire, according to which its blade was pointed. Unable to do anything more, neighborhood events were followed here with the utmost care and readiness. The first step in the Allies intention was the rapid and effective liquidation of Ottoman rule in the Peninsula, which for many who doubted the Allies resolve was an unexpected turn of events. However, when the burning question about the partition of this space came to the fore, the fate that many feared could not be avoided. Those who were in Bulgaria for further compromise with the Allies were not favorably regarded there by radical circles close to King Ferdinand and Austro-Hungary. Because of this, Geshov also had to withdraw from the political scene by resigning. Milovanovic passed away earlier. In all likelihood, an alliance without the famous duo who for the most part created it could not survive.

Education in the Kardzhali Region from the Beginning of the 19th Century Until the Balkan Wars (1912–1913)

Education in the Kardzhali Region from the Beginning of the 19th Century Until the Balkan Wars (1912–1913)

РОЛЬ РОССИЙСКОГО КОНСУЛА В ДАМАСКЕ КНЯЗЯ Б. Н. ШАХОВСКОГО В ПОДДЕРЖКЕ МЕЖРЕЛИГИОЗНОГО МИРА НАКАНУНЕ ПЕРВОЙ МИРОВОЙ ВОЙНЫ

Prince Boris N. Shakhovskoy (1870–1926), the Russian consul in Damascus from 1907 until the First World War, left to his descendants a legacy of attentive and balanced diplomacy. His reports to the Russian Embassy in Constantinople and to the 1st Division of the Foreign Ministry contain invaluable information shedding light on interfaith relations in the Syrian regions of the Ottoman Empire on the eve and after of the Young Turk Revolution, as well as on the early months of the so-called Great War (WWI). The article analyzes the messages of the diplomat on various aspects of the religious situation in the region. He considered the activities of the Islamist organization Muslim League in Damascus, which aimed at enforcing Sharia law throughout Syrian society and countering non-Muslim and European influence in the region. An anxious change in interfaith relations is being evaluated, when Muslim suspicion towards Christians grew, aggravated by the common conscription in the context of the Tripolitan and two Balkan wars. The consul attentively followed the problems of the participation of the Orthodox Arabs in the Ottoman institutions, as well as the attempts to join the English Old-Catholics to Orthodoxy, acting through Metropolitan of Beirut. Of historical interest is also the information about the transition of the Syrian Jacobites to Catholicism, as well as notes on the Catholic missions activities in the region. All these issues in the Syrian soil are viewed by the diplomat through the prism of competition between European powers, especially France and Italy.

Teofan Fan Noli - albansko-američki jerarh, političar i književnik

Metropolitan Theophan Fan Noli was a leader of the Church both in America and his native Albania. He was a pioneer in calling for a united Orthodox Church in America and in the use of English in services. Noli began his life of service in the Church in the United States organizing Albanian parishes. With the Balkan Wars and the independence of Albania, Fan Noli devoted more of his time to the cause of Albania. He was Prime Minister of Albania in 1924. After a change in political climate, Bishop Theophan was forced to leave Albania. He was able to return to the United States in 1932. Upon arriving he retired from politics and resumed his duties as bishop of the Albanian Orthodox Church in America. Bishop Noli considered his Albanian Church as a daughter of the Russian Orthodox Church in America and looked to it for the creation of a single Orthodox Church in America. He continued to lead his flock and to advocate Orthodox unity until his death in 1965.

Высокая миссия в Сирии и Ливане. Россия и левантийские православные (по донесениям генконсула в Бейруте Г.Д. Батюшкова)

The analysis of the position of the flock of the Antiochian Patriarchate of the Orthodox Church in the Syrian and Lebanese regions of the Ottoman Empire is presented through the prism of assessments of the Russian consul general in Beirut. Most of the documents relate to 1912, when the tension of social relations in the region reached its highest level in the conditions of the Italo-Turkish (October 1911 – October 1912) and the First Balkan Wars (September 1912 – May 1913), which largely divided the social opinion. The documents allow to recreate the true picture of the clash of interests of the European powers in the Arab provinces, their methods of relying on different confessional groups. Religious institutions in those years were actively used in the inter-party struggle at the level of the central Ottoman government, and the Orthodox clergy was not an exception. The Syro-Lebanese Orthodox were in the center of attention from Russia as co-religionists and, as a result, the most social group located to Russian influence. Material assistance from Russia, our educational and medical institutions continued to operate in the Arab vilayets of the empire, and if this kind of support for the Orthodox Levant were continued, Russia would have achieved much greater success in countering European colonial forms in the form of international “mandates” to the Middle East subsequent period.

Edirnekapı Martyrs’ Cemetery: Towards a Therapeutic Forgetting

Edirnekapı Martyrs’ Cemetery (Edirnekapı Şehitliği, 1926), which is located in one of the oldest and largest cemeteries of Istanbul, contains the graves of mainly Muslim soldiers who died during the Balkan War and WWI, especially those wounded in the Çanakkale War (Gallipoli Campaign), which is considered the forerunner of the Turkish War of Independence (Kurtuluş Savaşı, 1919-1923) and one of the influential founding myths of the Turkish Republic. The soldiers who have lost their lives in the war against the PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party) since the end of the 1980s are also buried here, creating a continuum of historical enemies. In addition, civilians killed during the 15 July coup attempt in 2016 are buried in a separate section next to the Edirnekapı Cemetery, adding another internal enemy - the Gülen Movement - to the official history. The physical correspondence of this mnemonical expansion is also visible in the expansion of the cemetery area, which has been gradually transformed into a public transportation hub since 2008. This article examines how the cemetery reproduces the myth of martyrdom and shapes the social frameworks of memory in favour of nationalism on the D-100 highway. The intersectionality of collective memory and urban infrastructure is analysed through the history and spatial formation of the cemetery, as a part of the greater mnemonic constellation on the D-100 highway.

Dr Eva Haljecka (1869-1947) prva žena hirurg i ginekolog u Srbiji

Dr. Eva Haljecka, a Jew of Polish origin, was born on 1869 in Poland, died on 1949 in Yugoslavia, Belgrade, was the first woman surgeon and gynecologist-obstetrician in Serbia and Yugoslavia. Carried out on 1910 the first caesarean section in Niš. She was a duty manager in district hospital in Niš in three occasions - during the Balkan wars, in the World War I and after the World War I. Dr. Eva Haljecka was the first woman doctor of that time in Serbia who seek the full equality beetween male and female doctors and she was awarded for that. German newspaper Illustrirte Zeitung wrote about her and also about other women doctors - Draga Ljočić, Darinka Maletić-Banković, Marija Vučetić-Prita and Ljubica Đurić. Dr. Eva Haljecka accepted Serbia as a new homeland and made it for her all that he could.

МІЖНАРОДНА СИТУАЦІЯ У ЧЕРВНІ-ЛИПНІ 1914 р. У ВИСВІТЛЕННІ ГАЗЕТИ «КИЕВЛЯНИНЪ»

The paper studies the ways in which international situation in June-July 1914 was covered by «Kiyevlianin», a daily influential newspaper published in Kyiv, then Russian Empire. This research focuses on the main international themes covered by the «Kiyevlianin» newspaper after assassination of Habsburg hair Archduke Franz Ferdinand, and until the Austro-Hungarian Note to Serbia was reported. The major focus of the study is international situation in the Balkans, especially the conflict between Austria-Hungary and Serbia, and Russian Empire’s Balkan policy. The author considers those days’ newspapers a valuable source for a historical research as they provided information while the events were ongoing, and their direction and outcomes were not known yet. The understanding of those days’ events by contemporaries may differ from later academic interpretations. For this reason, the study of these newspapers deepens our understanding of international situation before the Great War. The research has revealed that the Austro-Serbian conflict was only one of the numerous conflicts in the Balkans. The international situation on the peninsula dramatically changed after the Balkan wars of 1912-1913 in favor of Serbia, and the potential of further conflicts essentially increased. The reporters understood that any minor changes in the situation could trigger a new Balkan war. The major driving forces behind the Austro-Serbian conflict were “Great Serbian” idea, Serbia’s positioning as the “Piedmont” of Southern Slavs (at the expense of Austro-Hungary), and Russia’s Balkan policy. The latter was represented by the Russian envoy to Belgrade Nikolay Gartvig. According to him, backing of Serbia was caused by Russia’s geopolitical interests of anti-Austrian character. Russia’s backing in July 1914 prompted the Serbian regent Alexander not to comply with the Austro-Hungarian Note and to escalate the conflict. Thus, Russia’s pro-Serbian and anti-Austrian policy was the major factor which caused the war.

Antisrpski ratni manifest ili u koje se sve svrhe koriste tzv. nevladine organizacije

The German state propaganda service Deutche Welle (DW), recently published a new anti-Serb war manifesto, also reported by the daily press in the Republic of Croatia. The aim of the document, whose basic ideas do not belong to the person interviewed, is the creation of conditions which would favor the breakout of a new Balkan war, primarily in the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina, through the dissolution of the Republic of Serbia, treated incorrectly in the text as the "spoils of war" of Serbia. The purpose of the text is the weakening of the geopolitical position of Serbia through the following: 1) the severing of ties with the Serb population living in former Yugoslav republics (B&H, Montenegro); 2) the accepting of an unfavorable institutional solution for the Republic of Srpska through amendments to the Dayton-Paris peace agreement, whose guarantor is Serbia, as the successor of the FRY and Serbia & Montenegro; 3) the accepting of an unfavorable institutional solution for AP Kosovo and Metohija, whose status, until otherwise changed, is determined by Resolution 1244 of the UN Security Council; 4) the dragging of Serbia into North Atlantic integrations despite continued objections of Serbs to the idea and its proclaimed policy of military neutrality; 5) the breaking up of friendly relations and close cooperation of the Republic of Serbia with the Russian Federation and the People's Republic of China, which would cost our country the loss of the ability to defend almost all its vital state interests, including its territorial integrity and sovereignty, aside from losing the friendship of those who have in various situations come to our country's aid. According to the originator of this anti-Serb war manifesto, coerced, humiliated, and punished (unjustly), Serbia and the Serbs have the right to expect European integrations.

New Perspectives on Contemporary Austrian Literature and Culture ed. by Katya Krylova

Reviewed by: New Perspectives on Contemporary Austrian Literature and Culture ed. by Katya Krylova Helga Schreckenberger New Perspectives on Contemporary Austrian Literature and Culture. Edited by Katya Krylova. Oxford: Peter Lang, 2018. Pp. 440. Cloth $90.95. ISBN 978-304319843. The volume of sixteen essays grew out of the international conference "Contemporary Austrian Literature, Film, and Culture" held at the University of Nottingham in 2015. The aim of this conference was to examine how various shifts in Austrian society over the past thirty years find their expression in Austrian literature and culture. Indeed, starting with the Waldheim Affair of 1986–1988 that initiated the long-overdue confrontation with the country's Nazi past, Austrian society has undergone a number of important transformations. The Balkan Wars (1991–2001) and the collapse of the Eastern Bloc countries in the late 1980s and early 1990s, as well as Austria's entry into the European Union in 1995, led to increased immigration. The influx of migrants caused a nationalistic backlash and the rise of populist right-wing Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ), leading to its inclusion in two coalition governments with the conservative Austrian People's Party (ÖVP) in 2000 and 2017. As the editor of the volume, Katya Krylova, points out, Austrian writers, filmmakers, and cultural practitioners, who were the driving forces behind the protest movement against Kurt Waldheim's presidency and his attempts to diminish his involvement with the Nazi war machine, [End Page 221] have continued in this role. They rallied against the populist anti-immigration referendum of the right-wing Austrian Freedom Party in 1992/93 and protested against the FPÖ's presence in the government and against the current coalition's policies. As this volume shows, these political and social events have been refracted in Austrian literature and culture. Krylova has grouped the contributions in three parts, emphasizing their interconnectedness and highlighting points of comparison and contrast. The first part, "Austria and the World: Transnational Perspectives," focuses on works and authors with a transnational perspective. This includes changing representations of the Middle East in postwar literature (Dagmar Lorenz); Ruth Beckermann's recent documentary films, the 2011 road movie American Passages and her 2013 exploration of the European migrant crisis Those Who Go Those Who Stay (Katya Krylova); and Robert Menasse's fictional and nonfictional analysis of the European Union (Valentina Serra). The articles in part 2, "Space, Place, and Boundary Crossing in Contemporary Austrian Literature and Film," analyze ways in which films and texts claim, occupy, and subvert spaces. This includes the adaptation of the Western film genre for foregrounding the injustices of migration policies in films by Erwin Wagenhofer, Anja Salomonowitz, Florian Flicker, and Andreas Prohaska (Nikhil Sathe); the negotiation of both national borders and those between groups in Felix Mitterer's Verkaufte Heimat (Ursula Schneider/Annette Steinsiek), the importance of topography for identity constructions in Anna Kim's novels (Silke Schwaiger); and the destruction of boundaries in the texts of Thomas Bernhard and Ernst Jandl (Lydia Hayder). "Confronting the Nazi Past," the third part, demonstrates that this topic has not lost its currency for Austrian writers. The contributions in this part focus on family novels (Magdolna Orosz) and "Grossmutterliteratur" (Petra Bagley), which examine forms of personal and historical memories. In addition, Robert Schindel's novels Gebürtig (1992) and Der Kalte (2013) are read as attempts of historicizing the 1980s akin to Balzac's comédie humaine (Joseph Moser). The final article offers a convincing, clear-sighted analysis of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra's flawed attempt to shed light on its activities during the Nazi era and restore its image as "national treasure" (Lauren Freede). This volume certainly does justice to its title and it impresses with those articles that offer innovative approaches and nuanced readings of the texts. Particularly successful in this regard is Anne-Marie Scholz's contrasting Ilse Aichinger's autobiographical text Film und Verhängnis. Blitzlichter auf ein Leben (2001) with the tourist industry's narrative about the film The Third Man. Brigitte Timmermann, founder of the Third Man tour, uses the cult film to forge a modernist high cultural conception of Austria that shifts away from the country's collaboration with Nazi Germany...

Dr Dragoljub Đorđević (1866-1942) osnivač i prvi šef Očnog odeljenja Okružne bolnice u Nišu

Ophthalmologist Dr. Dragoljub Djordjević born on 29 December 1866, Belgrade (Serbia), and died on 20 January 1942 Belgrade (Yugoslavia). Author of the ophthalmology in Niš, the founder and first chief of the District Hospital eye department in Niš, the second eye department head of the General State Hospital in Belgrade, a warrior of the Balkan wars and the First World War, the holder of numerous war awards and decorations. He graduated from the Faculty of Medicine in Vienna 1893. The first job is received in Niš decree of August 4th 1894 when he was appointed fizikusa Niš district, district of Pirot. Specialization from eye diseases Dr Dragoljub Djordjević began 1894 in the eye clinic in Vienna (Austria-Hungary Empire), which quickly left and returned in Niš (Serbia), where at the hospital in Nis and the Military Hospital in Niš, diagnosed, treated and surgical treated eye disorders. Specialization from eye diseases finished 1903 by professor Dr. Ernst Fuchs with the University Eye Clinic in Vienna. He was appointed the first Chief District Hospital eye department in Niš 1910, which contains the full 16th voluntarily years, with interruptions during the wars. Dr Dragoljub Djordjević 1919 was appointed head of the second eye department of the State General Hospital in Belgrade. His knowledge of ophthalmology unselfish was conveyed to his student Dr. Zdravko Nižetić known by ophthalmologists ceratoplastics.

Tatars and Imperialist Wars: From the Tsar's Servitors to the Red Warriors

Drawing on the accounts of Tatar soldiers and Muslim chaplains as well as the Tatar press, this article probes the ways in which the Russo-Turkish War, Russo-Japanese War, and the Balkan Wars shaped Volga-Ural Muslim literati discourse concerning citizenship, the nation's body and soul, and its fates in a growingly violent world order. It concludes that all these elements were crucial to Tatar political workers of the Red Army for finding solutions to their coreligionists' sufferings from the imperialist wars in Bolshevik class universalism, which drove their fellow soldiers from the Great War to the Civil War.

Uloga služenja vojnog roka u razvoju srpske strateške kulture

The general obligation to do military service in Serbia was introduced in the second half of the 19th century with the national standing army. The authors show that this obligation has played an important role in the development of the Serbian strategic culture in the young modern Serbian state, but also in encouraging the Serbian military and political elite to hear the "whisper" of the Serbian social character and understand those structures of national culture that are important, perhaps determinative, for what is today called strategic culture. The development of the Serbian strategic culture has been considered through the analysis of the actions of two differently directed, but complementary currents, one being marked as elitist, and the other one as structuralist. Regardless of the obvious differences, both currents are important for the establishment of the Serbian military doctrine, at the dawn of the 20th century, before the historical storm of the Balkan wars and the First World War. The obligation to do military service was maintained until the Decision on the suspension of the obligation to do military service, which was passed by the National Assembly in December 2010. Having in mind that the Republic of Serbia has made the decision to be military neutral, the authors suggest that the reconsideration of the decision to suspend the obligation to do military service is a logical consequence of this choice. The decision on military neutrality requires not only that others (the international community) respect such a decision of a state, but also the respect within the state itself. This means that a state that aspires to neutrality does not give up on defending its own values or handing them over to the others at the mercy and/or protection, but establishes (or preserves) the ability to credibly defend its identity and values. The burden of the consequences of this decision is even harder because it does not count on military alliances. The neutral countries in Europe base their ability of credible defense mainly on the concept of total defense, but it also implies a large number of citizens trained for the military tasks and the tasks of civil protection, which calls for the obligation to do military service. At the same time, military service is the best way for citizens to understand the impact of the decision on military neutrality, but also to accept it as their own free choice and a part of a collective identity. Thus, the obligation to do military service remains an important fulcrum point of the state in actively shaping its strategic culture.

Isa Boljetinac i mladoturski režim

At the beginning of the 20th century, the Ottoman Empire started weakening largely. This weakening was influenced by difficult economic situation accompanied by stronger diplomatic activities of the European powers. Wishing to save the state from the collapse, the Young Turk movement had forced the Sultan Abdul Hamid to concession, which led to changes on the throne. The Young Turks reinforced their activity in all parts of the Ottoman Empire and many great plans lied ahead, which had foreseen reform of the state and society including internal consolidation of the country as well. The Young Turk regime representatives propagated the idea of equality of all people, which would have the same rights and duties as well. The ideas and work of the Young Turks came across a resistance of some Albanian leaders, among which was Isa Boljetinac, known as per his crimes over Serbian population of Mitrovica casa. He was known as an influential man and he enlarged his activity out of this territory, which often served, after numerous conflicts with Turkish authorities, as the hideout. As the prominent opponent of the Young Turk regime, the conflict with authorities and Albanian movements, which marked that time, was experienced as the struggle for old privileges such as: carrying of arms, non-paying of taxes, non-interference of Turkish authorities into their relationships and, especially, non-service in the army. Determination to persist in the struggle for the return of privileges led Isa Boljetinac to get in touch with the consul of the Kingdom of Serbia in Priština, from whom he requested arms, munitions, and money. Consul thought that the fulfilment of his requests had influenced the improvement of the position of Serbs and eventually some subsequent support so that he had approved of them. Nevertheless, before the outbreak of the Balkan Wars, Isa was not clear in his answers and it was evident it could not be counted on his alliance.

Shifting state loyalty: The case of an officer Şerefeddin or Milan Milovanovic?

The paper, drawing primarily on archival material located in Austria, Montenegro, Serbia and Turkey, examines the lifeworld of an Ottoman officer, ?erefeddin, who in the midst of the Balkan Wars (1912/13), after accepting Christianity, voluntarily joined the army of the Kingdom of Serbia. By relying on the theoretical concept of loyalty, the essay claims that loyalty towards state is not given and fixed, but rather is subject to change. It indicates in particular that ?erefeddin?s decision to join the enemy army is context-driven and thus should be imbedded in the momentary setting. It pursues to show how a person amid war is nevertheless able successfully to adjust to a new emerging context. This case should not be co understood as a typical biography, but rather as an episodic one because similar cases are noticeable in different settings worldwide as well.

What was Leon Trotsky writing about volunteers in the Balkan Wars of 1912–1913?

What was Leon Trotsky writing about volunteers in the Balkan Wars of 1912–1913?

Early Byzantine Baldenheim-Type Helmets in the Dnieper Region

Introduction. Recent finds of Baldenheim-type helmets in the Dnieper (Klimovsk district of Bryansk region, Boldyzhsky Forest and Cherkasy region) indicate the proliferation of prestigious weapons in the territory of the Kolochin and Penkovka cultures, that is, in the zone of settlement of Slavs in the post-Hun time. Helmets of this type are well known in Europe, both in the West, primarily among the Merovingians, and in the Balkan-Danube region, and in the Mediterranean from the second half of the 5th to the second half of the 6th centuries, though most of the finds fall on the period from the late 5th to the mid 6th cc. These helmets, at least in part, were of Byzantine origin. In general, Baldenheim-type helmets are few in number and in Western and Central Europe come mainly from “chief” graves, and in the Byzantine zone from cultural deposits in fortresses and cities. Analysis and Results. Helmets found in Eastern Europe show similarities with both helmets from Western Europe and helmets found in the Balkan-Danube region and in the Mediterranean. Given the historical situation of the time, it seems more logical to assume that Eastern European helmets were of Balkan-Danube origin. Obviously, in Eastern Europe, these helmets belong to the ruling military elite. It is possible that Baldenheimtype helmets fell into the hands of the Slavs as a result of the Danube and Balkan wars of the 6th century against the Eastern Roman Empire.

Evliliği Kolaylaştırmak: Geç Dönem Osmanlı’da İzdivaç İlanları

Bu makale, İkinci Meşrutiyet döneminde Musavver Malumat-ı Nafia dergisi, Vakit gazetesi ve İzdivaç dergisinde yayımlanan evlilik ilanları üzerinden geç dönem Osmanlı’da ilan vasıtasıyla evlilik arayışının sosyo-ekonomik ve kültürel bağlamını tartışmayı amaçlamaktadır. Bu çerçevede, ilan vasıtasıyla evliliği ortaya çıkaran koşulları, Osmanlı siyasi otoritelerinin teshil-i izdivaç (evliliği kolaylaştırma) politikasını, ilan vasıtasıyla evliliğin Osmanlı toplumunda nasıl algılandığını ve meşrulaştırıldığını, servet, maişet ve tarz-ı hayata dair malumat ile şekillenen izdivaç ilanlarının içeriğini ve bağlamını irdelemektedir. On dokuzuncu yüzyıl boyunca devam eden ve yirminci yüzyılın başlarında pek çok köklü değişime neden olan modernleşme süreci, matbuat ve tedrisat alanında yaşanan gelişmeler, Balkan Savaşları ve Birinci Dünya Savaşı bu değişimin en etkili dinamikleri arasındadır. Bu makale, izdivaç ilanlarının içeriğinde, adayların evlilik telakkilerinde, kendilerini tanıtma biçimlerinde ve karşı taraftan beklentilerinde ortaya çıkan çeşitliliğin geç dönem Osmanlı siyasi ve toplumsal hayatında yaşanan hızlı ve dramatik değişim ve dönüşümü birçok açıdan yansıttığını iddia etmektedir.