balkan historians as state-builders

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Balkan Historians as State-Builders

BY DRITAN EGRO

Abstract

Historiography is a discourse deeply intertwined with politics. Therefore, it is erroneousto think that politicians live in a world free of politics and that the readers of theirwritings are likewise a byproduct of this politically pure world. Historiographycontinues even today to serve as the root source of nationalist ideologies and claims in allthe countries of the Balkan region. Hence, the Balkan political elites have consideredhistoriography of their nations as one of the ways of building a national state, somethingthat even the present-day reality has not yet refuted. What usually distinguishes thehistorian from the politician is that the historian has a good mastery of his knowledge,while the politician has confidence in the accomplishment of his political mission. Whenboth of them merge, the conviction emerges that shapes the intellectual strength of apeople.

When a Greek colleague asked me to write a paper wereby to analyze the narrative ofOttoman historiography in the 15th century, says Turkish historian Halil Berktay, I replied that I

would approach this issue in a critical fashion. The Greek colleague shook my hand for myintended critical approach to my country's historiography. But when I then told him that thefocus of my critical analysis would be both Turkish and Greek historiography, that did it as faras that project wentthe Turkish scholar concludes (Berktay 1993: 249).

In a region like the Balkans, such a thing should not take anyone by surprise, because in thisregion, history-writing, in some areas more and some areas less, continues to be an enterprise ofhigh political stakes (Clogg 1988: 29). Indeed, it will remain so for as long as several issuesremain unresolved and the legitimacy for the solution of which is sought in the historical past.In this context, the pen of the history and the scholar of national culture in this part of the worldshould be sharp and intelligent, so to distinguish the blood from red ink (Seton-Watson 1988:

14).Historiography is a discourse deeply intertwined with politics. So is the conscious effort toleave out the political dimension of historiography, or a given political stand. Therefore, it iserroneous to think that politicians live in a world free of politics and that the readers of theirwritings are likewise a byproduct of this politically "pure" world (Berktay and others 1993: 12).

DRITANEGRO is currently Associate Professor of History at the Center for Albanian Studies and the EuropeanUniversity of Tirana. He has published numerous articles on Albanian history and historiography, including a book,History and Ideology, in Albanian (2007).


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69), he has been credited with not only for publishing numerous historical publications,3 butalso for contributing to the scientific publication of Serbian medieval documentation(Novakovic 1898; Novakovic 1912).

Serbia, Greece and Bulgaria are Balkan states that have already celebrated the 150thanniversary of the foundation of their academies. Sponsored by their respective governments,

they have taken up projects for the long-term solution of their national questions. In fact, theirintellectual independence in the treatment of such issues has gone over and above the limit ofthe most advanced political thought of the time. In order to illustrate this with a concreteexample, we might say that the ideas expressed by the founder of Greek modern historiographyConstantinos Paparrigopoulos in his work History of the Greek People (6 vol., 1860-1872) were notonly taken into consideration by Greek contemporary politicians (Xydis 1969: 239), but eventoday his idea of partitioning the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia on an ethnic basisconstitutes part of Greek policy towards this issue (Jovanovski 2007: 195).

In order to get a deeper insight into this issue, I must present another significant fact relatedto the extreme role played by a historian and his work in the building of a national state.

Constantin Jirecek, a Balkan historian of Czech origin, renown for having written a history ofBulgaria, the first of its kind, in 1881 was appointed Minister of National Education of theBulgarian state. Albeit not a Bulgarian, Jirecek undertook the mission of consolidating nationalidentity, while during the second decade of the 20 th century, he held the post of the director ofthe Institute of Balkan Studies at Vienna University.

Different historic conditions and circumstances actually give rise to various concerns andintensities in the way history is lived and national conscience is formed, but they also affecthistoriography, including that of the Balkan Peninsula. Albanians, both Muslims andChristians, embarked on the path of creating their independent state without the officialendorsement of any of the Great Powers. Hence, Albanian national identity was moulded and

developed side by side the danger of their elimination from the scene of history. In this context,nationalism in historiography and the use of history, more than a momentary intellectual trend,were a response of Albanian historiography to the political circumstances of that time, withinand outside the country.

While the other Balkan countries had the opportunity to form their professional caste ofhistorians much earlier, thanks to their earlier independence from the Ottoman state, in Albaniathe responsibility for national historiography fell exclusively on the shoulders of political actors.In order to make up for lost time, the best and shortest path to ensure the legitimacy of the newstate was for its protagonists to write its history. The politicians, the bureaucrats, and theeconomists of Albania were also those personalities that had the necessary historical education

to fill in the gap created by the lack of professional historians up to 1946, the year when thisprofession was actually institutionalized.The example of Mehdi Frashri is the best case in point to illustrate this phenomenon. In his

books, he stressed his analyses of Albanian problems, explaining them through his optics of

3 For his scientific activity in the field of history, historical geography, and history of literature, again see:D. Djordjevi, Stojan Novakovi: Historian, Politician, and Diplomat, pp. 51-69; see, in particular, thebibliographic notes at the end of the article, p. 66-69.


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history and national values underlining the national aspirations of Albania (Frashri 1944;Frashri 1943). With the distinct vision of a statesman, he conducted some original studies onthe most crucial moments in the history of Albania, such as that of the Prizren League (Frashri1927), although part of his intellectual and patriotic interests were also economic topics such asthe agricultural perspective of Albania (Frashri 1934). Mehdi Frashri attempted to also write a

broad history of Albania, of which he managed to publish only the first volume (Frashri 1928).In the meantime, he was the political personality who in 1934, translated into Albanian andprepared the very precious notes to the first document of Albanian nationalism: The truth aboutAlbania and the Albanians (Istanbul, 1789) by Pashko Vasa.

Following 1945, the organized meeting of history with politics was embodied in the figureof historian Aleks Buda. He was the chairman of the Academy of Sciences from its veryfoundation and the historian who represented the ideological line of its development. Here weshould point out that Prof. Buda lived and acted at a time when the Albanian Communist State,instead of working for the benefit of its national interests, tried to channel Albanological studiesalong ideological lines. The objective of national history was not to legitimize national interests,

but to work in the function of the consolidation of that form of government established throughthe force of arms at the end of the World War II. At a time like that, a scholar of national historycould not afford to challenge the ideological aspect of the regime. Aleks Buda never became apolitician, but he had to grapple with the state political pressure and his historian's conscience,which knew of more than just the past of his country. In Buda's writings, we note a duality ofthoughts, but he managed to do that with great elegance in order to remain within the hard lineof the communist regime. On the other hand, he was the only one that could express with theauthority of the head of Albanological science, albeit very elegantly, opinions that for otherhistorians were forbidden. His solid historical formation and very good use of Albanianlanguage enabled him in some instances to write in an ambiguous style. Nevertheless, this form

of ambiguous writing, which never expressed what he thought personally, explan why Budanever assumed the role of a political dissident, but at the same time, why he was not classifiedas an out and out political conformist.

In real fact, what usually distinguishes the historian from the politician is that the historianhas a good mastery of knowledge, while the politician has confidence in the accomplishment ofhis political mission. When both of them merge, the conviction emerges that shapes theintellectual strength of a people.

However, some national histories are less mythical than others, but it would be crazy tothink that there are national histories that are free of any myths. Historians define the historicalrights, the arguments for which revolve round the imperative need to redefine the borders and

the world of a populist idea referred to as Golden Age (Pearton 1988: 160). In this context, thequestion what is history, in terms of its usage and meaning, when transforming into thequestion of who orders the making of history, becomes a problematic instrument. Thisconstitutes a demarcation line that, if trespassed, makes history a "dangerous" science (Jenkins1997: 38). The dangerousness of history or its being a problematic propaganda tool carries initself the misuse of history for genuine political objectives, as the case was with former SerbianPrime Minister Vladan Djordjevi (1897-1900), who in a study on Albanians, describes themas people with tails (Djordjevic 1928). This book, written to delegitimize the existence of


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Albanians in the Balkans, came out in 1913 with the view to provide moral motivation to theSerb people during the Balkan Wars.

Unlike many other social disciplines, history is a science that easily appeals to theindividual. In fact, reaching out to the society is the fundamental objective of historiography.History will continue to arouse interest for as long as it continues to shed light on the past of the

world and, especially, on events that linked with the process of identity formation of theindividual or certain groupings of people. With this specific feature, to this day, historycontinues to be the laboratory of human sciences (Kongar 2006: 11).

The thing that makes a people really a people is the reciprocal relationship that existsbetween the historical conscience and the process of teaching national history in schools(Bozkurt 1993: 28-30). A society that does not turn out from its learned people, who generatereal ideas, cannot develop and become a nation (Bozkurt 1993: 45-46).

Books written by historians have been and continue to be essential elements for the creationof an elite political culture in society, because they write about true events that have taken placein the past, making prognoses for the future. In this context, a mature state would appreciate

the opinions of such a class of intellectuals. I think that it is high time for Albanians too to readwell Viktor Hugos words, Instead of the rulers, we should cast our eyes towards the thinkers,and the country should shake when one of them departs from this world (quoted in Zweig2001: 449).

References

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Berktay, Halil, Huricihan slamolu-nan, alar Keyder and skender Savar. 1993. Tarih veKapitalizm, Defter, (Bahar / Yaz).

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balkan historians as state-builders

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