The rise of the Balkan Nationalism(s)
The Balkans have been “notorious” in the recent decades. The root of this notoriety goes back to the late eighteenth century. The disintegration of the Ottoman Empire met its final stages with the First Balkan War (1912). This was quickly followed by the Second Balkan War (1913), between the recent allies: each of them a newly founded nation-state that vied to carve out as much territory as they could within their own respective borders. (Cf. Hakan and Blumi 2013)
This development was mainly due to the emergence of two parallel phenomena. The first grew out of the Balkans’ geography as a link between Asia and Europe, and therefore a “borderline”. Beginning with Diocletian’s decision to divide the Roman empire along the region in 285 AD (Kriještorac 2018, p. 247), a decision that was fully implemented after the death of Theodosius I in the late fourth century, Balkan borders kept moving according to the advances or withdrawals of various military powers.
The second phenomenon resulted from the first: a religious rivalry between two Christian metropoles which ended in two major Christian confessions and formalised by the so-called “Great Schism” from 1054. This “division” remained even with the expansion of the Ottoman Empire in the Balkans in the fourteenth century and became the border that delimited the Ottoman’s permanent reach within Europe.
By the early nineteenth century the indigenous peoples of the Balkans started uprisings with the aim of becoming independent states (Cf. Glenny 2017). The Western powers of the time were keen to make sure that what emerged in the Balkans would suit their respective interests. An assured way of achieving this was to engage different peoples in the Balkans who were awakening to their own national identities in proxy wars. Britain, Austro-Hungary, and Russia offered and withdrew military support to certain people groups, not so much with the goal to help them establish their own country, but to prevent each other from gaining decisive advantage. A case in point is the San-Stefano Treaty that the Russians crafted in favor of Bulgaria, only to be significantly altered with the Congress of Berlin by the pressure of Britain and Austro-Hungary (Vangelov 2012, p. 8)
“The Orthodox Church, the main confession for the Christian people groups in the Balkans, played a key role in the creation of the Balkan nation states.”
The Orthodox Church, the main confession for the Christian people groups in the Balkans, played a key role in the creation of the Balkan nation states. It was with this purpose that the Serbian and Bulgarian political and religious elite put great efforts to establish independent churches that were not under direct jurisdiction of the Patriarch in Constantinople. They did this so they could claim for themselves the people who belonged to a given church for the respective nation, Greek, Serbian, or Bulgarian. Initially this tendency was very worrying for the Patriarch in Constantinople. A synod in 1872 condemned “ethno-phyletism”, a statement reiterated in 1904 as a part of a wider denunciation of nationalism as incompatible with the Orthodox faith (Groen 1998, p. 115, based on Mansi 1961). If the Ecumenical Patriarchate had a vision of an independent political entity, it would have been much more the renewal of the Eastern Roman Empire (alias Byzantine Empire) rather than the creation of several nation-states with competing ecclesiastical structures.
The opposite tendencies emerged because of the direct interference of Western powers, the resurgence of a romanticised view of Byzantine history as an uninterrupted continuation of ancient Hellenism, and the utilization of the non-Greek speaking secular and religious elite of the Orthodox Church towards the creation of a distinctly modern nation. This process was accelerated during the Two World Wars and the Greek civil war, as well as the Civil wars and armed conflicts in Former Yugoslavia. Religion (Islam vs Christianity), Confession (Roman Catholicism vs Eastern Orthodoxy), and Liturgy (Eastern Orthodox language groups against each other), have been used for nationalistic ends, with the emerging Balkan nation-states following the examples of the established Western nation states.
Secular intellectuals and ecclesiastical leaders envisioned their own respective people group as individual nations within established borders and distinguished by a common government, army, language, and religion or confession. After two Balkan wars (1912-13), the WWI (1914-18) and the Turko-Greek war (1919-1922) the national revivalist movements within various language and ethnic groups took a course from which there was no way back.
If this nationalist revival was a vision of the educated secular and religious elite, that cannot be said for the ordinary people of whom the vast majority were illiterate. They were so far from the then modern idea of nationalism that they often could not understand what was meant by the term “Greek”, “Serb”, “Macedonian” or “Bulgarian” (Mazower 2000, p. 50). The use of violence was a way to make sure that the people responded towards a desired declaration of nationality. It served the dual purpose of forcing a community to identify themselves with the preferred nationality and to require “protection” from the violence of a competing terrorist group (Arisan 2019, p. 396). These “nation-building” movements competed in claiming territory and people through instigating a liturgical language in accordance with the projected nation. This artificial process included the Christian population only. In principle there was no place for Muslims even of Slavic origin who were considered “Turks”. Conversion to Islam in the Slavic languages is often described as to be “Turkified”.
“The use of violence was a way to make sure that the people responded towards a desired declaration of nationality”
Accordingly, until 1912 the vision of the political and military elite of the Ottoman Empire was to incorporate all ethnic, language, and religious groups into the nationhood of “Ottomanism” (Uzer 2019, p. 364). Its outcome with the devastating loss of territory primarily in the Balkans, contributed towards the creation of what later become the “Republic of Turkey” with the Turkish nation as the leading element of it. The idea in essence was to take ethnicity as the foundational building block for the establishment of an independent state.
These geo-political circumstances of the Balkans have created a specific “ethno-nationalism”. It combines the aspiration of the Balkan peoples to create nation-states like those which emerged a century earlier in Western Europe, while rejecting its liberalism. It is a contradiction in terms that nevertheless is kept together. On the one hand the modern features of statehood are sought to be implemented, and on the other hand the accompanying features such as secularism, individualism, identity politics, disintegration of the extended family relations, focus on profit, and work-obsession, are seen as detrimental (Musabegović 2019, p. 375).
Foundational elements of “ethno-nationalism” usually include a romanticised view of a supposed “golden age”, a vision for its revival, political and religious conservatism, ethnic puritanism, clearly defined borders from other surrounding peoples, claiming original indigeneity and a “black and white” historic revisionism in which one’s nation is a victim, and the others are the villains. This applies to the immediate contenders for the people and the territory, i.e., the “interior other”, or as Balibar calls it the “interior enemy” (Balibar 2007, p. 239) and to the great powers to be. No wonder “ethno-nationalism” has been a fertile soil for conspiracy theories. These factors apply not only in the case of peoples with a different religion or confession, but also for those who share it. A case in point is the Second Balkan War which was waged by three emerging Eastern Orthodox nations for the territory in which was emerging a fourth one, namely, Bulgarians, Greeks, Serbs, and Macedonians. Once this political outlook took root in the Balkans it led to a century long rivalry that exploded into bloody violence every few decades or so.
If the beginning of the twentieth century produced several modern Balkan states during and in the aftermath of the fall of the Ottoman Empire, the last decade of it and the beginning of the twenty-first century produced somewhat redefined Balkan states in the aftermath of the end of the Cold War and the disintegration of Yugoslavia. The spirits of the remote and recent past were awakened. The pursuit of maximalist claims for people and territories became popular again. Each of the Balkan nations aspired to extend their state borders within whichever territory was inhabited by those who shared their language and ethnicity. As a result, the central and southern parts of Yugoslavia were divided and partitioned by civil wars. Macedonia was spared from such bloodshed but the traditional contenders of its territory and population used political, economic, and religious means to achieve their own “ethno-national” goals.
“Nationalism can and has perverted Christian ideals by prioritising national interests over Kingdom principles of love, justice, and compassion for all”
Nationalism can and has perverted Christian ideals by prioritising national interests over Kingdom principles of love, justice, and compassion for all, thus misrepresenting the Gospel and hampering the church's mission. One such example is the respective view on the role of the Eastern Orthodox Church in the countries where the majority of the population belongs to this confession: the Eastern Orthodox church is considered crucial for the “survival” of a given nation within the Ottoman Empire.
Nationalism in the Balkans has had a tremendous impact on the Church and its mission, with far-reaching implications for gospel expansion. The intersection of nationalism and religious identity, particularly within the Eastern Orthodox context, has resulted in tensions, suspicions, and even persecution of individuals who disagree with the mainstream national narrative. This has hampered the church's capacity to execute its purpose of preaching love, justice, and compassion to all people, because nationalism prioritises national interests over Kingdom precepts. The establishing of national Eastern Orthodox churches has linked the Church with a respective nation's identity (Sekulic 2024, p. 4).
This has created barriers to unity and collaboration across ethnic and religious lines, compromising the Gospel's universality. Furthermore, the association of religious affiliation with national allegiance has resulted in the stigmatisation of those who have converted from one Christian confession to another one and portraying them as traitors to the national cause. In this setting, nationalism has warped the public view of Christianity, misrepresented its essential ideals, and hampered the effective proclamation of God's love and redemption for all people, regardless of nationality or ethnicity. As a result, the Balkan Christians from all confessional backgrounds must navigate the complex dynamics of nationalism while preserving the Gospel's inclusive and transforming message.
In light of the above, Christian witness in the Balkans needs to pay special attention to promote unity and reconciliation. This requires critical thinking with the emphasis on self-examination that allows people to “see” through the eyes of the other. The Balkans’ long history of interreligious and interconfessional harmony should be used as an example and a counterbalance to the stereotypical “balkanisation”, i.e., syndrome of a victim that perpetuates violent nationalisms.
This should go along with holistic evangelism that respects historical and cultural sensitivities, emphasises the inclusive nature of the Christian faith, and applies the apologetics of compassion as a way of “giving reason for one’s hope”, rather than refuting others’ arguments. To underline these good practices the witness of the contemporary Church in the Balkans must do what the early Christians did. They utilised creative communication for bridging cultural gaps so that the content of the message remained faithful to the Bible, and yet cultivated a langugage that resonated with the times and the given context.
An example from the New Testament is the text in Acts 17:26-24. It explains God’s main goal with the creation of ethnic groups or “nations” - that is to seek and find God by allotting them time and space. As a response to this Biblical vision for the nations, the Church must take the responsibility to preach and to live this truth in all times and all places. History has shown us that profiling, judgment, and subjective condemnation based on assumptions of religion and ethnicity leads to systemic and systematic prejudice and violence. Therefore, the Church must repent of idolatry manifested through nationalism and racism. Most of all in our times, the Church should repent from identifying the so called “our way of life” as a principle defense of “Christianity”.
In another text from the same book (Acts 21:27-36), Paul gives a timeless example of a genuine, transparent, tactful, skillful, and benevolent approach in acrimonious circumstances. In summary the text tells us about the hate and anger against Paul’s view of Gentiles, rejection of different ethnoracial backgrounds, assumption and conjecture of guilt without factual validation, and premature judgment and condemnation. The result is physical violence. To this exclusionary attitude, Paul's message of Christianity emphasises God's plan of salvation as inclusive and not contingent upon ethnicity. The message and the task for the Church in all times remains the same.
Kosta Milkov, Balkan Institute for Faith and Culture
Quoted Bibliography
Arisan M., 2019. “Violence as a Means of Nation-Building: The Case of the Balkans (1890-1913).” Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs 39 No 3: 395-410. https://doi.org/10.1080/13602004.2019.1654192 .
Balibar E., 2007. “Postface”, 237-242. In European Anti-Discrimination and the Politics ofCitizenship: Britain and France, ed. Christophe Bertossi, Basingstoke.
Glenny M., 2017. The Balkans, 1804-2012: Nationalism, War and the Great Powers, London.
Groen, J. B., 1998. “Nationalism and Reconciliation: Orthodoxy in the Balkans.” Religion, State & Society 26 No 2: 111-128.
Hakan М., Yavuz and I. Blumi., 2013. War and Nationalism: The Balkan Wars, 1912–1913,and Their Sociopolitical Implications, Salt Lake City.
Kriještorac M., 2018. “Imposing Particular Identities: The Balkans as a Meeting Place of Ethnicities and Religions.” Insight Turkey 20 No 3:241-264.
Mazower, M., 2000. The Balkans: A Short History. Michigan.
Sekulić B., 2024. “The Theology of the Ethnocultural Empathic Turn: Towards the Balkan Theology of Political Liberation.” Religions 15:191. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15020191.
Uzer U., 2019. “Ömer Seyfettin—The Balkan Wars, World War I, and His Criticism of Ottomanism and Minority Nationalisms.” Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs 39 No 3:356-371.
Vangelov O., 2012. Bulgaria’s Claims on the Macedonian Ethno-Linguistic Identity, Budapest.