Balkan Worlds II: Balkan Perceptions of War and Revolution (1789-1918)

The “Long nineteenth century” ended with the First World War and the War ended with a Revolution, in an exact reversal of the way this age opened. In 1789, a Revolution prompted a massive realignment of international power relations through the Napoleonic Wars, while in 1914 the international state system created by the Holy Alliance a century earlier collapsed and a new alternative arose from the destruction of Tsarist absolutism. The Department of Balkan, Slavic and Oriental Studies, University of Macedonia participating in commemoration of the centenary of the outbreak of the Great War and aiming to repeat the successful experience of the first “Balkan Worlds” conference in 2012 is organizing a follow up event entitled “Balkan Worlds II: Balkan Perceptions of War and Revolution”, scheduled for November 27-30, 2014 at the University of Macedonia, Thessaloniki. The Conference will be dedicated to ways of perceiving the Great Wars and Revolutions which marked the history of Europe and the world by Balkan intellectuals, politicians, writers, activists etc. More specifically, the Conference Scientific Committee is interested in presentations focused on how representatives of the major ideological movements of the Enlightenment and Romanticism perceived relationships between war and revolution in the Ottoman Balkans and their relation with the emergence of nation-state building.

More specifically, the topics of the Conference will be focused on the relations of the War and Revolution with:

• the transformation of political, national and religious identities
• the problem of social change and social mechanics
• the problem of technological change
• the problem of utopias and dystopias
• the idealization of violence
• the militarization of society

The Conference Scientific Committee members are:

1. Tom Gallant (University of California, San Diego)
2. Molly Greene (Princeton University)
3. Rossitsa Gradeva (American Univesity, Sofia)
4. Mark Mazower (Columbia University)
5. Dimitris Stamatopoulos (University of Macedonia, Thessaloniki)
6. M. Hakan Yavuz (University of Utah, Salt Lake)

The keynote lecture will be delivered by Prof. Jonathan Israel (Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton)

The working language of the Conference will be English.

We welcome individual proposals for 20-minute presentations.

Deadline for abstracts – July 31^st 2014

Notification of acceptance – August 31^st 2014

Deadline for papers – October 31^st 2012

Please include the following information with your proposal: I) full title of paper, II) abstract (200-300 words), III) name, IV) institutional affiliation, V) short CV, VI) telephone, fax, e-mail.

It is expected that travel costs will be covered by speakers’ affiliated institutions. Accommodation expenses in Thessaloniki will be covered by the Conference budget.

Best regards,

Dimitris Stamatopoulos
Associate Professor in Balkan and Late Ottoman History
Dept. of Balkan, Slavic and Oriental Studies
University of Macedonia
156 Egnatia Str.
54006 Thessaloniki
Greece