Wednesday, June 26, 2013
5.59 (PC Hoofthuis)
The Balkan Federation project envisioned by the Agrarian Prime Minister of Bulgaria following the First World War, Alexander Stamboliisky, contained competing visions of Europe, modernization, revolution, and nationhood. This federal project sought to redefine national identities and by extension economic relationships so as to create a new Balkan state which would allow for Western European style modernization to be built upon an agrarian economy. Implicit in this project was the idea that the Balkans were capable of modernizing just as the rest of Europe had done, albeit in a fundamentally different way. The aim was to join Europe and remain apart from it, to reject its wars, industrialization, and nationalism while embracing its infrastructure and quality of life. Stamboliisky thereby rejected the notion of revolution, embracing a more organic notion of his own movement and its role in history. In this selective rejection and embracing of Europe, Stamboliisky set himself apart from not only other political factions in Bulgaria but from many other Agrarian movements in the region. Rejecting the rhetoric of revolution the movement sought to set itself apart from other revolutionary movements of that era as well as to embrace the idea of its own historical inevitability. Finally, by deemphasizing ethnic and linguistic nationalism in favour of identities based more on rational economic ties and the cultural similarities which follow the movement sought to selectively embrace Europe. Viewing all of these elements we can see questions which remain in the study of Europe today. How many Europes are there? Can the old vision of nationhood in Europe survive the 21stcentury? Must movements avoid the rhetoric of revolution so as to obtain political legitimacy? The connections between these questions and the tumultuous politics of inter-war Balkan Agrarianism are important in understanding the evolving relationship between the Balkans and Europe.
