The SEEIIA proudly presents an interview with one of the most distinguished scholars born in south east Europe

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The SEEIIA proudly presents an interview with one of the most distinguished scholars born in south east Europe (Bulgaria), Maria Todorova. Dr. Todorova needs no credentials for her scholarly work and constitutes an example to younger scholars. The SEEIIA would like to thank her not only for this interview but for her overall contribution to the world academic community.

1. Do you think the nation-state is the most appropriate (in terms of stability, peace and security) form of social and political arrangement in southeastern Europe or is there space for the establishment of multiethnic societies?

I don’t know whether it is the most appropriate or not, but it clearly has been the dominant one in the 19^th and especially in the 20^th century, and not only in Southeastern Europe but all over the continent. To break down your question, it may be partly valid for the 19^th century when there were also other contending forms of organization, especially empires – the Ottoman, the Habsburg, the Romanov – all of which to a greater or lesser extent exercised control or influence over the Balkans. I do not think, however, that they presented a viable alternative to the nation-state for at least two reasons. Firstly, the national idea in the 19^th century had a tremendous emancipatory potential and therefore strong popular support. Secondly, in the great power rivalry of the 19^th century and until World War I, the continental empires were vanquished and collapsed (the Ottoman and Habsburg completely, the Russia regrouping itself into the USSR). The victorious nation-states of Europe, some of which themselves represented or aspired to the status of overseas empires, lost their imperial domains after World War II. Nowadays, with empires safely stuck away in textbooks, one can observe a curious imperial nostalgia. True, nation states are clearly not the ideal configuration for dealing with ethnic difference but it seems they have been somewhat more accommodating toward religious and/or social difference. After all, the time of the spread of nation-states – the 19^th and 20^th centuries – is the time of secularization, democracy and mass politics, with all their positive as well as negative repercussions. Let us not forget that the urge to do away with difference which resulted in assimilatory politics aiming at social homogeneity was propelled by the egalitarian French Revolution which pioneered the first modern nation-state in Europe.

As for whether there is space for multiethnic societies, despite the long assimilatory urges, practically no societies in Europe are monoethnic. So the problem has to be rephrased: it concerns not the establishment of multiethnic societies (they exist anyway) but their careful regulation and institutionalization. Supranational regions (of which the EU can be seen as one overarching example) seem to be the way not so much to do away with nation-states but rather to reshape them in such a fashion as to make their stake in ethnic homogeneity redundant.

2. Do you share the view that southeastern Europe has been used as a political guinea pig over history, a battlefield of antagonism amongst powerful intruding actors? Do we have empirical evidence supporting or rejecting this view?

Yes and yes. Southeastern Europe has been more often than not a subject of power plays completely extraneous to the interests of its inhabitants rather than an agent of its own fate, and there is overwhelming evidence to support that. The whole historiography dealing with Southeastern Europe from the Eastern Question until today illustrates this abundantly and unambiguously, no matter whether it is written by Balkan nationals or outsiders. A good recent popular account is Misha Glenny’s “The Balkans, 1804-1999. Nationalism, War and the Great Powers.”

The issue is not in doubting these propositions but in how to deal with this predicament in the most flexible way and how to articulate it so as to avoid at least two disastrous consequences. One is the tendency to feel a doomed pawn in the hands of outside forces and not make any effort to take one’s fate into one’s own hands. The second is the trend, especially among politicians, to avoid responsibility for their actions with the excuse of constrained or no agency. The famous victim complex in the Balkans has manifested itself in both these tendencies.

3. To what extent does Balkan history and its national versions (the way it is taught in the Balkan states) reproduce hostility amongst Balkan peoples?

There has been, in the past decade, a kind of history textbook euphoria, especially in the Balkan region. It stems from partly intellectual, partly practical considerations. The intellectual ones are based on the justified belief that history teaching shapes attitudes of generations toward their own and their neighbors’ past, and can thus have a formative influence on political and other behavior. The practical considerations, while not necessarily invalidating the intellectual ones, consist in the fact that textbook writing and research have become lately a legitimate and paying source of revenue for intellectuals. I believe that too much premium has been put on textbook production and its influence. After all, in reality the best textbook becomes useless paper in the hands of a bad teacher, and conversely, the worst textbook can become an excellent educational tool (if only as a negative illustration) in the hands of a good teacher.

In addition, it has to be said that historical knowledge not only in the Balkans but elsewhere, when it professionalized itself in the 19^th century, has been primarily in the service of the nation-state. That does not make it by definition extreme, xenophobic, etc. In fact, even as its dominant goal is the cultivation of national identity and national loyalty, it can also be imbued with the values of tolerance. However, what it demonstrates is the subordinate role of history education. History writing to a lesser extent but history education to a great extent lags behind politics. Granted, history education does reproduce hostility but it does not produce it. I hope I am not misunderstood here: I do believe it is important to improve history education and I think historical research can be emancipated from its subordinate role in service of the nation-state. I am just cautioning that this is not the panacea which will solve the Balkan’s problems.

4. What is the role of southeast European intellectuals in the quest for intra-Balkan cooperation? To this day, have they lived up to southeast European peoples’ expectations?

This depends on how you define intellectuals. After all, many Balkan politicians have also been intellectuals. And they represent the whole spectrum: from extreme, exclusivist nationalists to genuine internationalists. So the role and record of Southeast European intellectuals vis-a-vis intra-Balkan cooperation has been diverse, complex and contradictory. In this sense the question of whether they have lived up to their nations expectations is unrealistic and maybe even somewhat naive. It presumes that these nations, like individuals, have definite and unanimous, let alone noble, expectations. This, of course, is not the case. In different periods, different segments of the nations have been coopted to one or another view, usually promoted by intellectuals and politicians and have in consequence propelled one or another of these intellectuals and politicians to important social and political positions (in the cases of democratic electoral traditions). Naturally, in autocratic regimes, the link between the expectations of groups within the nation and public intellectuals and/or politicians in power is more or less severed. Yet, democracy or authoritarianism have no monopoly over good intra-Balkan relations. The autocratic regimes of the interwar period were fiercely nationalistic, whereas the autocratic communist regimes, while evolving toward a more nationalistic model, upheld as a whole a more collaborative international policy. The same is true of democratic regimes. The widespread assertion that democracies are not conflictual by definition is rather baseless.

5. How would you prioritize and why these three suggested national goals of the Balkan states such as a) EU accession, b) NATO membership and c) intra-Balkan cooperation.

I don’t think any of these are national goals per se. National goals should be peace, social stability, economic prosperity and cultural production. Insofar as a, b, and c could maybe help in bringing about these goals they can be prioritized as means toward achieving them. Intra-Balkan cooperation is obviously the best way to guarantee peace and international stability for the region. In itself, however, it is not enough to achieve economic prosperity and promote social stability, especially if there is the danger that the outside promotion of intra-Balkan cooperation can be seen as an attempt to further ghettoize the region so that its problems would not be exported, and thus further postpone its inclusion into the larger European framework. EU accession is desirable in principle and as a long-term strategy but one should be very clear and careful about the price to be paid. NATO, on the other hand, has in my opinion the sole value as a (maybe) prerequisite and (mostly psychological but also expensive) preparation for the (increasingly far-removed) EU accession.

Copyright 2002 by George Voskopoulos and Maria Todorova. All rights reserved. No part of this interview may be reproduced in any form, published or translated without permission in writing from either copyright holders.