International Conference on «Revolutions in the Balkans. Revolts and Uprisings in the Era of Nationalism (1804-1908)»

Conference venue: ResearchCentre for Modern History (KENI) Panteion University, Athens
Period: October 31 - November 2, 2013

Research Centre for Modern History is organizing on 31 October (16.00-21.00), 1 November and 2 November 2013 (9.30-21.00) at Panteion University (Saki Karagiorga Auditorium), Athens, Greece, its first international conference on «Revolutions in the Balkans. Revolts and Uprisings in the Era of Nationalism (1804-1908)».

The chronological frame of the conference extends from the first Serbian uprising (1804) to the Young Turk Revolution (1908). During these hundred years, the map of South-eastern Europe was reshaped through a series of revolutionary movements, mainly national and liberal. Besides, this part of Europe, mostly under Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman rule, experienced the echo of the European revolutions in 1830 and 1848, and of the unification of Italy and of Germany. We may claim that the “Age of Revolutions” in the Balkans expanded until the early twentieth century.

The conference aims to offer an interdisciplinary analysis of what was «revolution» in the Balkans during the long nineteenth century and if indeed we could create a typology of the Balkan revolutionary movements.

Through the process of open call for papers, the Scientific Committee selected 56 papers of distinguished academics coming from most of the Balkan countries (Greece, Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia and Cyprus), as well as from the international academia (US, Britain, France, Austria, Germany, Italy). The various topics include issues of identity, violence, historiography, as well as the relationship between the West and the Balkans and between tradition and modernity. In addition, the emphasis on local, national and transnational dimensions of the revolutions will highlight gender issues, micro-histories, representations of the riots, as well as typologies of the revolutionaries themselves.

Dr Kostas Katsapis
Secretatry of the Steering Commitee
Research Centre for Modern History
e-mail: katsapis@yahoo.com