Paramilitary Violence in the Post-Ottoman Borderlands

Spyros Tsoutsoumpis is Lecturer in Modern European History, University of Manchester, UK. He is the author of The Peoples Armies, a History of the Greek resistance during the Second World War (2019).Ümit Kurt is Assistant Professor in History, University of Newcastle, Australia. He is the author of The Armenians of Aintab, The Economics of Genocide in an Ottoman Province (2021)

This excellent volume skilfully illuminates the shadowy world of pro-state paramilitarism in the borderlands of the late and post-Ottoman world. With in-depth analyses of paramilitaries, bandits, and ethnic violence across the Balkans, Caucasus, and Anatolia, it challenges state-centric narratives and delivers an innovative contribution to understanding nation-building, ethnic victimisation, and the lasting legacies of paramilitary mobilisation in this part of the world.

• Foreword and Acknowledgments1. Introduction, Spyros Tsoutsoumpis (The University of Manchester, UK)and Ümit Kurt (University of Newcastle, Australia)Section 1: Plunging into the abyss: Paramilitarism in the era of the Greater War (1905-1922)2. Tribal Alliances, State Security, and Violence in the Ottoman Eastern Borderlands: The Hamidiye Light Cavalry Regiments as Paramilitary Forces, Edip Gölbasi (Leipzig University, Germany)3. The Ottoman Special Organization’s Activities in the South Caucasus Borderlands and the Participation of Local Muslims in Genocidal Killings, Candan Badem (Independent Scholar)4. Young Bosnia Between Democracy and Paramilitarism: Serbia, Austria-Hungary, and the Evolution of Militant Irredentism from the Annexation Crisis to the Sarajevo Assassination, Edin Hajdarpasic (Loyola University Chicago, USA)5. Ottoman Fedaîism, Caucasian Paramilitarism: The Revolutionism of Nikol Douman (1890-1914), Varak Ketsemanian (American University of Beirut, Lebanon) 6. The Political Economy of Late Ottoman Paramilitarism: Violence, Looting and the Destruction of the Aintab Armenians, Ümit Kurt (University of Newcastle, Australia)7. (Para-)Military Entrepreneurship in Southeastern Europe amid the Greater War, Jovo Miladinovic (University of Konstanz, Germany)8. Paramilitarism in the Early 20th Century Serbia. From Revolutionary Movement to Quasi-state Paramilitaries, Dmitar Tasic (Institute for Recent History, Belgrade, Serbia)Section 2: A violent interregnum: Paramilitarism between the wars (1923-1939)9. Anatomy of an Assassination: the 1928 Parliament Killings and the Paramilitarized Politics of Interwar Yugoslavia, John Paul Newman (Maynooth University, Ireland)10. Outlaws, Bureaucrats, and the Gallows: Desertion, Brigandage, and Capital Punishment in Turkey’s Early Republican Period, Ahmet Özcan (Gedik University, Turkey)11. The Guiding Apparatus of the Zilan Massacre: Militias (1930-1950), Sedat Ulugana (Independent Scholar)Section 3: Once more unto the breach: Paramilitarism during the Second World War and the early Cold War Period (1940-1949)12. “For Nation and Fatherland”: Anti-Communist Kapetans in Greek Macedonia (1941–1944), Stratos N. Dordanas (University of Thessaloniki, Greece) and Vaios Kalogrias (Independent Scholar)13. Armed collaboration in Italy’s occupation areas of the Balkans during the Second World War, Paolo Fonzi (University of Eastern Piedmont, Italy)14. Paramilitary organization of Vlachs and Italo-Romanian Rivalry in Nazi-Occupied Greece, Charalambos Gappas (The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA)15. Paramilitarism after the Second World War: The Case of Greece, Spyros Tsoutsoumpis (The University of Manchester, UK)Afterward: Intrigue Aboard the Savarona: The Long Arc of Ottoman Paramilitarism, Ryan Gingeras (Naval Postgraduate School in California, USA)