Maria Todorova, PhD (1977) is the Gutgsell Professor of History and CAS Professor at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. She is the author of numerous monographs, articles and edited volumes, including Imagining the Balkans (1997, 2009, translated in 14 languages).

"This anthology will be of interest to those who want to follow in the footsteps laid by Todorova in Imagining the Balkans, but it will also be an asset to teachers, as the volume includes a number of key texts that form an excellent basis for lectures and seminars. Finally, all those who try to protect themselves in their own work from essentializing their image of the Balkans should reach for this volume to find sufficient information for the development and expansion of self-immunization strategies."Karl Kaser, Graz, in Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas (JGO 68)"Dieser Sammelband wird für jene interessant sein, die die von Todorova in Imagining the Balkans gelegten Spuren weiterverfolgen wollen, er wird aber auch für Lehrende eine Bereicherung sein, da der Band eine Reihe von Schlüsseltexten umfasst, die als Grundlage für Vorlesungen und Seminare hervorragend zu verwenden sind, darunter auch die beiden hier näher besprochenen. Schließlich sollten auch all jene zu diesem Band greifen, die sich in ihren eigenen Arbeiten vor Essentialisierungen ihres Balkanbildes zu schützen versuchen. Sie werden in dem beinahe 700 Seiten umfassenden Band ausreichend Hinweise für den Auf- und Ausbau von Selbstimmunisierungsstrategien vorfinden."Karl Kaser, Graz, in Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas (JGO 68)

• List of Illustrations, Tables, Figures and MapsIntroductionPart 1: ConceptsSection 1: Modernism, Backwardness and Legacy1 The Trap of Backwardness: Modernity, Temporality and the Study of Eastern European Nationalism2 Modernism3 Historical Legacies between Europe and the Near EastSection 2: Balkanism, Postcolonialism and Orientalism4 Balkan5 Balkanism and Postcolonialism or On the Beauty of the Airplane View6 The Balkans: from Discovery to Invention7 The Balkans: from Invention to Intervention8 Does Russian Orientalism Have a Russian Soul? A Contribution to the Debate between Nathaniel Knight and Adeeb KhalidSection 3: Nationalism, Identity and Alterity9 Is There Weak Nationalism and Is It a Useful Category?10 Is “the Other” a Useful Cross-cultural Concept? Some Thoughts on Its Implementation to the Balkan Region11 Isn’t Central Europe Dead? Comments on Iver Neumann’s “Forgetting the Central Europe of the 1980s”12 What Is or Is There a Balkan Culture, and Do or Should the Balkans Have a Regional Identity?Part 2: Structures, Processes and EventsSection 1: Demography and Social Structure13 European Population History: the Balkans14 Situating the Family of Ottoman Bulgaria within the European Pattern15 On the Epistemological Value of Family Models: the Balkans within the European Pattern16 Historical Tradition and Transformation in Bulgaria: Women’s Issues, Feminist IssuesSection 2: Nation- and Society-Building17 The Course and Discourses of Bulgarian Nationalism18 Language as a Cultural Unifier in a Multilingual Setting: the Bulgarian Case during the Nineteenth Century19 Identity (Trans)formation among Bulgarian Muslims20 Midhat Pasha and the Bulgarians21 Improbable Maverick or Typical Conformist? Seven Thoughts on the New BulgariaSection 3: Historiography and Memory22 East European Studies in the US: Thematic and Methodological Problems23 The Ottoman Menace in Post-Habsburg Historiography24 Conversion to Islam as a Trope in Bulgarian Historiography, Fiction and Film25 The Balkan Wars in Memory: the Carnegie Report and Trotsky’s War CorrespondenceSection 4: Socialism and Communism in Memory26 Shared or Contested Heritage? Commemorating Socialism and Communism in Europe27 1917 in the Balkans: Divergent “Horizons of Expectation”28 Was there Civil Society and a Public Sphere under Socialism? The Debates around Vasil Levski’s Alleged Reburial in Bulgaria29 Blowing Up the Past: the Mausoleum of Georgi Dimitrov as Lieu de Mémoire30 Remembering Communism: Similar Trajectories, Different MemoriesIndex