BLOOD TIES BLOOD TIES Religion, Violence, and the Politics of Nationhood in Ottoman Macedonia, 1878–1908 I ̇pek Yosmaog ̆ lu C ornell University Press Ithaca & London Copyright © 2014 by Cornell University All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher. For information, address Cornell University Press, Sage House, 512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850. First published 2014 by Cornell University Press First printing, Cornell Paperbacks, 2014 Printed in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Yosmaog ̆ lu, I ̇ pek, author. Blood ties : religion, violence, and the politics of nationhood in Ottoman Macedonia, 1878–1908 / I .pek K. Yosmao g ̆ lu. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-8014-5226-0 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN 978-0-8014-7924-3 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Macedonia—History—1878–1912. 2. Nationalism—Macedonia—History. 3. Macedonian question. 4. Macedonia—Ethnic relations. 5. Ethnic conflict— Macedonia—History. 6. Political violence—Macedonia—History. I. Title. DR2215.Y67 2013 949.76 ′ 01—dc23 2013021661 Cornell University Press strives to use environmentally responsible suppliers and materials to the fullest extent possible in the publishing of its books. Such materials include vegetable-based, low-VOC inks and acid-free papers that are recycled, totally chlorine-free, or partly composed of nonwood fibers. For further information, visit our website at www.cornellpress.cornell.edu. Cloth printing 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Paperback printing 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 To Josh vii Acknowledgments ix Note on Transliteration xiii Introduction 1 1. The Ottoman Empire, the Balkans, and the Great Powers on the Road to Mürzsteg 19 2. Education and the Creation of National Space 48 3. Territoriality and Its Discontents 79 4. Fear of Small Margins 131 5. A Leap of Faith: Disputes over Sacred Space 169 6. Logic and Legitimacy in Violence 209 Conclusion 289 Bibliography 295 Index 311 Contents ix Acknowledgments During the writing of this book I have accrued a large debt of grati- tude to colleagues, mentors, friends, family members, and various institu- tions that generously funded my project. I apologize in advance for any omissions I may commit in acknowledging them here. First, I thank the many scholars whose previous work on Macedonia made mine possible, and apologize to those whom I was not able to cite directly in this book. I regret that Keith Brown’s excellent work on the Macedonian revolutionaries, Loyal unto Death (Indiana, 2013) came to my attention after this book was already in production, which prevented me from di- rectly engaging with it here. I thank him for sharing his work with me before publication. I wish to acknowledge the American Research Institute in Turkey and the National Endowment for the Humanities for the postdoctoral fellowship that allowed me to start the research project that resulted in this book; the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton and the Andrew W. Mellon Foun- dation for the year of leave during which I completed the writing process; and the Graduate School at University of Wisconsin–Madison for the sum- mer research grants they provided. At Northwestern University I acknowl- edge the Buffett Center for International Studies for the funds they provided for research in Turkey; the Alice Kaplan Institute for the Humanities for funding a quarter of leave for manuscript revision; the Dean’s Office for their assistance with the production of this book; and the History Depart- ment for their ongoing support. I thank the staff of the Bas ̧bakanl ı k Archives in Istanbul, Turkey; the Ar- chives du Ministère des Affaires Étrangères in Nantes, France; the Biblio- thèque Nationale de France in Paris, France; the Gennadius Library of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, Greece, especially Robert Bridges and Charis Kalliga; Despina Syrri, Basil Gounaris, Iakovos Mi- chailidis and Vlasis Vlasidis at the Museum of the Macedonian Struggle in Thessaloniki, Greece; AnnaLee Pauls at the Manuscript and Rare Books col- lection of Firestone Library, Princeton; and Patricia Crone, Avishai Margalit, Julia Bernheim, Maria Mercedes Tuya, and Marian Zelazny at the Institute for Advanced Study, School of Historical Studies. Many thanks also go to Edhem Eldem, who shared images from his own collection, and to the staff at the Thessaloniki Museum of Photography, who reproduced images from x Acknowledgments the Leonidas Papazoglou collection. I am grateful to Christos Golobias for granting me permission to use these striking images in the book. I was fortunate to pursue and complete my graduate studies at Princeton University’s Department of Near Eastern Studies, which provided me not only with generous financial support but allowed me to become part of an exceptional scholarly community. I learned about the late Ottoman Empire from the very best: S ̧ükrü Haniog ̆ lu, who patiently guided me through my continuously morphing dissertation project, and continued to mentor me as I was trying to establish my early academic career. I cannot say enough thanks to Peter Brown for taking the time to get involved in my project and encouraging me to find my own voice. During the year he was at Princeton, Rifa’at Abou-El-Haj singlehandedly challenged and changed the way a gen- eration of students thinks about Ottoman history—and I was lucky enough to be one of them. Thanks to Norman Itzkowitz and Heath W. Lowry, I can pretend to know a few things about the Ottomans before the nineteenth cen- tury. The semester I spent with my peers in a seminar room with Haniog ̆ lu, Abou-El-Haj, Itzkowitz, and Lowry is an indelible memory, and also the reason I ended up as a historian rather than reverting to my earlier career plan of economics—not a good decision perhaps, for pecuniary consider- ations, but one that I have yet to regret. The Program in Hellenic Studies at Princeton was an immense intellectual and social resource, all thanks to its director, Dimitri Gondicas. I am grateful to him above all for asking me the question “Have you considered Greek?” and following up on it. Heartfelt thanks go to my circle of friends (and family) at Princeton for the exceptional conviviality and the intellectual enrichment they pro- vided: to S ̧uhnaz Y ı lmaz, Baki Tezcan, Janet Klein, Mustafa Aksakal, Christine Philliou, Milen Petrov, Jocelyn Sharlet, Jessica Tiregol, Mi- chael Reynolds, Orit Bashkin, Berrak Burc ̧ak, Rebecca Graves, Ahmet Bayaz ı tog ̆ lu, Adam Becker, Arang Keshavarzian, Peter Turner, Leyla Aker, George Gavrilis, Hongyung Anna Suh, Arindam Dutta, Marton Dornbach, and the late Sakura Handa. I am forever indebted to Cole Crittenden for supporting me through every tough spot I encountered with good humor, and to Leo Coleman for helping me survive various moves across the country, and for the stimulating conversations, some of which found their way into this book. I thank Nur Bilge Criss for tirelessly being my mentor, role model, virtual mother, critic, and friend for most of my grown-up life; Kerem Öktem for years of intellectual engagement and unwavering friendship; Dimitris Anto- niou for his ideas and the parea; Margarita Poutouridou for her Pontic spirit of solidarity; Nikolas Lakiotakis and René Poutou for making research in France something to look forward to; Sibel Zandi Sayek and Ali Yayc ı og ̆ lu for the exquisite camaraderie and intellectual stimulation that started at Cambridge, and has kept up since; and Jessica Winegar and Hamdi Attia for making Evanston feel like home. Special thanks to Rita Koryan and Kaya Acknowledgments xi S ̧ahin for sharing the most stressful and joyful moments of my life in the past few years. I would like to acknowledge the support of my colleagues and mentors at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, especially David McDonald, Fran- cine Hirsch, Robert Kaiser, Michael Chamberlain, and David Morgan, who read and commented on earlier versions of the manuscript, and also made Madison a most welcoming place. I have presented sections of the book at various workshops and seminars and benefited from the insights of the commentators, especially those of Peter Holquist, Ryan Gingeras, and Dimitar Bechev. I am indebted to Fatma Müge Göc ̧ek and Ronald Grigor Suny for taking the time to participate in a manuscript workshop at Northwestern and giving me invaluable feedback and advice. John Bushnell has read more versions of this book than any- one else and provided extensive comments each time, for which I am truly grateful. Parts of chapters 3 and 4 have been published earlier and are published here with permission from the University of Georgia Press and Cambridge University Press: “Constructing National Identity in Ottoman Macedonia,” in Understanding Life in the Borderlands, edited by William Zartman (Ath- ens: University of Georgia Press, 2010), 160–88; and “Counting Bodies, Shaping Souls: The “1903 Census” and National Identity in Ottoman Mace- donia,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 38 (2006), 55–77. I appreciate the collegial environment Northwestern University’s History Department has provided since my arrival here in 2010. I would like to ac- knowledge the support and friendship I have received from my colleagues, especially Ben Frommer, Peter Carroll, Carl Petry, Amy Stanley, Scott Sow- erby, and Regina Grafe. I am grateful to Peter Hayes for going beyond the call of duty in finding extra resources toward the completion of this project. I am indebted to John Ackerman and the editorial staff at Cornell Uni- versity Press who produced this book. Their integrity and professionalism have made what could have been a stressful process run as smoothly and pleasantly as possible. Writing this book has been a long journey that started when I came to the United States for my graduate work. My only regret is the long distance this has put between my family and me. I am grateful to them—Muammer and Mehper Zeynep Yosmaog ̆ lu, Reyyan, Hakan, and Nazl ı Hacievliyagil, and Cahit Kocaömer—for their understanding, unconditional support, and love. Finally, I would like to thank my husband, Joshua L. Cox. I could not have seen through this project without his patient support and love. This book is dedicated to him. xiii Note on Transliteration Selânik/Thessaloniki/Solun/Salonika/Salonica/Saloniki. These are just a few versions of the name of the largest city in Ottoman Macedonia, and it was hard to choose one that would be used consistently throughout the book (I opted for Salonika in the end). I hope the reader will understand the “hybrid” method I have used for place names based on this example. For large cities such as Salonika and Monastir I have used the version most common in contemporary English transliteration. For smaller towns I have tried to use the Ottoman version, transliterated in modern Turkish, followed by the contemporary name in parentheses the first time it is mentioned (e.g., Demirhisar (Sidirokastro)). Given the subject matter of the book, a large number of small villages are mentioned, especially in the last three chapters, and these were the most challenging: again, I tried to provide the Ottoman Turkish version (which could vary depending on transliteration) followed by alternative spellings and the current name of the locale in parenthesis (e.g., Grac ̧en/Gratsiani (Agiohori)). I hope this will make it easier to identify the exact locations of these villages. I have used modern Turkish spelling for Ottoman Turkish transliteration, and the Library of Congress style for Greek. For the sake of convenience, all dates have been converted into the Gregorian calendar. BLOOD TIES 1 Macedonia is the most frightful mix of races ever imagined. Turks, Albanians, Greeks and Bulgarians live there side by side without mingling—and have lived so since the days of St. Paul. —John Reed, The War in Eastern Europe, 1916 F rom the Congress of Berlin to the outbreak of the Balkan Wars, a potent combination of zero-sum imperialism, irredentist na- tionalism, and modernizing states transformed southeast Eu- rope into a violent conflict zone. As empires collapsed and the boundaries of nation-states were drawn, first on paper and then through the land, a long period of suffering started for the people inhabiting an area stretching from Eastern Europe though the Black Sea littoral and Asia Minor into the Fer- tile Crescent; they were caught in the riptide of geopolitics, and worse was yet to come. The demarcation lines drawn on paper cut through not only topographical markers but also ordinary people’s lives, which no longer were that ordinary. Communal solidarities broke down, time and space were rationalized, the fluidity of vernaculars was replaced by the rigid rules of literary languages, and the immutable form of the nation and the boundaries of the nation-state replaced the polyglot associations and ways of life that had formerly characterized people’s connections with those beyond their immediate kin or community. The residents of the Ottoman Balkans, including Macedonia, were not en- tirely unfamiliar with coercive violence, lawlessness, and depredations. All were occasionally visited on them by a variety of bandits and state agents— who sometimes were one and the same. The violence that sprang up in the nineteenth century and escalated to the point of all-out war at the turn of the twentieth century, however, was qualitatively different: it was systemic, was pervasive, and pitted one community against another, whether the members of those communities desired to be active participants in this struggle or not. Back then it was called a “war of races.” Today it is called “ethnic conflict.” The principal question I raise in this book is how a region inhabited by a population that had not experienced any sustained, systemic, or high level of intercommunity violence until the turn of the twentieth century turned into one synonymous with ethnic conflict. Introduction 2 Introduction The association of the name Macedonia with ethnic conflict has a long history. Writing during World War I, John Reed described it as “the most frightening mix of races ever imagined,” 1 and he was not the first to have said so. In 1925, A. Pallis called the situation “chronic racial warfare” caused by “the inextricable mixture of Greeks, Bulgars, Turks, and others.” 2 It is true that Macedonia was home to an unusual diversity of “races,” even by the standards of the notoriously mixed Ottoman Empire, and it is also true that it was a frightening place by the time of Reed’s visit; it was definitely a zone of violence. Reed and Pallis, like many at the time and since, assumed wrongly that the “fear” was an outcome of this presumably anomalous “mixture of races.” The violence that accompanied the unmixing of the same people should have taught them otherwise. The “racial” violence in Macedonia was not the natural outcome of (presumably) mutually hostile groups of people living in close proximity to one another; it was, instead, the combined result of three factors: adoption by the elites of the neighbor- ing Balkan states of an exclusionary nation-state model as the only path to modernization and prosperity; the determined refusal of Ottoman statesmen to accept any political reorganization, such as autonomy, that might result in their loss of these territories; and the reckless pursuit by the Great Powers of a policy that would preserve the European balance of power until, obvi- ously, they could not. The bizarre mingling of several languages, dialects, religions, and sects in an area roughly the size of Maryland was secondary to this tension and became a pretext for violence only after the scramble for territory had already started. Macedonia was hardly unique in its ethnic, linguistic, and religious makeup; heterogeneity was the rule, not the exception, in imperial territo- ries ruled by the Habsburg or the Romanov dynasties such as Transylvania, Moravia, Bohemia, Galicia, and the Caucuses. Although the path to na- tional consolidation differed in each of these territories, the goals were the same and in each case involved violent social upheavals and transformative population movements. The transition from empire to nation-state created citizens out of subjects even as it transformed some populations into minori- ties in their former homelands, who were then forced to leave in campaigns of deportation and emigration, cynically called repatriation. In the words of Ernest Gellner, nationalism is “the general imposition of a high culture on society, where previously low cultures had taken up the lives of the majority, and in some cases of the totality, of the population.” 3 Although his theory has helped to shape the debate about nations and nationalism for the last four decades, it has also been subjected to a good 1. John Reed, The War in Eastern Europe, 1916. 2. A. Pallis, “Racial Migrations in the Balkans during the years 1912–1924,” Geographical Journal 66, no. 4 (1925), 316. 3. Ernest Gellner, Nations and Nationalism (Ithaca, 1983), 57. Introduction 3 deal of criticism. 4 Like all such theoretical approaches to nationalism, Gell- ner’s presents a universal framework to explain an ideology that has adapted and replicated itself in different guises with the resilience of tuberculosis bac- teria. 5 The success of nationalism in contexts where the connection between elites and agro-literate masses was tenuous at best and nonexistent at worst is particularly difficult to explain. To speak of imposition from above is to suggest strict limits on the agency of the very masses whose collaboration was necessary for the completion of the elites’ nationalist agendas. Yet it is hard to deny the universal role played by the elites and the high culture they represented—even as they embraced a romantic notion of the volk as the essence of the nation—in initiating the process that culminated in the foun- dation of nation-states. The nationalist movements in the Ottoman Empire were no exception to this pattern. But how did the masses connect with the elites if they did not already share similar values and aspirations? To answer this question, I explain in this book the transition to nationhood not through a textual analysis of the record left behind by national visionaries but through the experience of the common folk. I trace the paths to nationhood “in terms of the as- sumptions, hopes, needs, longings and interests of ordinary people, which are not necessarily national and still less nationalist,” as Eric Hobsbawm urges. 6 This is not to deny the importance of works that have analyzed the course of nationalism in the Balkans based on the written work, activities, and testimony of national leaders, intellectuals, and elites. 7 Rather, I build here on that framework to understand the dynamics of nation-making that depended on the diffusion among the peasant masses of what was essentially an elite ideology. This book therefore has two axes: one follows the agendas and actions of state and nonstate political actors with competing visions for the region, and the other traces the experiences of the people who continued to make a living in the territory staked out between these competitors. At the center of my argument are the ways in which difference—religious, sectarian, 4. For a comprehensive evaluation and critique of Gellner’s theory of nationalism, see the collection of essays in John Hall, ed., The State of the Nation: Ernest Gellner and the Theory of Nationalism (Cambridge, 1998). For an emphatic defense, see David McCrone, The Sociology of Nationalism (New York, 1998), 64–84. 5. The exceptional adaptability of nationalism can be explained more easily if it is treated “as if it belonged with ‘kinship’ and ‘religion,’ ” as Benedict Anderson suggests, rather than as ideology. Imagined Communities (London, 1991), 5. 6. Eric J. Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism since 1780: Programme, Myth, Reality (Cambridge, 1990), 10. 7. Historiography is particularly rich in this regard for the Greek case; see, among many others, Paschalis Kitromilides, The Enlightenment as Social Criticism: Iosipos Moisiodax and Greek Culture in the Eighteenth Century (Princeton, 1992); Stathis Gourgouris, Dream Nation (Stanford, 1996); Peter Mackridge, Language and National Identity in Greece, 1766–1976 (Oxford, 2009).