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The Eastern Question — A Paradigm for Understanding the Balkan Muslims’

History in the 20th Century

Article · January 2002

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 Islamic Studies 41:4 (2002) pp. 635–650 635

The Eastern Question — A Paradigm for

Understanding the Balkan Muslims’ History
in the 20th Century*
FIKRET KARCIC

Ever since the disintegration of the Ottoman State and its reduction to the
present day borders of the Republic of Turkey, the history of Balkan Muslims
has been to a series of migrations, subjection to minority status within the

L
newly established Balkan states, encountering with different forms of
discrimination, forced expulsions and genocidal wars. Periods of relative peace
H
have only been a prelude to new and more intense sufferings.
When searching for a paradigm – a frame of reference by which all these
events can be summarized and understood – there are sufficient reasons for
M
choosing the Eastern Question. The choice might sound unusual in view of
the fact that the Eastern Question, regardless of the way it is defined, is usually
considered to span the period between 1774 (Kuchuk Kainarji Treaty, which
D

marked the beginning of disintegration of the Ottoman State) and 1923

(Laussane Treaty, which marked the end of the Ottoman State). However, the
fate of Balkan Muslims after 1923 provides justification for using the Eastern
Question as a paradigm for understanding the history of Balkan Muslims until
the end of the 20th century.
A number of studies, documents and testimonies describe the survival of
the mentality of the Eastern Question epoch among contemporary Balkan
Christian national elites. That was reflected in their portrayal of Islam as an
alien religion on European soil which in turn affected the treatment of Muslim
population as the Ottoman cultural heirs and in the contemporary search for
alliances forged during wars for succession to the Ottoman State.
In this article we shall try to trace the genesis of the Eastern Question
paradigm, analyse its elements and examine the justification for its use as an
interpretative tool for the history of Balkan Muslims after 1923.

*
The author wishes to gratefully acknowledge the grant he received from the Research Centre,
International Islamic University Malaysia to pursue research on this subject.

© Dr Muhammad Hamidullah Library, IIU, Islamabad. http://iri.iiu.edu.pk/

636 FIKRET KARCIC

The Eastern Question and its Settlement

A glance at the many works written about the Eastern Question reveals that
historians are agreed neither on its definition nor its chronology. 1 The term
was, most probably, first used after the battle of Lepanto in 1571. After that it
became part of the vocabulary of diplomats and politicians. During the 19th
century we encounter first academic analyses and definitions of this term. In
the first half of the 20th century the term was placed in a historical perspective
as the events to which it referred had ended. The meaning of the expression,
the “Eastern Question”, followed the dynamics of the historical process to
which the term referred.
An anonymous author wrote in 1849 that the Eastern Question deals
with the problem of what ought to be of the Ottoman Empire, by then weak
and ruined. The French historian Max Choublier in his work La Question
d’Orient depuis le Traite de Berlin (1899) 2 was of the opinion that the Eastern
Question arose during the Ottoman withdrawal from the Black sea area in the
18th century and comprises many issues like the fate of the remaining
Ottoman possessions in Europe, Asia Minor, North Africa, and the possible
resurgence of “Muslim fanaticism” in Asia and North Africa. 3
Another French author, Edouard Driault, wrote in a book entitled La
Question d’Orient (1909) that this question is the result of withdrawal of Islam
from Europe and Asia and it is concerned with the renewal of Balkan
Christian states and the progress of the Ottoman neighbours. 4
A British author J. A. R. Marriot in his book The Eastern Question: An
Historical Study in European Diplomacy (1917) placed the Eastern Question in a
wider context and offered an elaborate analaysis of the issues which it
comprises. In a wider sense, Marriot considers that the Eastern Question came
into being as a result of clash between habits, ideas and preconceptions of the
West and the East in the countries of South Eastern Europe. 5 In ancient times
this clash manifested itself as the contest between the Greeks and the Persians;
later in ancient time it was manifested through the duel between the Romans
and Hellenistic rulers; finally, in the Middle Ages, this clash was represented as
the struggle between Islam and Christianity. According to this author, the
Eastern Question in the 19th century consisted of six issues:

1
See A. L. Macfie, The Eastern Question 1774–1923 (London and New York: Longman, 1989),
2–3.
2
Max Choublier, La Question d’Orient depuis le Traite de Berlin (Paris: A. Rousseau, 1899).
3
See, A.L. Macfie, The Eastern Question, 2–3.
4
Ibid.
5
J. A. R. Marriot, The Eastern Question: An Historical Study in European Diplomacy (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1969), 1.
THE EASTERN QUESTION
637

First and primarily, the part played by the Ottoman Turks in the history of
Europe since they first crossed the Hellespont in the middle of the fourteenth
century;
Secondly, the position of the loosely designated Balkan States, which, like
Greece, Serbia, Bulgaria and Romania, having gradually reemerged as the waters
of the Ottoman flood have subsided; or, like Montenegro, were never really
submerged; or, like Bosnia, the Herzegovina, Transylvania, and the Bukovina,
have been annexed by the Habsburgs;
Thirdly, the problem of the Black Sea; egress therefrom, ingress thereto; the
command of the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles, and, above all, the capital
problem as to the possession of Constantinople;
Fourthly, the position of Russia in Europe; her natural impulse towards the
Mediterranean; her repeated attempts to secure permanent access to that sea by
the narrow straits; her relation to her co-religionists under the sway of the
Sultan, more particularly to those of her own Slavonic nationality;
Fifthly, the position of the Habsburg Empire, and in particular its anxiety for
access to the Aegean, and its relations, on the one hand, with the Southern Slavs
in the annexed provinces of Dalmatia, Bosnia, and the Herzegovina, as well as in
the adjacent kingdoms of Serbia and Montenegro; and, on the other hand, with
the Romans of Transylvania and the Bukovina; and
Finally, the attitude of the European Powers in general, and of England in
particular, towards all or any of the questions enumerated above. 6

The wider context of the Eastern Question as defined by Marriot, is in

fact similar to the paradigm of the “clash of civilizations”. This term was used
first by Bernard Lewis7 and was later adopted, developed and popularised by
the American political scientist Samuel P. Huntigton. 8 Bernard Lewis in his
well-known Atlantic Monthly article “The Roots of Muslim Rage” described
the phenomenon of Islamic revivalism in the following words:
We are facing a mood and a movement far transcending the level of issues and
policies and the governments that pursue them. This is no less than a clash of
civilizations – perhaps irrational but surely historic reaction of an ancient rival
against our Judeo-Christian heritage, our secular present, and the worldwide
expansion of both.9

6
Ibid., 2–3.
7
Bernard Lewis, “The Roots of Muslim Rage” in Atlantic Monthly, vol. 266 (September 1990),
60.
8
Samuel Huntington, “The Clash of Civilizations ?” in Foreign Affairs, 72: 3 (Summer 1993), 22–
49. The author later developed this thesis and elaborated it in the book under the title The Clash
of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996).
9
Bernard Lewis, “The Roots of Muslim Rage”, 60.
638 FIKRET KARCIC

Samuel P. Huntington in his article “The Clash of Civilizations?”

forwarded the thesis that:

. . . the fundamental sources of conflict in the new world will not be primarily
ideological or primarily economic. The grate divisions among human kind and
the dominating source of conflict will be cultural. Nation states will remain the
most powerful actors in world affairs, but the principal conflicts of global politics
will occur between nations and the groups of different civilizations. The clash of
civilizations will dominate global politics. The fault lines between civilizations
will be battle lines of the future”. 10

Three important elements could be identified in Huntigton’s thesis. First,

the main actors in history are civilizations, not nation states, neither
communities, nor individuals. * Second, there is a sharp difference between
Western and other civilizations, especially Islamic. Western civilization, based
on Western Christianity (Catholicism and Protestantism) is unique with its
secularism, rule of law, social pluralism, representative institutions and
individualism. Third, differences between civilizations will lead to conflict.
The most important conflicts of the future will occur along lines
separating eight major civilizations from one another. This fault line in
Europe coincides with the 1500 year boundary between Western Christianity,
from one side, and Orthodox Christianity and Islam, from another side. In the
Balkans this line, Huntington says, “of course, coincides with the historic
boundary between the Hapsburg and Ottoman Empire”. 11 Now we see how
the two paradigms – the Eastern Question and the Clash of civilizations –
meet in the Balkans.
Finally, M. S. Anderson, a contemporary British historian and author of
The Eastern Question 1774–1923 (1966), defines the Eastern Question as an
effort by great powers to deal with the consequences of the disintegration of
the Ottoman Empire, and competing ambitions which surrounded this
process.12

10
Samuel P. Huntington, “The Clash of Civilizations?”, 22.
*
Editor’s Note: It seems to me that Huntington’s essential point is not necessarily that
civilizations have always clashed or that civilizations have been the main actors in history. A
major point of the article is that in the post-Cold War world, the critical distinctions between
people are not primarily ideological or economic; they are cultural. World politics, he
emphasised, was being reconfigured along cultural lines, evident by the fact that the hot spots in
world politics are on the “fault lines” between civilizations.
11
Ibid., 30.
12
M. S. Anderson, The Eastern Question 1774–1923: A Study in International Relations (London:
Macmillan, 1991) 388.
THE EASTERN QUESTION
639

From this brief survey of the understanding of the Eastern Question by a

few of the most important European authors, it can be concluded that this
paradigm refers to the filling of the political vacuum that arose after the
decline and disintegration of the Ottoman Empire and to the solution of the
question of the Ottoman succession. In spatial terms, the Eastern Question
referred to events which occurred in a wide geographical region, stretching
from Bosnia to the Black Sea and from the Arabian Gulf to Algeria. In the
internal dynamism of the Eastern Question an important part of 19th century
and the first decade of 20th century belong to the Balkans.
The political vacuum that occurred with the cessation of the Ottoman
rule in the Balkans was filled by the renewal or establishment of several
Balkan Christian nation states. The Balkans, which had once been a united
geographic region of Rumeli or Ottoman Europe was divided into a
conglomerate of small, mutually suspicious and confronted states. It was at
this time that the term “Balkan” entered the European geopolitical vocabulary
and replaced terms such as “Orient”, “Middle East” or “Near East” which had
been used to denote the Balkan countries under the Ottoman rule. 13 At the
same time, English language was enriched by the term “balkanization”
meaning “to divide (a country, territory, etc.) into small quarrelsome,
ineffectual states”.14
One of the main characteristics of the process of the establishment of
Balkan nation states was the definition of nation by the religious criteria and
the understanding of state as a political tool in the hands of nations defined in
such manner. In those circumstances, little room was left for the “others”,
especially the Muslims. Throughout the period of settlement of the Eastern
Question, Balkan nation states identified, with different nuances, the Muslim
population with the Ottoman political structures or considered it heirs to the
Ottomans. Because of this, the establishment of every Balkan Christian nation
state was followed by pogrom of Muslims, forced expulsions, change of the

13
The Berlin Congress of 1878 brought about a “Near Eastern settlement” (W. N. Medlicott,
The Congress of Berlin and After: A Diplomatic History of the Near Eastern Settlement 1878–1880,
London: Frank Cass, 1938). The British diplomat Sir Robert Windham Graves gave to his
memoirs from the Balkans 1879–1929 the title Storm Centres of the Near East (London:
Hutchinson & Co., 1933). The official name of the Berlin Treaty is “Treaty between Great
Britain, Germany, Austria, France, Italy, Russia and Turkey, for the settlement of Affairs in the
East”. (See Thomas Erskine Holland, The European Concert in the Eastern Question (N.p.:
Scientia Verlang Aalen, 1979, 277). The British author William Miller in his book The Ottoman
Empire and Its Successors 1801–1827, first edition 1913 (London: Frank Cass & Co, 1966)
discussed about Dalmacia, Montenegro, Istanbul, Yonian islands and other places in South and
Southeastern Europe. in the chapter titled “Napoleon in the Near East (1801-1815)”.
14
Webster’s Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language (New York/ Avenel,
New Jersey: Gramercy Books, 1989), 113.
640 FIKRET KARCIC

character and name of settlements, columns of refugees moving along muddy

roads and unbeatable mountain passes, Muslim dreams of returning home,
unfulfilled international obligations of Balkan Christian states agreements
regarding indemnities for expropriated Muslim property and the like. This
picture can be reconstructed regardless of whether one reads documents about
Belgrade in 1807, Morea in 1821, Uzice in 1862, Sofia in 1877, Strumitsa,
Kukes, Serez and Dedeagac during 1912–13, valley of river Lim in 1943,
Bulgarian-Turkish border in 1989, Visegrad and Foca in 1992, Srebrenica and
Zepa in 1995 or Pec in 1999. 15

Survival of the Eastern Question Mentality

The Balkan nation states developed their methodology of dealing with the
Muslim populations during the period of the classical settlement of the Eastern
Question (until 1923). This methodology continues to prevail till the present.
The geopolitical situation in and around the Balkans has changed but hardly
the mentality of the Balkan nationalist elite. (Periods of relative peace and
prosperity for Balkan Muslims can be attributed to the few regimes based on
liberal and supra-national ideologies.)
The survival of the Eastern Question mentality among the Balkan
nationalist elite became manifest, among others, in portraying Islam as an alien
religion on the European soil and Muslims as “foreigners” who had to be
“cleansed” from the territory. This manifestation of the Eastern Question
mentality was documented in many studies dealing with both the sources and
the actual process of genocidal policy against the Bosniaks during 1992–1995. 16
The American scholar Norman Cigar has shed light on the important
role of the Serbian intellectual elite in articulating an ideological justification
of genocide against the Bosniaks, an act which gave to common thugs and
killers the aura of heroes for “national cause”. 17 In that endeavour, Serbian
orientalists, quasi-orientalists and historians made the genocide “intellectually

15
See Fikret Karcic, ed., Muslimani Balkana: istocno pitanje u 20 vijeku (Tuzla: Behram-begova
medresa, 2001), 175–248.
16
See for example, Smail Cekic, The Agression on Bosnia and Genocide Against Bosniacs 1991–
1995 (Sarajevo: Institute for the Research of Crimes Against Humanity and International Law,
1995); Michael A. Sells, The Bridge Betrayed: Religion and Genocide in Bosnia (Berkley, Los
Angeles and London: University of California Press, 1998).
17
See Norman Cigar, Genocide in Bosnia: The Policy of Ethnic Cleansing (College Station, TX:
Texas: A & M University Press, 1995). It has been translated into Bosnian: Genocid u Bosni.
Politika “etnickog ciscenja”, tr., Radomir Marinkovic (Sarajevo: Bosanski kulturni centar i
Institut za istrazivanje zlocina protiv covjecnosti i medjunarodnog prava, 1998).
THE EASTERN QUESTION
641

respectable” and the Serbian Orthodox Church offered moral exculpation for
its perpetrators.18
The view that Islam is an alien religion on European soil can be identified
in the writings of Alexander Popovic, Darko Tanaskovic, Miroljub Jevtic and,
in an extremely fascistic form, in the works of Dragos Kalajic. In one of the
articles written by the latter writer titled “Quasi Arabs versus Europeans” 19 it
is stated that Muslims in Yugoslavia are quasi-Arabs and have inherited genes
from desert thughs and the Ottoman soldiers, with a long list of inherited
deficiencies. As such, they do not belong to Europe and cannot comprehend
the characteristic cultural features of Europeans. In dealing with this foreign
threat to Europe it is necessary to have “supra-national, supra-religious, supra-
ideological unity of Europeans” and, in the case of former Yugoslavia,
alertness of the state security service and Yugoslav national army. 20 For
another Serbian author, Orthodox bishop Anastasije, one of the
manifestations of the foreign character of Islam is that walls are erected around
Muslims houses and this is visible from “Bagdad to Bihac” (in north-west
Bosnia). In his own words, this reflects not only “ordinary primitivism” but
also something much more deeper. 21
Behind the often repeated claim that by neutralizing the Muslim threat in
the Balkans, Europe is in fact defended, lies the Eastern Question mentality
which equates Europe with Pax Christiana. The underlying assumption is that
in Ottoman times, Islamic presence in Europe was restricted to the Balkans or
the south-eastern part of European continent. All interactions between the
two civilizations, including conflicts, occurred in this region. However, during
the second half of the 20th century Western Europe opened its doors to many
Muslim students, workers, and immigrants who gradually formed relatively
stable and dynamic communities. 22 These communities are becoming an
integral part of a new multi-cultural Europe, which does not need its defenders
in the form of Balkan nationalists whose intellectual horizons are shaped by
the 19th century categories. To the same framework of reference belongs the
term Antemurale christianitatis (“the bulwark of Christianity”) used by some
Croatian authors, who described Catholic Croatia as the first line of defense of
Europe against the Islamic threat. During 1993 these circles exploited the

18
Smail Balić, “ A Nation with a Most Irritating Name” in Journal Institute of Muslim Minority
Affairs, 13: 2 (July 1992), 397.
19
Duga (13–19 Septembar 1987), 14 –15.
20
Norman Cigar, Genocid u Bosni, 37.
21
Ibid., 41.
22
See Jorgen S. Nielsen, Muslims in Western Europe (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press,
1995) and W. A. R. Shadid and P. S. Wan Koningsveld, Religious Freedom and the Position of
Islam in Western Europe (Kampen: Kok Pharos, 1995).
642 FIKRET KARCIC

thesis about “Islamic threat” and “clash between Islam and Catholic world” 23
in order to justify Croatian attacks on the Bosniaks.
Looking at the Muslim population of central Balkans as “Easterners” with
characteristics features such as laziness, corruption, authoritativeness,
treachery, degeneration and the like is an integral part of the Orientalism
discourse developed in order to justify the conquest and subjection of people
of Muslim East during the time of the Eastern Question settlement. 24
It is not just an irony but an important part of the Eastern Question
mentality that some Western authors apply the constructed characteristics of
“Easterners” to all Balkan nations including Christian South Slavs.
Huntington has excluded Orthodox Christians from the Western civilization,
claiming that they form a separate Slavic-Orthodox civilization. They are,
together with Muslims, on the eastern side of the line which “runs along what
are now the boundaries between Finland and Russia, and between the Baltic
states and Russia, cuts through Belarus and Ukraine separating the more
Catholic western Ukraine from Orthodox eastern Ukraine, swings westward
separating Transylvania from the rest of Romania an than goes through
Yugoslavia almost exactly along the line now separating Croatia and Slovenia
from the rest of Yugoslavia”.25
Huntington further says: “The peoples to the east and south of this line
are Orthodox or Muslim; they historically belonged to the Ottoman or
Tsarist empires and were only lightly touched by the shaping events in the rest
of Europe; they are generally less advanced economically, they seem much less
likely to develop stable democratic political systems”. 26
Orthodox Christianity in this perspective is seen as “a subspecies of
Oriental despotism and thus as inherently non-European or non-Western”. 27

23
See N. Cigar, Genocid u Bosni, 154–155.
24
Milica Bakic-Hayden and Robert M. Hayden, “Orientalist Variations on the Theme ‘Balkans’:
Symbolic Geography in Recent Yogosalav Cultural Politics” in Salavic Review, 51: 11 (Spring
1992), 2–4.
25
Samuel P. Huntington, “The Clash of Civilizations?”, 30.
26
Receant empirical testing of Huntington’s thesis by Pippa Norris and Ronald Ingelhart from
Harvard University and the University of Michigen respectively has shown that Huntington
was wrong in assuming that the core clash between the West and Islamic worlds concerns
democracy. The evidences presented by the two scholars suggest striking similarities in the
political values held in Western and Islamic societies. The basic difference was found to be
related to the issues of gender equality and sexual liberalization – to Eros not to Demos. See
Pippa Norris and Ronald Ingelhard, “Islam and the West: Testing the ‘Clash of Civilizations’
Thesis”, 4: 2002, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government,
http://ksghome.harvard.edu/~pnorris.shorenstaein.ksg/articles.htm
27
Maria Todorova, Imagining the Balkans (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1997), 20.
THE EASTERN QUESTION
643

Starting from this premise, European/Western policy makers of the 19th and
the 20th centuries tended to put Orthodox Christians, regardless of their
ethnic background, into the category of “Easterners” and to consider Russia
(Tsarist and/or Soviet) as their international patron.
The modern history of Orthodox Slavs in the Balkans is full of such
examples. At the end of the war in Bosnia and before the NATO intervention
in Kosovo, for instance, Western powers assigned to Russia the task of putting
pressure on Orthodox Serbs to accept ceasefire and negotiate a settlement. At
the other side, Catholic Slovenians and Croats developed a position in power
politics that was different from the Orthodox. Slovenia and Croatia, as
predominantly Catholic countries with centuries-long historical experience of
life under the Habsburg Empire, were immediately recognized as independent
states in 1991–1992 after the dissolution of the Yugoslav Federation.
Furthermore, Slovenia was speedily accepted into the process of becoming an
European Union member. Bosnia and Herzegovina was also a part of the
Habsburg Empire during the period 1878–1918, but because of its population
structure and cultural identity (Muslim-Orthodox-Catholic-other) was left to
wait for recognition until the eve of the aggression in spring 1992.
The different destiny of the Slav Christian ethnic groups in the Balkans
shows that the particular identity of each group was constructed in opposition
to an “Eastern” other. A particular group is considered more European if it is
less Oriental. That is the reason why the Christian Slav Balkan elites spend a
lot of time and energy trying to prove to the West that they are not “Eastern”.
Because of that they do not like to be considered as a part of the Balkans, a
designation which echoes Ottoman Islamic legacy. They also build their group
identity, in the words of Maria Todorova, against Oriental portions of their
own historical past (the Ottoman times) and their different geographical
neighbours (Muslims), trying to prove that Muslims are “real” foreigners on
(south-eastern) European soil. 28
Since Islam is an alien religion and culture and Muslims are foreigners on
the European soil, it was considered justifiable from that point of view, to
eliminate them from South East Europe. Methods of elimination included all
acts which are internationally defined as acts of genocide. In order to prevent
the application of relevant legal instruments on the perpetrators of these
crimes and their allies, opportunistic Western circles coined during 1992 an
euphemism – “ethnic cleansing”. 29 This new term in its substance describes the
treatment of Muslims in the Balkans which the 19th century Montenegrian

Maria Todorova, Imagining the Balkans, 20.

28

29
Fikret Karcic, “Bosnia-Images of Crime” in Kulliyyah of Islamic Revealed Knowledge and
Human Sciences Research Bulletin (International Islamic University, Malaysia), 2: 8 (1995), 4–8.
644 FIKRET KARCIC

bishop Petar Petrovic Njegos called “the extermination of Turks” ( istraga

poturica) and Serbian historian Stojan Novakovic described as “general
cleansing of Turks from the people”( opste trebljenje Turaka iz naroda).30
The concept of cleansing of Balkan territories of the remaining Muslims
continued to exist in the ideology of the Balkan nationalist elite and in the
consciousness of their followers even after the definite withdrawal of the
Ottomans from this region in 1912 and the reduction of Muslims to the status
of a minority. The nationalist press in Serbia during the period between the
two world wars regularly counseled the Muslims to stop “being Turks”, or else
to immigrate to Asia.31 Strategic documents of the Chetnik movement led by
the Serbian general Draza Mihajlovic during World War Two included the
project of cleansing of the region of Sandjak from Muslim population and
Bosnia from the Muslims and the Croats as a means of creating “the Greater
Serbia”.32 In 1989, while expelling Muslims to Turkey, a Bulgarian police
officer told them: “Your language is different. Your religion is different. You
always wanted to go to Turkey. Now you can go”. 33 In the parts of Bosnia and
Herzegovina occupied by the Serb forces during the years 1992–1995, the total
cleansing of Muslim population was carried out or Muslims were reduced to
an insignificant minority as in the case of Banja Luka. The Serb forces also
carried out forced expulsion of Albanians from Kosova [Kosovo] in 1999, an
exodus which can be compared to that after the First Balkan War, and which
was reversed only after the intervention of NATO troops. These events which
occurred in different parts of the Balkans in the post-Ottoman period
represent a continuity of events from the time of the Russian-Ottoman War of
1876–77 and the First Balkan war of 1912.
Even a glance at the theoretical framework and political vocabulary of the
ruling elite of the Balkan nation states testifies to the continuity of the Eastern
Question mentality. At the intellectual level, non-Muslim Balkan scholars
were mostly unable to give an objective and critical historical account of their
countries or regions under the Ottoman rule. Their works follow a national-
romanticist approach and they speak of “Turkish yoke”, “life outside of
history”, “separation from Europe” and the like. 34 For a comprehensive and

30
Mustafa Imamovic, “Pregled istorije genocida nad muslimanima u jugoslovenskim zemljama”
in Glasnik Rijaseta Islamske zajednice, 54: 6 (1991), 678–679.
31
See for example “Pobiti Turke” in Obrana, 1:15 (1920), 1.
32
Vladimir Dedijer — Antun Miletic, Genocid nad muslimanima 1941–1945: zbornik
dokumenata i svjedocenja (Sarajevo: Svjetlost, 1990), 26.
33
Destroying Ethnic Identity: The Expulsion of the Bulgarian Turks: A Helsinki Watch Report,
October 1989 (Washington DC: US Helsinki Watch Committee, 1989).
34
See “Bibliographic Essay” in Peter F. Sugar, Southeastern Europe under Ottoman Rule, 1354–
1804 (Seattle and London: Washington University Press, 1993), 289. For an insight into the
THE EASTERN QUESTION
645

balanced history of Islam in the Balkans a reader must refer to Western-

European and especially American authors.
At the political level, it was common for the Balkan nationalist elites to
refer to the Slav Muslims as “those who turned to Turks”, “outcasts”,
“renegades” and to plead for their return to their former “flock”. The frame of
reference and vocabulary of Serb ideologues, politicians and intellectuals
during the 1990s, when they ignited wars in Bosnia and Herzegovina and
Kosova, are especially illustrative. This frame comprises ideas of revenge for
Kosova defeat in 1389, continuation of the Serb uprising against the Ottomans
from the early 19th century and of the Balkan war of 1912.
The Kosova battle is a part of Serb mythology and as such was the subject
of analaysis and deconstruction by critical Serbian historians like Miodrag
Popovic.35 The last two ideas belong to the classical period of the Eastern
Question but they surfaced in Bosnia during 1990s. For instance, in January
1992, Radovan Karadzic, president of the Serbian Democratic Party and an
indicted war criminal, told a journalist the following about the Serb strategy in
post-Communist: “To fight until we achieve Karadjordje’s aim 36 — to unite all
Serbs — and until we finish the fight”. 37 Ratko Mladic, the commander of the
Army of the Republika Srpska and also an indicted war criminal, upon
entering the UN-designated “safe area” of Srebrenica declared: “Here we are
on 11 July 1995 in Serb Srebrenica on the eve of another big Serbian holiday. I
present this town as a gift to Serb people and finally comes the moment of
revenge against the Turks after the uprising against dahiyas38 in this region”. 39
These two examples illustrate that the Serbian political and military leadership
in Bosnia and Herzegovina during 1992–95 considered the war as a
continuation of the 19th century Serbian anti-Ottoman uprisings.
The symbolism used by the Serbs during the war in Bosnia further
confirms this thesis. In this context four symbols are especially important.
First, the Serbian leadership used hayduk40 tradition for the purpose of political
mobilization of the Serb population. This includes the use of caves for various

manifestation of these views in Serbian historiography see Radovan Samardzic, Ideje za srpsku
istoriju (Beograd: Jugoslavijapublik, 1989), 219–259.
35
Miodrag Popovic, Vidovdan i casni krst (Beograd: Slovo ljubve, 1976).
36
Karadjordje Petrovic — the leader of First Serbian uprising against the Ottomans.
37
N. Cigar, Genocid u Bosni, 52.
38
Dahiyas – rebellious Janissaries who had usurped the powers of the Ottoman central authority
in the region of Belgrade in the beginning of the 19th century.
39
Report of Serbian Radio-Television, 11 July 1995.
40
Hayduk (Turkish: haydut, “mountain robber”) referred to the outlaws in the Balkans during
the Ottoman rule. Ferit Devellioglu, Osmanlica - Turkce Ansiklopedik Lugat (Ankara: Aydin
Kitabevi Yayinlari, 1993), 347.
646 FIKRET KARCIC

ceremonies like initiation into the Chetnik movement, naming units and
institutions after hayduk leaders and the like. In Greece these outlaws were
called klepht. They carried out their activities within the borders of the
Ottoman empire, which differentiated them from uskoks who made incursions
into the Ottoman territory from neighbouring areas and looted and robbed
the local population. Hayduks had a relatively established inner organization
with harambasha41 as their heads. Balkan nationalist and Marxsist historians
regularly portrayed hayduks as heroes of national liberation struggle of the
Balkan Christian nations against the Ottoman government. However, new
studies, based on primary historical sources, show that hayduks were
indifferent towards the religious, ethnic and social identity of their victims. 42
Epics can serve as an important source for the study of hayduk ethical
values. Although thorough research on this topic has not yet been done, a
careful reading of Serb epic songs can enable us to identify some basic elements
of the hayduk system of values.43 Looting was considered a legitimate means of
acquisition of property. Hayduks even used to take the clothes of their dead
victims. Rules of knighthood were disregarded and hayduks regularly made
ambushes in forests and shot their targets at the backs. They dealt mercilessly
with their victims: burned them alive, cut off their hands, took out their eyes
and sarcastically mocked them. 44
These values and ways of waging war were revived on the eve of Bosnian
war. Reports of war crimes against the Muslims in Bosnia and Kosova leaves
no doubt as to who were the sources of inspiration for the perpetrators of
unspeakable war crimes. The worldview of these militants was shaped by the
mythology they had inherited and their historical consciousness was built on
epic songs. Their behaviour can be explained by referring to the German
Slavic scholar Maximilian Braun who wrote in 1937:

He who from his childhood has grown up listening to epic songs, he who used to
accept the content of these songs as his ideal, that one in a given moment will be
ready to carry out the same deeds as done by the heroes of his songs. For that,
Balkan living experience up to the most recent time gave us enough evidence”. 45

41
Turkish: haram-basha, “head of criminals”.
42
Catherina Wendy Bracewell, The Uskoks of Senj: Piracy, Banditry, and the Holy War in the
Sixteenth Century Adriatic (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1992), 11; Fikret
Adanir, “Heidukentum und osmanische Herrschaft” in Sudost - Forshungen (Vienna), 41 (1982),
43–116.
43
See Dr Smail Balić, Eticko nalicje bosansko-hercegovackih muslimana (Bec: 1952), 27–57.
44
Ibid., 45–46.
45
Cited in ibid., 16.
THE EASTERN QUESTION
647

The second symbol is the Serbian image of the Bosniaks. The Bosniaks
were symbolically represented as the Ottomans. The Bosniak practice was
identified with real or alleged Ottoman practices. For example, a local police
chief of the town of Prijedor told an American journalist in 1992 that the
Muslims of Prijedor were planning, upon seizing power, to circumcise all
Serbian boys and to “kill all males above the age of three years and to send
females between 15 –25 years to harems where they will bear Janissaries”. 46 It
was because of this that the Serbs felt that pre-emptive measures were
necessary, he said. This explanation is the same as the justification of the
pogroms of Jews in medieval Europe, when it was alleged that the Jews drank
the blood of Christian children and thus the former should be exterminated.
The identification of Bosniaks with Ottomans was done through epics and not
through historical consciousness and went against sound reason and simple
facts: harems did not exist in Bosnia and Janissaries were abolished in 1826.
The Serbian media reporting about the war in Bosnia very frequently used
terms possessing epic connotations like zulum (“injustice”), srpska nejac
(“Serbian orphans”) and the like. The obvious aim of this discourse was to stir
up the feeling among the public that the war against the Bosniaks (1992–95) be
identified with the anti-Ottoman struggle. 47
The third symbol is the use the military insignia from the Balkan wars or
World War One period by the Serbian units. The Army of the Republika
Srpska still uses officer’s head gear from that period. Serbian attacks on
Bosnian towns, like Zvornik, were conducted while the military band played
old marches like “March to the Drina”, as was the election campain of
Slobodan Milosevic’s Socialist Party of Serbia in 1992. 48 “March to the Drina”
encouraged the Serb soldiers to advance towards Bosnia during World War
One and fulfil Karadjordje’s dream of uniting the Serbian lands.
The fourth symbol is the use of the concept of “the exchange of
population” by Serbian and some Croat officials in Bosnia and Herzegovina
during 1992–1995. This concept was developed and applied by the Balkan
nation states during the 19th century, and was made a part of the Laussane
Convention of 1923 and the protocols between Turkey and Greece which
followed. In the practice of the Republika Srpska and Croatian mini-state
Herceg — Bosna, “the exchange of population” was an euphemism for forced
expulsions of the Muslims.

46
Roy Gutman, A Witness to Genocide, 133.
47
Mark Thompson, Forging War: The Media in Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia-Hercegovina (London:
International Centre Against Censorship, 1994), 81–82.
48
Ibid., 82.
648 FIKRET KARCIC

Finally, during the conflict in Balkans in the 1990s efforts were made at
reviving alliances built during the period of classical Eastern Question. 49
Appeals by the Balkan religious and national groups were directed towards
their former protectors and kin-states. That was an outcome of the fact that
conflicts were initiated by the nationalistic ruling elite, whose ideological
horizons belonged to the Eastern Question paradigm. This was especially
evident in the case of Bosnia and Kosova. The events were later led by the
logic of self-fulfilling prophesy.
During the aggression against Bosnia (1992–1995) and war against the
Albanian population in Kosova (1999), the Serbian national leadership
appealed to the Orthodox Christian solidarity among the neighbouring Balkan
states (especially Greece) and Russia, one time protector of the Orthodox
millet of the Ottoman Empire. Russia became involved in the Balkan affairs
despite the historical fact that its similar policies in the Balkans in the 19th
century did not yield adequate territorial gains or lasting influence and, when,
according to the British historian M.S. Andersona, Russia “was exploited and
allowed to be exploited, by states fighting for existence on peninsula”. 50
The second main actor in the classical Eastern Question –Great Britain –
also played a significant role in the Balkans towards the end of 20th century.
In the case of Bosnia, she delayed military intervention to stop the genocide
against the Bosniaks and thus risked being sued as an accomplice for the crime
of genocide. After the change of government, the Great Britain led a military
intervention in Kosova putting thus an end to violence of the Serbian state
against Kosova’s Albanian population.
The successor states of Austria-Hungary continued to have interests in the
western part of the Balkans and to breed antagonism towards their enemies
from World War One. Lastly, the Republic of Turkey, the successor of the
Ottoman empire, responded cautiously to the pleas for help from the Balkan
Muslim communities, especially those of non-Turkish ethnic backgrounds. 51
Those communities, faced with European indifference towards the plight of
the Muslims, directed their hopes toward other Muslim countries (Saudi
Arabia, Iran, Pakistan, and Malaysia among others). These countries, shocked
by the fact that the genocide against Muslims could have occurred in 20th
century Europe, began to support the Muslims and by doing so pressed the

49
This phenomenon has been described by Samuel P. Huntington as reliance on “kin-states”.
See Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations, 272–91.
50
M. S. Anderson, The Eastern Question, 393.
51
See, Hugh Poulton, “Turkey as Kin-State: Turkish Foreign Policy towards Turkish and
Muslim Communities in the Balkans” in Hugh Poulton and Suha Taji-Farouki, eds., Muslim
Identity and the Balkan State (London: Hurst & Company, 1997), 194–213.
THE EASTERN QUESTION
649

leading Western countries to intervene. During the classical time of the

Eastern Question the Ottoman Empire was the only protector of the Balkan
Muslims. By the last decade of the 20th century this situation had changed.
Balkan Muslims’ pleas were heard outside the Ottoman-Islamic cultural zone:
in the Middle East, South Asia and South East Asia. This development caused
internal inconsistency in the Serb propaganda discourse which was essentially
loyal to the 19th century ideas. Accustomed to use terms like “Turks” and
“Janissaries”, Serbian propagandists now began to use up-dated labels such as
“Islamic fundamentalists”, “Jihad-warriors”, side by side with the traditional
epithets mentioned above. The first category of terms referred to the period of
the Ottoman rule which ended in the Balkans in 1912, while the second
category referred to the phenomena in the Muslim world during the second
half of the 20th century.
This short analysis shows that the Eastern Question paradigm can be used
as an aid to understand the mentality of the contemporary Balkan national
leaders and their behaviour towards the Muslim population. Their nationalism
is in essence the nationalism of the 19th century and should be interpreted by
using the paradigms of that period. In a sense the same paradigm can be used
for interpreting the behaviour of other parties in Balkan conflict, especially
those who had a role in the settlement of the Eastern Question 1774–1923 and
became hostages of incorrect historical parallels.
It has been also shown that there is similarity continuity and between the
Eastern Question paradigm and the Clash of Civilizations paradigm. Shared
elements in both paradigms are: (1) the notion that abstract entities, such as
civilizations, whose most fundamental element is religion, are the majors
actors of history; (2) the notion that there is opposition or even a basic rivalry
between these entities; (3) the continuation of the bellicose mentality, whereby
cultural differences are seen as the ultimate source of conflict rather than
cooperation; and (4) the notion that separation between civilizations and
“correction” of fault lines as potential loci of clashes is, by extension, justified,
or at least, understandable.
The continued presence of these elements at the level of paradigmatic
thinking among political actors and scholars is a manifestation of the
continuity of that bellicose mentality. The first step to eliminate such
mentality is to recognize that such a mentality is the biggest threat to peace.
An alternative paradigm could be inter-civilizational “peaceful engagement”, as
proposed by Robert D. Crane on behalf of American Muslim Council. 52 This
alternative accepts that civilizations, as the highest form of human self-

52
Robert D. Crane, “Civilizations in Crisis: Confrontation or Peaceful Engagement” in The
American Muslim (Winter 1994), 13–28.
 650 FIKRET KARCIC

identity, are important, but calls for the shift from the “bellicose mentality” to
“opportunity mentality”. Such a shift can help us all, and especially the policy-
makers in the West, to overcome Manichaean psychology and to offer new
horizons of hope for individuals, communities and civilizations. Such a shift
could finally relegate the Eastern Question paradigm to the dust-bin of the
past where it rightly belongs.

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