"Предимствата на изостаналия" — началото на Балканската модернизация
"Advantages of the Backward" — the Beginning of Balkan

Summary/Abstract: The major purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the identity of the processes of modernisation, state-building and nation-building in the Balkans in contrast to their treatment in opposition by many historians and political scientists. Two interpretive views of the Balkans have been challenged: the first characterizes patterns of social and political development in terms of an East-West dichotomy; the second maintains a negative perspective on the political modernization of the newly established Balkan stales, the operation of Balkan politics and Balkan nationalism in particular. The author focuses first on the social background and goals of the Balkan political elites, then on the long-term effects of parliamentary institutions in the late-industrializing Balkan societies, and finally on the state-building and nation-building experiences in the Balkans as compared to those in contemporary Western Europe. The arguments pursued on the basis of this analysis concern the “advantages of backwardness" in the political and social realms and the precedence of political over economic modernization in the case of young nation-states.

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