Book: Islam and Nationalism in Modern Greece, 1821-1940

Drawing from a wide range of archival and secondary Greek, Bulgarian, Ottoman, and Turkish sources, Islam and Nationalism in Modern Greece, 1821-1940 by Prof. Stefanos Katsikas explores the way in which the Muslim populations of Greece were ruled by state authorities from the time of Greece’s political emancipation from the Ottoman Empire in the 1820s until the country’s entrance into the Second World War, in October 1940. The book examines how state rule influenced the development of the Muslim population’s collective identity as a minority and affected Muslim relations with the Greek authorities and Orthodox Christians.

Greece was the first country in the Balkans to become an independent state and a pioneer in experimenting with minority issues. Greece’s ruling framework and many state administrative measures and patterns would serve as templates in other Christian Orthodox Balkan states with Muslim minorities (Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia, Cyprus). Muslim religious officials were empowered with authority which they did not have in Ottoman times, and aspects of the Islamic law (Sharia) were incorporated into the state legal system to be used for Muslim family and property affairs. Religion remained a defining element in the political, social, and cultural life of the post-Ottoman Balkans; Stefanos Katsikas explores the role religious nationalism and public institutions have played in the development and preservation of religious and ethnic identity. Religion remains a key element of individual and collective identity but only as long as there are strong institutions and the political framework to support and maintain religious diversity. The book is available on Oxford University Press, Amazon and major bookstores.

Author Stefanos Katsikas is Associate Director of the Center for Hellenic Studies and Assistant Instructional Professor at the University of Chicago

Stefanos Katsikas is Associate Director of the Center for Hellenic Studies and Assistant Instructional Professor at the University of Chicago. He holds a PhD in Social Sciences from the School of Slavonic and East European Studies (SSEES) at University College London (UCL). His research interests lie in the field of modern and contemporary history of Southeastern Europe, especially in the study of democratization, regional security, and minority-state relations. He is the author of Negotiating Diplomacy in the New Europe: Foreign Policy in the Post-Communist Bulgaria (2011), which received a Scouloudi publication award from the Institute of Historical Research in London. Katsikas is also the editor of Bulgaria and Europe: Shifting Identities (2010); and co-editor of State Nationalism in the Ottoman Empire, Greece and Turkey: Orthodox and Muslims (1830-1945) (2012).