[MGSA-L] Migration and National Dilemmas Across the Bulgarian-Greek Border in the Early 20th Century

Modern Greek Studies UIUC moderngreek at illinois.edu
Mon Mar 4 00:20:51 PST 2013


 Between Home and Homeland: Migration and National Dilemmas across the
Bulgarian-Greek Border in the Early Twentieth Century
 Speaker: Dr. Theodora Dragostinova, History, Ohio State University

 Date: Mar 8, 2013
 Time: 12:00 pm
 Location: 1002 Lincoln Hall, 201 South Wright St., Urbana

*Abstract: *During and following the Balkan Wars and World War I, the
Balkans saw massive forced migration waves that have often been described
as a process of "ethnic unmixing" and reinforced the image of Balkan
exceptionalism among Western European observers. By focusing on the
migrations between Bulgaria and Greece in the period before the wars,
Thedora Dragostinova presents a much more fluid and ambiguous situation of
people taking multiple factors into consideration when deciding on their
place of residence and therefore challenging state attempts to define and
control border, citizens, and national bodies.  She claims that many of
these behaviors were also evident in the period after the wars when people
continued to proactively choose between their homes and homelands.* *

*Speaker Bio:* Ph.D., University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign M.A.,
University of Florida B.A., University of Athens, Greece

Theodora Dragostinova's work focuses on nation-building, refugee movements,
and minority politics in eastern Europe, with a particular emphasis on the
Balkans. She is the author of Between Two Motherlands: Nationality and
Emigration among the Greeks of Bulgaria, 1900-1949 (Ithaca: Cornell
University Press, 2011). Professor Dragostinova has received grants and
fellowships from the Social Science Research Council (SSRC), the American
Council of Learned Societies (ACLS), The Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation,
the International Research and Exchanges Board (IREX), and the American
Historical Association. The dissertation on which her book is based
received the John O. Iatrides Prize from the Modern Greek Studies
Association for the best English-language dissertation on a Greek topic.
Her work has appeared in Nationalities Papers, Slavic Review, and East
European Politics and Societies.

Her second book, tentatively entitled Communist Extravaganza, is a
transnational study of the years of late socialism in Bulgaria through an
examination of cultural politics and national commemorations that combines
archival work with oral history interviews. She is also working on the
project “Making Nations: The Struggle over National Classifications in
(Post-) Ottoman Macedonia,” which will explore broader issues of
borderlands and identities in the Balkans.

Professor Dragostinova teaches courses on “Empires and Nations in Eastern
Europe, 1453-1919,” “Eastern Europe in the Twentieth Century,” “Displaced
Persons in Eastern Europe,” “Communism in Eastern Europe,” “Nationalism in
Eastern Europe,” and “European Civilization since 1600.”

In October 2011, Professor Dragostinova organized, together with Yana
Hashamova (OSU Slavic), the conference “Beyond Mosque, Church, and State:
Negotiating Religious and Ethno-National Identities in the Balkans.”


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