Planning Capital Cities

Harald Heppner

Capital city as national vision at the Serbs,

Bulgarians and Romanians

Introduction

When tackling the issue of capital cities in the national vision of the Serbs,
Bulgarians and Romanians, it is necessary at the outset to reflect on how far
and in which way a particular area eventually comes to constitute that vision
of a nation state comprehensible to the respective population. Should one
not wish to fall into the trap of nationalism, according to which the nation has
always existed and exerts a right to a particular territory, one must be aware
that there is a complex process in which components sometimes together,
sometimes separate, define the nation-state model and attribute a normative
power to it.^1

Serbian, Bulgarian and Romanian ‘lands’ are like all lands with national
characteristics fictional, because 1. The geographical area under consideration
gives no indication as to its ‘owner’; 2. Countless systems and regimes of rule
have overlapped and claimed these territories throughout history leaving
behind no discernible national characteristics; 3. in pre-modern times, regional
organization and structures of consciousness possessed no national character,
directly contradicting notions of an inherent nationalism. The continuity of
settlements throughout history does likewise not legitimize any claim to those
areas in question because, 1. Within each settlement, large tracts of territory
were not occupied (mountain, forests, wetlands), 2. The people inhabiting
these areas mixed continuously, 3. The inhabitants could not possibly be
aware of their belonging to a particular nation (the concept of which was
not invented until much later), and 4. Language, one of the most important
criterion in distinguishing national identity was, in the case of settlements not
codified or reformed until much later and therefore cannot be interpreted as
endemic of any national language in the strict sense of our understanding of
the concept.