The need for a national space arose with the idea of a nation itself. Supporters of
this concept (scholars, officials, revolutionaries) made every effort to bring this
new idea “to the people” whose identity, except along confessional lines, was
essentially based around certain (small) habitats. In the 18th and 19th century,
when the idea of the nation in Southeastern Europe began to take hold, the vast
majority of the population lived in the countryside and were poor; therefore
to spread the ideology of Nationalism, farmers needed to be promised
economically attractive improvements, such as more land which would belong
to them. This argument was all the more gripping among the rural population
as the soil was stylized as part of a “home” for which a larger space was needed.
A “home” on the national level also required protection against oppositional
trans-national forces. In order to inspire confidence, historical references were
embellished, the content of which had to stress the grandeur and cohesion
which once existed; therefore Serbian, Bulgarian and Romanian intellectuals
investigated only those areas of the past ripe for propagation to the end-goal of
creating a national epic. This permitted the newly constructed national “home”
to assert itself via a historical foundation or to legitimize means of historicity.
The extent to which this construction was built on questionable logic is evident
for example from the fact that in the first phase of the construction of the
Nation State the question was not clear yet as to who could be counted among
the nation: All in the targeted area should be allowed to belong, even those
of different ethnic groups or religions. It was only after the establishment of
the nation state, when concrete organizational measures and cultural policy
overlapped with definitional and political problems that the issue of minorities
and how to contend with them, was raised.
The Capital city structure in pre-national timeThose capital cities which existed prior to the advent of nationalism and
were of importance to South-eastern Europe presented multiple problems,
particularly from a national perspective: First, they existed beyond that
region’s horizons, second, they were not capitals of nations per se but rather of
ethnic conglomerates and third, they lacked adequate modern infrastructure
themselves and therefore could offer no guidance to cities of comparable size,
let alone newly established or founded ones.
The most consistent example was Constantinople or “Tsarigrad”.^2 This
metropolis, the centre of an empire which straddled three continents,
located on the Bosporus, possessed (and indeed possesses) apart from its
prevalent Islamic identity, many “Western” and “Eastern” (European) cultural
components as well. The history of this city is bound in two ways to the history
of the Serbs, Bulgarians and Romanians: First, Constantinople was the centre
of the Orthodox world and as such bore witness to confessional conflicts
and wrangling between the Serbs and Bulgarians vis-a-vis their shared belief
system in the Middle Ages while at the same time functioning as (political)
focal point for the Romanian principalities outside of their borders; Second,