Baptizing territory : Reconstituting Rumeli after 1878

Abstract

The Berlin Treaty of 1878, which was signed between the Great Powers and the Ottoman Empire, not only created new nation states in the Balkans, such as Romania, Bulgaria and Serbia, but also ordered the Ottoman administration to implement reforms under the supervision of the European Commission. The Law of Rumelin Provinces of 1880 was prepared to implement the Berlin Treaty's provisions on reforms. Since the Ottoman administration never applied these reforms, it was criticized for causing the instable environment in the Balkans. The resolution of the Great Powers was direct intervention to the Ottoman affairs in Rumeli. According to the Mürzsteg reforms of 1903 and the Reval reforms of 1908, the European diplomats would directly involve in the implementation of the reforms. All these reforms were dismissed with the Young Turk revolution of 1908. The program of the Young Turks was based on the centralization of administration without any concession. The Ottoman government of 1912 took the Law of 1880 one more time in order to prevent the possible war in the Balkans. However, the public opinion in Istanbul was against even the discussion of the law. On the other hand, the Balkan states would not withdraw from war. The Aegean Macedonia passed under the Greek rule after the Balkan Wars. The region was centralized by the Modern Greek nation state. The Greek administration changed the ethnic composition of its territory by means of policies of forced migration and population exchanges. The policy of renaming inhabited places was one of the most significant identity politics of the Greek nation state. It was the sign that the Greek nation state would rule over this territory on behalf of the Greek nation. First two chapters of this study focus on the tension between the Great Powers and Ottoman administration, because of the intervention policies of Great Powers and the resistance of the Ottoman administration. The centralization of the Aegean Macedonia by the Greek central state is mentioned in the third chapter of this study. The main goal of this chapter is to show that the policies of renaming and identity are not only discursive policies; on the contrary, since national identity is a product of the balance of power in international relations, the identity policies are formed on the basis of legal and economic practices.