The Ottoman empire

The aim of this chapter is to refute the idea of a clear-cut dichotomy between a ‘Western type’ of civic nationalism and an ‘Eastern type’ of ethno-cultural nationalism and to question the explanatory power of these generic labels for describing the concrete historical experience of entire countries or regions. The chapter takes as a relevant case study the history of the Balkans—or ‘Turkey in Europe’ as it was named at the time—a region that is generally regarded as the realm of ethnic nationalism par excellence. The chapter adds a new analytic dimension, that of citizenship, to the role of language, ideas, politics, and identity in delineating civic versus ethnic types of nationalism, explored by other chapters in the current volume.