Clio in the Balkans
Christina Koulouri (ed.), Clio in the Balkans. The
Politics of History Education, CDRSEE, Thessaloniki 2002, 550 p.
 This
book includes a selection of papers delivered from December 1999 to December
2000 at seven workshops held by the History Education Committee of the
CDRSEE under the title "Teaching sensitive and controversial issues
in the history of South-East Europe". 48 authors from all SEE countries
and Western Europe are the contributors of this volume.
Specifically, this edition comprises four kinds of texts:
(a) general information on educational systems in the Balkan countries,
the system of textbook authorisation and production and the position of
history in the syllabus -teaching hours, the subject matter taught in
each grade, the proportions of national, Balkan, European and international
history, the subject's compulsory or optional status (Appendix); (b) papers
analysing history textbooks on the basis of a standard questionnaire for
each workshop, or presenting other aspects of national historiography,
identity formation and the role of education; (c) reports on each workshop,
with the discussions and conclusions arrived at by the participants, and
(d) responses to specific questions in the questionnaires, from a comparative
viewpoint (i.e. answers given to the same question in different countries).
The first chapter, "Common Past, Shared History",
refers to these common pasts which can form the basis of a shared history,
namely the two Balkan empires, Byzantine and Ottoman, the Austro-Hungarian
Empire and Former Yugoslavia. Although the common Yugoslavian history
was replaced after 1990 by rival ethnocentric histories, former Yugoslavia
is a common past for the states created after its disintegration.
The second chapter, "National and Religious Identities
Co-existing or Conflicting?", investigates firstly the example of
Macedonia as an issue of division for the national histories of the countries
which include (or used to include) some part of it. Secondly, the papers
on religious identities become doubly topical as they deal with issues
of correlating religious differences with ethnic conflicts and religious
education with tolerance.
The third chapter, "The Past in the Mirror of the Present",
deals with the two issues in SE Europe which remain open, at least at
the time this publication was in print. Firstly the case of Cyprus where
the division of the island translates into a deep rupture in historical
narrative. Secondly, the case of Albania and Albanian populations outside
the national state. Both cases are related to recent traumatic memories
- war, death, refugees. |
