Preliminary Programme

Wed 12 April
    08.30 - 10.30
    11.00 - 13.00
    14.00 - 16.00
    16.30 - 18.30

Thu 13 April
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    11.00 - 13.00
    14.00 - 16.00
    16.30 - 18.30

Fri 14 April
    08.30 - 10.30
    11.00 - 13.00
    14.00 - 16.00
    16.30 - 18.30

Sat 15 April
    08.30 - 10.30
    11.00 - 13.00
    14.00 - 16.00

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Friday 14 April 2023 11.00 - 13.00
C-10 LAB07 Labor in the Ottoman and Post-Ottoman Balkans (19th- 20th Centuries)
B21
Network: Labour Chair: Luminita Gatejel
Organizer: Evguenia Davidova Discussant: Luminita Gatejel
Evguenia Davidova : Women Labor: a Case Study of Nursing in Bulgaria and Serbia/Yugoslavia (1900s-1939)
This paper examines the gradual professionalization of nursing as part of broader development of public health structures in Bulgaria and Yugoslavia. Such framework reveals close cooperation between the state, the army, and the domestic and international philanthropic societies. It focuses on the attendant processes of social stratification, labor diversification, and ... (Show more)
This paper examines the gradual professionalization of nursing as part of broader development of public health structures in Bulgaria and Yugoslavia. Such framework reveals close cooperation between the state, the army, and the domestic and international philanthropic societies. It focuses on the attendant processes of social stratification, labor diversification, and the construction of gendered national healthcare system.
Grounded in archival materials, the paper addresses the following set of questions: What was the social composition of nurses? Why did they choose this occupation? How were they recruited? To what professional networks did they belong? How did labor policies and conditions change? Through an analysis that intertwines gender, class, and nationality, I would argue that wars were the triggering factors into the opening of such labor opportunities to women. And yet wars contributed not only to establishing professional nurse training but also to maintaining patriarchal regimes. Although the profession was shaped from the start by male-dominated bureaucracy in tandem with nationalist aspirations, nurses used various strategies for navigating and subverting the system. It was in the interwar period, though, when organizations such as the American Red Cross and the Rockefeller Foundation became more involved in Eastern Europe and contributed substantially to the reorganization of healthcare services and specifically to the elevation of the status of nurses. Thus, nursing serves as a window to explore larger issues of building nation states, expanding militarization, establishing capitalist economic order, and increasing social and political divisions. (Show less)

Eleonora Naxidou : Nationalism and Intellectual Labor in the 19th Century Ottoman Balkans
This paper aims to explore a rather understudied topic related to the development of the nationalist intelligentsia in the 19th century Ottoman Balkans. The role of intellectuals imbued with national ideals in the emergence of the Balkan national movements has attracted great scholarly interest through time. However, Balkan historiographies mostly ... (Show more)
This paper aims to explore a rather understudied topic related to the development of the nationalist intelligentsia in the 19th century Ottoman Balkans. The role of intellectuals imbued with national ideals in the emergence of the Balkan national movements has attracted great scholarly interest through time. However, Balkan historiographies mostly addressed issues such as the formation of the social category of nationalist intellectuals and the multiple ways through which they contributed to the diffusion of modern ideas among their compatriots and the organizing of revolutionary activities in order to fight for political independence. Less attention has been paid to the life courses of this continuously increasing in numbers group of people with the exception of the biographies of the leading personalities. This paper examines in a comparative manner the life histories of those individuals in the Orthodox community -the Rum millet- who we label as nationalist intellectuals. It treats questions such as who can be called an intellectual in the 19th century Ottoman Balkans, which were their occupations and social status, how did they make their living, whether they were poor or well off, whether they enjoyed social esteem etc. in other words the paper tries to determine which was the pragmatic value of intellectual labor at that time. Drawing paradigms mostly from the Greek and the Bulgarian cases –Greeks and Bulgarians formed the majority of the Orthodox Ottoman subjects from 1830 until the end of the 19th century- it follows the careers of several known and unknown intellectuals in order give an overall picture of this newly emerged type of highly educated people who initiated the transition process to modernity and played a decisive role in the prevalence of nationalism in the Ottoman Balkans. (Show less)

Robert Niebuhr : Vladimir Dedijer and Workers’ Rights in Yugoslavia, 1948–1954
In the early years after World War II, Yugoslav leaders were busy rebuilding the country and solidifying political control. Known for their adoption of Soviet-style policies, the subsequent Tito-Stalin split seemed to captivate the West because it seemed revolutionary. Yet, the Partisans who fought with Tito were not ... (Show more)
In the early years after World War II, Yugoslav leaders were busy rebuilding the country and solidifying political control. Known for their adoption of Soviet-style policies, the subsequent Tito-Stalin split seemed to captivate the West because it seemed revolutionary. Yet, the Partisans who fought with Tito were not monolithic. A hodgepodge of intellectuals and fighters made up the early leadership circle in Yugoslavia; for instance, between 1948 and 1954 Vladimir Dedijer was an important member of the inner circle. His participation at the Paris Peace Conference, involvement in the early United Nations meetings, and 1948 trip to India to attend the Indian Communist Party Conference showed him that international connections were pivotal for future political success. Dedijer carried on prolific communications with important Labour Party leaders in Great Britain, Guild Socialists, academics and political leaders in the United States, and with leading socialists in Asia. Dedijer’s archival papers display an earnest belief in socialism and his understanding that the ideal system could be attained and workers’ rights protected. He told R.E. Dowse at Edinburgh University that socialism would triumph but that it was a “slow and complex [process] and follows a zigzag course.” In sum, this paper will highlight Dedijer’s international connections and how that informed the Yugoslav policies of Socialist Self-Management and a worker-centric system. (Show less)

Andrew Robarts : Labor, Disease, and Mobility in the Pre-Tanzimat Ottoman Balkans
Against the background of migration and the spread of epidemic diseases in the early-nineteenth in the Black Sea region, this paper will develop a case study of and analyze the significant two-way and multi-directional migration of “Bulgarian” (i.e. orthodox, Bulgarian-speaking Slavic populations) agriculturalists moving back and forth between the Ottoman ... (Show more)
Against the background of migration and the spread of epidemic diseases in the early-nineteenth in the Black Sea region, this paper will develop a case study of and analyze the significant two-way and multi-directional migration of “Bulgarian” (i.e. orthodox, Bulgarian-speaking Slavic populations) agriculturalists moving back and forth between the Ottoman and Russian empires in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. As both the Ottoman and Russian states viewed agricultural laborers as central to their establishment of territorial sovereignty in disputed and/or newly acquired imperial borderlands, the role of labor and the place of labor migrants in the overall dynamic of Ottoman-Russian relations in the Black Sea region in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries will be addressed. Here the importance of agriculturalists in various post-war reconstruction efforts in the Ottoman Balkans will be discussed. While long-term migratory processes will be centered, this paper will also look at seasonal labor in the Ottoman Balkans and highlight Ottoman-Russian competition for skilled laborers, primarily mariners and those involved in maritime occupations. And as both states linked migration with the spread of disease, border control and migration management initiatives (in the form of quarantines and travel and health documentation) and their impact on labor mobility will be discussed. Time permitting, the paper will conclude with some general points on the structural nature of labor migration in the Black Sea region in the modern period. (Show less)



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