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Charis
N. MELETIADIS (Greece)
Cultural
Flows, Educational Reforms and the Emergence of Inner
Cross-cultural Structures in the Balkans
1.
It has been suggested that the post-war crisis of national
identity in the welfare states of Europe is largely connected with
the performance of various institutions which have evolved to
negotiate between different classes, status groups and immigrant
minorities. The aim of this paper is, first of all, to clarify the
concept of performance of these institutions in the Balkan states
since the Enlightenment, secondly to analyze the contribution of
educational reforms in the cadre of the Balkan structures which
are not thought of as been based upon a bold national identity,
but are seen as having broader
universal or at least territorial aims.
2.
A modern economy, universal and uniform education and other
compromise institutions which regulate the flow of the symbolic
elements (information, images, ideas, etc.) of the so-called
“third culture”, or “global culture” affected the
development of every nation state’s national ideology and the
moves towards supra-national union will be corrosive of the
traditional forms of the notion of citizenship. The latter is been
conceived not simply as an attribute of identity, but as something
having the sense of emotional and moral belonging, attached to the
real, i.e. historically verified, common ways of life of the
members of Balkan societal structures.
The
response of these ways of life to the constitution of a new
historical narrative might take the form of a research program,
which would identify the contribution of enlightened theories and
practices to the modernization of Balkan education as well as
their connection with the increasingly important role played by
the Balkan bourgeoisies within the process of the incorporation of
the Near East into the world-economy. The results of that
attitude, combined with the internal disintegration of Ottoman
rule, had dramatically changed the political map of the area,
bringing about the emergence of the new nation-states. In this
context, schools (with their masters and pupils as well as their
supporting theories) constituted the most influential cultural
factor, which has facilitated the establishment of a common theory
on cultural identity and advanced the relation of schools with the
other networks of knowledge/ power in Europe. Thus, the modern
Balkan history is not conceived as the history of nations engaged
in wars, nor as a history of communities under threat, but as a
history providing a basis for closer territorial union or for the
peaceful integration of the South-east Europe.
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