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9780815612049 Academic Inspection Copy

Empire and Nation in the City

Ruscuk from Ottoman Rule to Bulgarian Statehood
  • ISBN-13: 9780815612049
  • Publisher: SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY PRESS
    Imprint: SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY PRESS
  • By Mehmet Celik
  • Price: AUD $150.00
  • Stock: 0 in stock
  • Availability: Book will be despatched upon release.
  • Local release date: 24/08/2026
  • Format: Hardback (229.00mm X 152.00mm) 352 pages Weight: 0g
  • Categories: Middle Eastern history [HBJF1]
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To curb the influence of minority populations and "outside enemies," the Ottoman government implemented new and experimental Tanzimat reforms within the empire's center and provincial regions. By the 1860s, the city of Ruscuk in present-day Bulgaria and capital of the Ottoman Danube province became a test case for this expansive reform movement within an urbanizing and contested peripheral landscape. In Empire and Nation in the City, Mehmet Celik traces how the Danube province and Ruscuk, in particular, experienced a series of swift political transitions from a "modernized" Ottoman administration, to a Russian provisional government, and finally to a Bulgarian nation-state. Celik examines the transformative effects of each political system, arguing that Bulgarian nationalism was not a uniform ideology, but a flexible and mutable one that engaged multiple loyalties-Bulgarian and Ottoman among them. To understand these competing loyalties, he explores the diverse religious and multiethnic makeup of Ruscuk and the multifaceted responses to imperial control, nationalist sympathies, and political movements. Rather than assess Ottoman rule and Bulgarian nationhood as separate periods, Celik bridges these moments to understand the continuity of Ottoman reforms within a burgeoning Bulgarian nation.
Mehmet Celik is a senior academic advisor and lecturer in the Department of History at the University of Texas at Austin. His research focuses on Ottoman, Balkan, and Turkish history.
Examines how shifting imperial and national regimes shaped urban life, identity, and governance in the Ottoman Danube province through the case of Ruscuk.
"Celik's stimulating book draws on multilingual archival research to explore this urban center on the Danube as the vanguard of Ottoman reform." -Ugur Zekeriya Pece, author of Island and Empire: How Civil War in Crete Mobilized the Ottoman World "An important work for its innovative perspective, cross-disciplinary approach, and for introducing fresh archival material in several languages." -Leyla Amzi-Erdogdular, author of The Afterlife of Ottoman Europe: Muslims in Habsburg Bosnia Herzegovina
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