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Trading with the Enemy: How Albanians Armed Macedonia's Revolutionaries in 1903

Drawn from a larger project which examines the relationships between ethnic identity and anti-Ottoman insurgency in early 20th century Macedonia, Keith Brown, an associate professor at Brown University will focus on the specific instance of the Ilinden Uprising of 1903.

Date & Time

Wednesday
Feb. 22, 2012
12:00pm – 1:00pm ET

Location

6th Floor, Woodrow Wilson Center
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Overview

Drawn from a larger project which examines the relationships between ethnic identity and anti-Ottoman insurgency in early 20th century Macedonia, Keith Brown, an associate professor at Brown University will focus on the specific instance of the Ilinden Uprising of 1903. Brown will analyze the circuits through which members of Macedonia's Revolutionary Organization obtained and stockpiled thousands of rifles in preparation for the Ilinden Uprising, and the practical and symbolic effects of that effort on patterns of intercommunal violence in Macedonia. In particular, Brown will attend to descriptions of purchasing rifles and ammunition from a purportedly threatening other, Albanians, to argue that the Organization’s emphasis on acquiring arms, even when undertaken in a spirit of self-defense,  had important and far-reaching cultural consequences in re-ordering patterns of deadly retribution and escalation between different communities.

Keith Brown is an associate research professor at the Watson Institute at Brown University. Working primarily in the domain of culture, politics and identity, he has conducted extensive research on ethno-nationalism and the role of national history in the Balkans. This research into how different communities construct history in Macedonia, Greece, and Bulgaria led to his book “The Past in Question: Modern Macedonia and the Uncertainties of Nation”, as well as a number of articles on the culture, history, and politics of Macedonia. Brown’s more recent work explores how different transnational processes such as labor migration, democracy promotion, and commodity production contribute to people's sense of long-distance connection, and new forms of citizenship and belonging.  He is engaged on long-term research on the interaction between political activism and labor migration, and his book entitled "Loyal Unit Death: Circuits of Trust and Terror in Insurgent Macedonia" is forthcoming from Indiana University Press.

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Speaker

Keith Brown

Former Short Term Scholar;
Associate Professor (Research), Brown University
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Hosted By

Global Europe Program

The Global Europe Program addresses vital issues affecting the European continent, US-European relations, and Europe’s ties with the rest of the world. We investigate European approaches to critical global issues: digital transformation, climate, migration, global governance. We also examine Europe’s relations with Russia and Eurasia, China and the Indo-Pacific, the Middle East and Africa. Our program activities cover a wide range of topics, from the role of NATO, the European Union and the OSCE to European energy security, trade disputes, challenges to democracy, and counter-terrorism. The Global Europe Program’s staff, scholars-in-residence, and Global Fellows participate in seminars, policy study groups, and international conferences to provide analytical recommendations to policy makers and the media.  Read more

History and Public Policy Program

The History and Public Policy Program makes public the primary source record of 20th and 21st century international history from repositories around the world, facilitates scholarship based on those records, and uses these materials to provide context for classroom, public, and policy debates on global affairs.  Read more

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