Sensus Communis and the Making of Balkan Difference: Ecumenism, Romantic Nationalism, and the Political Break with Multiple Identities
Sensus Communis and the Making of Balkan Difference: Ecumenism, Romantic Nationalism, and the Political Break with Multiple Identities

Summary/Abstract: This article examines identity transformations in the Balkan region, focusing on the dynamics of premodern identity fluidity and the conceptual ruptures introduced by the political modernity of the nineteenth century. It considers the interplay of imperial legacies, the rise of romantic nationalisms, and Western discursive constructions of “the Balkans”, and evaluates their consequences for contemporary identity conflicts. Integrating intellectual history, discourse analysis, and trans-imperial social history, the article proposes a reassessment of how the region has been perceived and why these perceptions continue to shape politics and collective memory. It questions conventional “center–periphery” dichotomies and stereotypes about “the other Europe”, explaining the identity structure of the Balkans in terms of ecumenism and transcultural interaction, as well as the rupture produced by romantic nationalism and the ethno-national idea. The article argues that the transformative break occurred with the nineteenth-century triumph of the modern principle of nationality—heavily influenced by German Romantic thought and propagated through education, print culture, diplomatic intervention, and the administrative rationalities of emerging nation-states. This ideology reclassified populations according to exclusive ethno-linguistic criteria, promoted new “fictive ethnicities”, and reshaped previously fluid communal landscapes into bordered, competitive identity fields. By foregrounding sensus communis as a historiographical and analytical tool, the article challenges entrenched stereotypes of Balkan exceptionalism and reframes the region as a laboratory for understanding how flexible social worlds were remade into rigid identity regimes. Rather than idealizing premodern coexistence, it emphasizes how institutional structures and social pragmatism fostered multiple identities—identities that were later disrupted when nationalist elites, Great Power agendas, and state bureaucracies converged around the goal of producing homogeneous political communities. The article concludes by reflecting on the implications of this longue durée perspective for contemporary debates on memory, pluralism, and the reconstruction of civic coexistence in post-conflict societies.

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