Balkan Federation and Communes: Revolutionary Projects in Bulgaria of the 19th & 20th Centuries

How much does an unrealized past—once a possible future—continue to agitate us?

Today the Balkans are too often defined by nationalism, violence, and xenophobia—ills cultivated after the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire and the intervention of the Great Powers in the region. The peoples of the Balkans have since been squeezed into numerous small state entities, each promoting its own insular national idea.

But this was not the only path history could have taken.

At the dawn of the twentiet...