Introduction: The Presence of the Past in the Era of the Nation-State

Abstract

With contributions from several of the Balkan countries that
\nonce were united under the aegis of the Ottoman Empire, this special
\nissue proposes new theoretical approaches to the experience and transmission
\nof the past through time. All of the articles in this issue explore
\nthemes to do with the transmission of collective memories of post-Ottoman
\nstate formation and the malaise associated with a contemporary
\nepoch that, echoing late modernity, we might term ‘late nationalism’.
\nThis introductory article examines the several manifestations of this
\ngeneral phenomenon under the rubric of post-Ottoman topologies,
\nsuggesting that where history creates a fixed, empiricist record of the
\npast, topologies denote the flux of col