The specifics of Balkan ethnic identity construction: ethnicisation of localities

This article analyses specifics of the process of ethnic identity formation in the Balkans in some comparison with Western European national identity construction. It ascertains that Balkan nationalism is based not on assimilation of local communities into the national whole as in the West but on dissolution of local communities by constructing out of them ethnic communities. Ethnicity construction was born from a severe rivalry around which one of the ethnic definitions would be imposed on a single local group. The article concludes that civic vs. ethnic models of nation-formation are applicable for the region.