Schooling in Manastir (Bitola) Vilayet between 1878 ? 1912 and Influence of Schooling on Nationalism

Manastır (Bitola) is among the places where schooling was practiced the most intensively at the end of XIXth century, and in the beginning of the XXth Century. Thanks to this feature, the province contributed to the structuring of the Balkan states, and to the upbringing of their founding elites. Not only the schools in which Ottomanism and Turkism flourished, but also the schools from various nations, were opened in Bitola during the aforesaid period. These institutions, having acted quite influential on the increase in the level of education and the rate of literacy, caused the upbringing of a circle of intellectuals in Bitola. In consequence of such schooling initiatives, having been allowed in good faith in parallel with the intent of modernization, the way for rooting of the national consciousness was unexpectedly paved. These schools, having been made use of as the instruments and symbols of the environment of conflict, became one of the prominent arguments being put forth by the European States against the Ottoman State during the process of “nation-building” in the Balkans. It will be intended herein to manifest the schooling occurred in Bitola in the last quarter of the XIXh Century, and in the beginning of the XXth Century, the effects of the Ottomanism, Turkism, Slavism, Bulgarism, and Hellenism movements flourishing in these schools on the formation of the mentalities in the region by way of resorting to the related archival documents and statistical data.