The nineteenth century has been christened the century of nationalism. In the period between the Napoleonic Wars and the First World War, the erstwhile multinational empires of Europe were gradually fragmented into sovereign nation-states, which established new forms of social and political organisation in their interior, as well as a new system of interstate balance of power. What is really striking in the study of any isolated national case is that it can be both `exemplary` and, at the same time, highly `exceptional`. This is due to the fact that nationalism dominated Europe and the world at different rates and times, as a combination of diversified historical factors in a variety of territories and socio-political formations. For this reason, it has become my strong belief that there is no predetermined methodological path to be followed in similar case studies, despite the fact that several theories and typologies have attempted to put some kind of order into the chaotic world of nationalism. In examining Greek nationalism in particular, my own concern lay mostly with national subjectivity, that is the diverse ways in which groups and individuals perceive and define their nation in different historical times, places and situations. There is no doubt that such processes of collective and individual national identification are very often invisible and virtually indefinable, even for the most profound scholar. On the other hand, however, I was looking for an effective way out of the traps set by nationalist discourse. And my search in this direction finally reinforced my original conviction that nationalism constitutes primarily a question of identity and power and that it owes its predominance to conciliations achieved among social groups with rival vested interests, which use massive socialisation mechanisms, like education, for their consolidation.
In the event, I found in the Greek normal schools of Ottoman Macedonia an excellent paradigm of how new ideas, values, convictions, attitudes and mentalities concerning the Greek nation were perceived and applied at a given historical moment. As both teacher-training institutions and national establishments, the normal schools under examination were founded by educational associations that aimed at the propagation of Greek culture under conditions of nationalist antagonism with the Bulgarians. The methods used for the achievement of their objectives were quite innovative, and they were applied among both Greek and non-Greek populations. However, their success was subject to limitations having to do with the relations between the independent Greek state and the Greek milieu in the Ottoman Empire, the individual attitude of each association vis-a-vis the national question, and the balance of power among the social forces within each of the Greek communities that accepted the foundation of a normal school. To elucidate these limitations, this study examines the Greek normal schools and their founding agents in the light of both their similarities and their differences.

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