Religious pluralism in the Balkans during the late Ottoman imperial era

This chapter examines the dynamics, responses and identities of insular communities within their individual local and historical contexts. Assessing the degree of imperial impact, contact and cross-cultural interaction between the imperial centre and the periphery in an attempt to recognise and evaluate the formation of local or regional identities, remains a relatively unexplored and delicate issue. The geographically peripheral location of the southern Aegean islands played a decisive role in the construction of local identities and responses. During the Byzantine and later periods, Constantinople/Istanbul functioned as the political, administrative, economic and cultural centre of the Byzantine and Ottoman Empires respectively, and nearly all Aegean islands were orientated towards this 'Hellenic-spirited' capital. It is highly possible that the Cyclades were part of the Karabesianoi from the late seventh century and remained under Byzantine control for almost five centuries, until they formed the Latin Duchy of Naxos or the Duchy of the Archipelago under Marco I Sanudo in 1207.