Rival nationalist bands fought each other while jointly fighting imperial rule

Evidence

In 1893 a revolutionary Macedonian committee was set up in Sophia by the Macedonian nationalists Delcev and Gruev, and this committee began to send armed bands (comitadjis ) across the border into Turkish territory. Their aim—strongly opposed by the Young Turks—was at least some measure of Macedonian autonomy. All the surrounding countries—Bulgaria, Serbia and Greece—formed their own armed bands (cete ) in the yean that followed (as did the Vlachs), to protect their own interests in the area. These bands fought each other at the same time as they fought the Turks. — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 2286

Categorization

• XREF: Grounds the ‘imagined community’ problem: nationalisms claiming the same territory produce internecine conflict before independence, a pattern later colonial and postcolonial cases repeat. — connects to: Late-Ottoman Macedonia was contested by rival nationalist armed bands, not simply ruled; Unity among rival nationalist factions proved fragile and brief — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 122; War against a common external enemy dissolved organized nativism by uniting rival groups — John Higham, Strangers in the Land: Patterns of…, 80 (+2 more)
• DEFINE: Supplies the concrete referent for Gramsci’s Macedonian sidenote: comitadjis and cete, the armed bands whose rivalry he treats as exemplary of contested national formation.
• yield-rescued: below the book’s yield-target cutoff, included anyway for connecting to: Late-Ottoman Macedonia was contested by rival nationalist armed bands, not simply ruled; Unity among rival nationalist factions proved fragile and brief — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 122; War against a common external enemy dissolved organized nativism by uniting rival groups — John Higham, Strangers in the Land: Patterns of…, 80 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Late-Ottoman Macedonia was contested by rival nationalist armed bands, not simply ruled #exemplifies (0.93)
• Shared cultural identity dampens conflict between divided-nation rivals #complicates (0.72) — Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the…, 592