Banerji, Surendranath independent nation on the other side of the border (as within the Serbs and the Romanians) and those who had no nation of their own at all (as in the case of the Poles and the Ukrainians) The Hungarians, fearful of Slavic influence, were invested in the future of the Dual Monarchy, in which they enjoyed a privileged position After 1876 the trend toward Magyarization of all non-Magyar nationalities became even stronger Even Croatia’s autonomy was hardly respected The controversies between Magyars and Croats were a special danger because they opened the question of Yugoslav authority Despite old rivalries that separated Catholic Croats and Orthodox Serbs, the movement toward Yugoslav unity made progress There was unrest among these southern Slavs that was exacerbated by influences from the independent states of Serbia and Montenegro Any concession to the Yugoslavs meant a revival of the Czech claims for a restoration of their historic statehood In the Balkans, but not in east-central Europe, the 19th century saw the formation of several independent states A first period between 1800 and 1830 brought some national liberation during the first Balkan revolutions against Ottoman rule Next came a long period (lasting from 1830–78) of political and social development, while a third phase saw the inclusion of the Balkan peoples into the European power play during the age of imperialism between 1878 and 1903 The development of a national consciousness of all these peoples varied according to the different political and social conditions prevailing in the respective regions National consciousness, formerly limited to the upper strata of society, penetrated into the lower classes Considerable political development occurred under Habsburg rule As the Ottoman Empire weakened in the 19th century, the Balkan nations began to reemerge, though their independence was compromised as they became pawns for competing European powers Revolutionary risings were frequent under the Ottomans and, as far as the Poles are concerned, in the czarist empire All these processes had both nationalistic and agrarian elements The former aimed primarily at the organization of national states, while the latter was marked by endeavors to get rid of foreign landlords The Balkan people, up to the eve of World War I, profited from the Ottoman Empire’s notorious weakness The nonGerman Habsburg peoples in the Austrian part of that empire were awarded some degree of cultural autonomy, while in Hungary only the Magyars reached their goal of a practically autonomous state The Russians 49 faced a massive wave of Russification after the disastrous failure of several Polish uprisings The final elimination of all political freedom through and after the partitions of Poland between 1772 and 1795 struck a nation with such a long tradition of independence that the divided Polish territories remained throughout the 19th century a permanent center of unrest Nevertheless, non-Russian people made considerable progress in cultural, social, and economic matters, thereby preparing the way for their independence after 1918 See also Greek War of Independence; Poland, partitions of; Polish revolutions Further reading: Berend, Tibor Iván History Derailed: Central and Eastern Europe in the Long Nineteenth Century Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2005; Glenny, Misha The Balkans: Nationalism, War, and the Great Powers, 1804–1999 New York: Viking, 2000; Pearson, Raymond National Minorities in Eastern Europe, 1848–1944 New York: Macmillan, 1983; Thaden, Edward C Russia’s Western Borderlands, 1710–1870 Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984; Weeks, Theodore R Nation and State in Late Imperial Russia: Nationalism and Russification on the Western Frontier, 1863–1914 DeKalb, IL: Northern Illinois University Press, 1996 Martin Moll Banerji, Surendranath (1848–1925) Indian statesman Surendranath Banerji (also Banerjea, Banerjee) was one of the creators of modern India and a staunch proponent of an autonomous Indian nation within the British Commonwealth He was born in Calcutta to a Brahman family and, after earning his B.A in English literature in Calcutta, traveled to London in 1869 to take the examination to join the Indian Civil Service (This examination was not offered in India until 1921.) He achieved a high score but was disqualified over a misunderstanding about his age When this was clarified, he received an appointment for three years, until he was dismissed for a minor rule infraction Banerji later recalled that these early experiences demonstrated to him the essential injustice of British rule and the powerlessness of the Indian people under it Banerji returned to India to work as a journalist and educator, and in 1876 founded the Indian Association, the first nationalist political association in Bengal (an area now divided between northeastern India and