Imagining the Balkans"If the Balkans hadn't existed, they would have been invented" was the verdict of Count Hermann Keyserling in his famous 1928 publication, Europe. Over ten years ago, Maria Todorova traced the relationship between the reality and the invention. Based on a rich selection of travelogues, diplomatic accounts, academic surveys, journalism, and belles-lettres in many languages, Imagining the Balkans explored the ontology of the Balkans from the sixteenth century to the present day, uncovering the ways in which an insidious intellectual tradition was constructed, became mythologized, and is still being transmitted as discourse. Maria Todorova, who was raised in the Balkans, is in a unique position to bring both scholarship and sympathy to her subject, and in a new afterword she reflects on recent developments in the study of the Balkans and political developments on the ground since the publication of Imagining the Balkans. The afterword explores the controversy over Todorova's coining of the term Balkanism. With this work, Todorova offers a timely, updated, accessible study of how an innocent geographic appellation was transformed into one of the most powerful and widespread pejorative designations in modern history. |
Contents
3 | |
Nomen | 21 |
2 Balkans as Selfdesignation | 38 |
3 The Discovery of the Balkans | 62 |
4 Patterns of Perception until 1900 | 89 |
5 From Discovery to Invention from Invention to Classification | 116 |
The Balkans and the Myth of Central Europe | 140 |
RealiaQuestce quil y a de horstexte? | 161 |
Conclusion | 184 |
Afterword to the Updated Edition | 190 |
Notes | 203 |
233 | |
267 | |
Common terms and phrases
accounts Albania American ancient approach aristocratic attitude Balkan nations Balkan Peninsula Balkan wars balkanist Balkanite Bay Ganyo Bosnia British Bulgarian Byzantine Central Europe Central European Central European idea Christian civilization colonial Constantinople cultural Czech decades defined descriptions despite diplomatic discourse dominant East European Eastern Europe economic eighteenth elites English Enlightenment ethnic Europe’s existence foreign French geographic German Greece Greek Habsburg Haemus Halecki Hungarian Hungary Ibid identity imperial intellectual internal Islam language Leont’ev literary literature London Macedonia medieval ment modern mountain Muslim nation-state Nicolae Iorga nineteenth century Orient Orthodox Ottoman Empire Ottoman legacy Ottoman period Ottoman rule peasants perception phanariote philhellenism political population postcolonial problem region religion religious Romania Russian Said’s Serbia Serbs Slavic Slavs social society Sofia Southeastern Europe sphere studies Südosteuropa Szücs term tion tradition travelers Turkey Turkish Turks University Press West Western York Yugoslav Yugoslavia