The Threshold of Europe: Imagining Yugoslavia on Film

Abstract

To those who have not visited them, the Balkans are a shadow land of mystery; to those who know them, they become ever more mysterious… You become, in a sense, a part of the spell, and of the mystery and glamour of the whole.… Intrigue, plot, mystery, highcourage and daring deeds -the things that are the soul of true romance are today the soul of the Balkans.Arthur Douglas Smith,  (Todorova ) is  quote in Maria Todorova's now immensely popular book, Imagining the Balkans (), is still valid today.It testifies to the persistence of the Balkan contradictions and secrets; the book argues that the myth of the Balkans has not essentially or drastically changed during the last century.e issue of the Balkans and their identity as expressed in images, legends, and fiction-faction forms has been raised during this century by researchers of many different stripes: military strategists, historians and politicians, anthropologists, cultural theorists, etc. Regardless of the approach, the "Balkan problem" always turns out to be sort of Pandora's box.Once the questions are articulated, they simply multiply while at the bottom of the "box" remains little hope that someone might provide definitive answers to the Balkan riddle from any of the numerous perspectives.Furthermore, the "negative" spotlight cast over the region at the beginning of the s, due to the raging Yugoslav wars, revived the historical metaphor of the "Balkan powder keg, " giving so far the richest and fullest meaning to the pejorative term "balkanization." Now, as in the past, the Balkans remain the eternal "heart of (European) darkness." us, in spite of its growing importance, interesting profile and hybrid, multiethnic and multicultural character, the region resists accurate definition, its gloomy secrets remaining mysteriously veiled.Nevertheless, the world book market continues to proliferate with books exploring the topic, either concerned with the different representations of the Balkans or searching for their putative essence -their "balkanness" (such as  spaces of identity /

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