The Balkans as an Idée-Force

Abstract

The bulk of literature on the Balkans which has appeared since 1989 has made a lot of the stereotyped Western discourse about the region during the last two centuries. Local production of regional discourses, on the other hand, has been usually interpreted in terms of internalization of or mirror reactions to the Balkan stigmata. Typically, these studies concentrate on journalistic and ideological discourses, while there have been few attempts at reconstructing the history of the concept of “Balkans” which take into account scholarly and disciplinary discourses. The intention of this article is to confront this void by probing into some of the paradigmatic conceptualizations of the region of Balkans/Southeastern Europe, which had originated in the region itself with regional scholars who had reflected on and attempted to give an answer to the question of what was “common” to and specifically “Balkan” about the Balkans. This historical review finally leads to question the status of the Balkans as a legitimate “mental map” and unit of analysis.

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