The New National “We” in the Slavia Orthodoxa Circle in the 20th-Century Balkans
The New National “We” in the Slavia Orthodoxa Circle in the 20th-Century Balkans

Summary/Abstract: The article outline the development of the new national “we” in texts from the Slavia Orthodoxa area in the Balkans during both Balkan wars and World War I. The analysis will focus on the notion of народ [narod], which should be translated as people-nation and not people or nation, as is usually the case not only in the practice of translators but also very frequently in academic discourse. Thus, the notion of people-nation is considered here as an analytical key making it possible to present the problem put forward in the title, but also as an illustration of the Balkan perception of war and revolution within Slavia Orthodoxa. The analysis will encompass the poetry and articles of Bulgarian poet Geo Milev (1895–1925) as well as the barbarogenius concept developed by Ljubomir Micić (1895–1971), a Serb from the Military Frontier. The context that will serve as a point of reference will be the 19th century in both the Serbian and Bulgarian version. This seemingly broad space and time framework is essential to explain the change in how the notion of народ was understood, a change caused by the Balkan wars, World War I and the revolution and introduced by representatives of the Avant-garde. The panchronic perspective used in the analysis involves explaining contemporary cultural facts with the help of both synchrony and diachrony in the process of text analysis.

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