Балкански употреби на идеята за прогреса в дискурси и представи за "другите"
Balkan Uses of the Idea of Progress in Discourses and Images of the Other

Summary/Abstract: The paper focuses on the wide distribution and regular use of the idea of progress in the construction of discourses and images of the other. The analysis is based on examples of the mutual/ reciprocal notions of Christians and Muslims in Bulgaria (from the end of the 19th till the end of the 20th century) and Southern Albania (the end of the 20th century). No matter the different roles of these groups in the creation and governing in the national states (in Bulgaria the majority of the population is Christian, and in Albania it is Muslim), in both cases the Christian community defines itself as progressive and better developed, while the Muslim community – as backward. The paper analyses the works of Bulgarian and Serbian enlighteners, who ascribe to the idea of progress the possibility to overcome ethnic and religious differences. Special attention is paid to a case of using the opposition progressed/ backward in the political discussions of the 1880s in Bulgaria. On the basis of these diverse examples of using the idea of progress in discourses and images of the other, it is possible to conclude that the construction of these images and discourses does not happen through a direct comparison between two human groups, but through comparing each one to Western Europe, which serves as a model for a progressive society. The use of the idea of progress in constructing collective identities is possible, as long as it can serve as a criterion for classifying communities in two groups (progressed and backward). At the same time, the idea of progress can function as an ethical idea, which means that it can model human behavior, and thus it can form communities as well.

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