From Balkan to Cultural Balkanism
From Balkan to Cultural Balkanism

Summary/Abstract: There are few terms to have met, as Balkanism did, a greater political contamination, a greater voiding of the basic meaning and a greater acquiring of altered meanings. These altered meanings are accounted for by the fact that Balkanism is too often thought of from the outside, from a distance cardinally expressed in the terms of two forms of culture: East vs. West. However, beyond its pejorative valences (rather invented than real), Balkanism subsumes a world not easy to frame. The most common question is whether this notion is not artificial, whether it does not cover a distinct reality that requires a specific definition. Here are enough reasons to answer affirmatively, as well as there are reasons to make us believe that Balkanism has already overcome the geographical borders of the Balkans, being exported outside its native land.

• Details
• Contents