Przestrzeń jako metafora w dialogu pojęć między Bałkanami i Europą. Czy Europa jest metaforą dla Bałkanów?
Space as Metaphor in a Dialogue of Concepts between the Balkans and Europe. Is Europe a Metaphor for the Balkans?

Summary/Abstract: The fundamental thesis of the present paper resolves itself into the following question: is Europe a metaphor for the circle of Slavia Orthodoxa in the Balkans? The answer to this question can be reduced neither to a simple confirmation nor to a negation. The Balkans per¬ceived as a compact linguistic and mental chronotope have been shaping since the Osman invasion of Slavia Bizantina and Greco-Byzantine territory. Memory of the bygone belonging to Greek-Byzantine cultural circle reappeared in the consciousness of the Balkan Christian¬ Slav elites concurrently with processes of revival of national cultures which were subject to evolutionary, deepening occidentalization. Consequently, alongside with the developing sense of pride of the former splendor destroyed by a half-century Osman presence in the Balkans, the elites of the reviving Slav Christian countries sealed the Osman presence with an unambiguous stamp of the „Turkish thralldom”. Such an ideologeme was meant to form a distinct „new” boundary/wall between expanding and absorptive Europe and non-European space of the Osmans withdrawing their forces from the peninsula. As a matter of fact an intercultural barrier emerged between Europe and the Balkans of that time (i.e., in the 19th century). The presence of this barrier in the consciousness of the Balkan Christian-Slav elites can be detected in astoundingly stable distinction constituted by cyclic, sacral perspective of the chrono¬tope recalled in historiographies initiating the national revival. It is them that give rise to asymmetry in the dialogue between the West and the Balkans

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