Imagining the Balkans

Imagining the Balkans is a book by the Bulgarian academic Maria Todorova. The book was published by Oxford University Press in United States on May 22, 1997 (ISBN 0-19-508751-8), with the second and enlarged edition being published in 2009. In it author developed the concept of Balkanism inspired by Edward Said’s Orientalism, yet the author also underlines how scholars of Orientalism essentialize the West as a homogeneous system.[1] Todorova describes Balkanism not as a form of Orientalism but as an independent construction having to do with the representation of the Balkans.[1][2]

Imagining the Balkans
AuthorMaria Todorova
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
PublisherOxford University Press
Publication date
1997
ISBN0-19-508751-8
WebsiteImagining the Balkans; Updated Edition

Maria Todorova is a Professor of History at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. She specializes in the history of the Balkans in the modern period. She published in 2010 "Balkanism and Postcolonialism, Or on the Beauty of the Airplane View". [3]

Original book cover description

"If the Balkans hadn't existed, they would have been invented" was the verdict of Count Hermann Keyserling in his famous 1928 publication, Europe. This book traces the relationship between the reality and the invention. Based on a rich selection of travelogues, diplomatic accounts, academic surveys, journalism, and belles-lettres in many languages, Imagining the Balkans explores the ontology of the Balkans from the eighteenth century to the present day, uncovering the ways in which an insidious intellectual tradition was constructed, became mythologized, and is still being transmitted as discourse.

The author, who was raised in the Balkans, is in a unique position to bring both scholarship and sympathy to her subject. A region geographically inextricable from Europe, yet culturally constructed as "the other," the Balkans have often served as a repository of negative characteristics upon which a positive and self-congratulatory image of the "European" has been built. With this work, Todorova offers a timely, accessible study of how an innocent geographic appellation was transformed into one of the most powerful and widespread pejorative designations in modern history.

Maria Todorova on her book

Todorova has said of the book:

"The central idea of Imagining the Balkans is that there is a discourse, which I term Balkanism, that creates a stereotype of the Balkans, and politics is significantly and organically intertwined with this discourse. When confronted with this idea, people may feel somewhat uneasy, especially on the political scene. ... The most gratifying response to me came from a very good British journalist, Misha Glenny, who has written well and extensively on the Balkans. He said, 'You know, now that I look back, I have been guilty of Balkanism,' which was a really honest intellectual response"[4]

Opinions

Corina Domnina Filipescu quotes the book in her thesis A postcolonial critique of the production of unequal power relations by the European Union.[5] Hannes Grandits praises the book even after 20 years. [6]

References
  1. Jusdanis, Gregory (1998). "Imagining the Balkans (review)". Journal of Modern Greek Studies. 16 (2): 375–377. doi:10.1353/mgs.1998.0034.
  2. Augustinos, Gerasimos (1998). "Reviews : Maria Todorova, Imagining the Balkans, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1997; ISBN 0-19-508750-X; xi + 257 pp.; £35 (hbk), £17.99". European History Quarterly. 28 (4): 561–564. doi:10.1177/026569149802800409.
  3. Todorova, M. (2010) “Balkanism and Postcolonialism, Or on the Beauty of the Airplane View”. In Brădăşan, C. and Oushakine, A. S.Marx’s Shadow: Knowledge, Power, and Intellectuals in Eastern Europe and Russia. Plymouth: Lexington Books. pp 175-195.
  4. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2006-05-06. Retrieved 2006-05-07.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  5. A postcolonial critique of the production of unequal power relations by the European Union
  6. Imagining the Balkans, reviewed by Hannes Grandits
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