Balkan Cultural Legacies

The land, people, and history of the Balkan Peninsula have often attracted the attention of foreign historians and writers. Yet a lack of research in primary sources and an absence of critical evaluations of Serbian, Bosnian, and Croatian histories undermines the credibility of such work. This collection, penned by eminent historians, examines Balkan cultural legacies in a variety of contexts. They combine approaches from history, literature, fine arts, and architecture, and address issues crucial to the cultural identities of the Balkans and Serbia in particular. Topics range from the activities of the Middle Ages to the early disintegration of Yugoslavia. Contributors focus on the question of territory and people and their geographical proximity. They examine commonalities of language, history, and cultural legacies, and revise perceptions of nationalism and ethnicity through an exploration of historical records and the political borders of state sovereignty.

The enlargement of the EU with the Balkan countries has aroused the skepticism of many. Although EU admission is primarily a matter of economic and political concerns, questions of cultural import are readily brought into play: Does the country in question conform sufficiently to «our» standards of a «European identity»? The problematic status of the Balkans in this respect largely consists in their common Byzantine and Ottoman legacies. By focusing on Bulgaria and its neighbours Romania, Greece and Turkey, the authors of this collection attempt to elucidate how mutually incompatible the «cultural identity» of the Ottoman «successor states» and that of Europe are. Ample attention is devoted not only to the perception of the Balkans in the West, but also to the self-image of people in the Balkans and perceptions they hold of the West. If anything like a Balkan identity can be said to exist, what is its relation to the various ethnic, national, religious and linguistic communities? Notably, what was and is the role played by religion in nation state formation? The relationship with Europe forms the thread that runs through the discussion of these issues.

Balkan Legacies is a study of the aftermath of war and state socialism in the contemporary Balkans. The authors look at the inescapable inheritances of the recent past and those that the present has to deal with. The book’s key theme is the interaction, often subliminal, of the experiences of war and socialism in contemporary society in the region. Fifteen contributors approach this topic from a range of disciplinary backgrounds and through a variety of interpretive lenses, collectively drawing a composite picture of the most enduring legacies of conflict and ideological transition in the region, without neglecting national and local peculiarities. The guiding questions addressed are: what is the relationship between memories of war, dictatorship (communist or fascist), and present-day identity—especially from the perspective of peripheral and minority groups and individuals? How did these components interact with each other to produce the political and social culture of the Balkan Peninsula today? The answers show the ways in which the experiences of the latter part of the twentieth century have defined and shaped the region in the twenty-first century.

This volume deals with the relation between heritage, history and politics in the Balkans. Contributions examine diverse ways in which material and immaterial heritage has been articulated, negotiated and manipulated since the nineteenth century. The major question addressed here is how modern Balkan nations have voiced claims about their past by establishing ’proof’ of a long historical presence on their territories in order to legitimise national political narratives. Focusing on claims constructed in relation to tangible evidence of past presence, especially architecture and townscape, the contributors reveal the rich relations between material and immaterial conceptions of heritage. This comparative take on Balkan public uses of the past also reveals many common trends in social and political practices, ideas and fixations embedded in public and collective memories. Balkan Heritages revisits some general truths about the Balkans as a region and a category, in scholarship and in politics. Contributions to the volume adopt a transnational and trans-disciplinary perspective of Balkan identities and heritage(s), viewed here as symbolic resources deployed by diverse local actors with special emphasis on scholars and political leaders.

A richly illustrated guide to the Ottoman Empire, 100 years since its dissolution, unravelling its complex cultural legacy and profound impact on Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. At its height, the Ottoman Empire spread from Yemen to the gates of Vienna. Western perceptions of the Ottomans have often been distorted by Orientalism, characterizing their rule as oppressive and destructive, while seeing their culture as exotic and incomprehensible. Based on a lifetimes experience of living and working across its former provinces, Diana Darke offers a unique overview of the Ottoman Empires cultural legacy one century after its dissolution. She uncovers a vibrant, sophisticated civilization that embraced both arts and sciences, whilst welcoming refugees from all ethnicities and religions, notably Christians and Jews. Darke celebrates the culture of the Ottoman Empire, from its aesthetics and architecture to its scientific and medical innovations, including the first vaccinations. She investigates the crucial role that commerce and trade played in supporting the empire and increasing its cultural reach, highlighting the significant role of women, as well as the diverse religious values, literary and musical traditions that proliferated through the empire. Beautifully illustrated with manuscripts, miniatures, paintings and photographs, The Ottomans: A Cultural Legacy presents the magnificent achievements of an empire that lasted over 600 years and encompassed Asian, European and African cultures, shedding new light on its complex legacy.

Volume 4 is the last in the 'Entangled Balkans' series and marks the end of several years of research guided by the transnational, "entangled history" and histoire croisée approaches. The essays in this volume address theoretical and methodological issues of Balkan or Southeast European regional studies-not only questions of scholarly concepts, definitions, and approaches but also the extra-scholarly, ideological, political, and geopolitical motivations that underpin them. These issues are treated more systematically and by a presentation of their historical evolution in various national traditions and schools. Some of the essays deal with the articulation of certain forms of "Balkan heritage" in relation to the geographical spread and especially the cultural definition of the "Balkan area." Concepts and definitions of the Balkans are thus complemented by (self- )representations that reflect on their "cultural" foundations.

The fundamental contrast between convergent and divergent tendencies in the development of Balkan cultural identity can be seen as an important determinative both in the contradictory self-images of people in the Balkans and in the often biased perceptions of Balkan societies held by external observers, past and present. In bringing together case studies from such heterogeneous lines of research as linguistics, anthropology, political, literary and cultural history, each presenting insightful analyses of micro- as well as macro-level aspects of identity construction in the Balkans, this collection of essays provides a forum for the elucidation and critical evaluation of an intriguing paradox which continues to characterize the cultural situation in the Balkans and which, moreover, is of undeniable relevance for our understanding of recent political developments. As such, it also provides a window into the actual state of scholarly interest in the rich interdisciplinary field of Balkan studies. This book contains a selection of papers presented at the international conference «Developing Cultural Identity in the Balkans: Convergence vs. Divergence», organized by the Center for Southeast European Studies at Ghent University on 12 and 13 December 2003 in Ghent.

Im historischen Aufriss und in feldforschungsbasierten Studien wird deutlich, welche Rolle die Donau als Kulturgrenze zwischen dem Erbe der Habsburger und der Osmanen spielt. Das Ende beider Imperien ist letztlich durch den Import des Sprachnationalismus in ethnisch stark durchmischte und national weitgehend indifferente Milieus besiegelt worden, in denen das neue Ideal überdialektaler Einsprachigkeit zugleich als Ausweis ethnischer und nationaler Gruppenzugehörigkeit gewertet wurde. Dieser Band enthält drei Beiträge von Markus Koller, Milena Marić-Vogel und Christoph Giesel zum ehemals osmanischen (Bosnien und SandZak) und vier Beiträge von Philipp Wasserscheidt, Marija Vučković, Marija Ilić und Ivo Zanic zum ehemals habsburgischen Südosteuropa (Südungarn). Die Artikel thematisieren das Verhältnis von Sprache, Religion und Ethnizität.

This dissertation examines the overlapping set of economic, political and cultural legacies of West Africa and Yugoslavia in the 20th century through the lens of the 19th century territorial partitions enacted in imperial Europe. As a result of the Berlin Congress of 1878, which capriciously partitioned the Balkan territories into various states and imperial holdings, and the Berlin Conference of 1884, which incited the bloodthirsty "Scramble for Africa" and the colonial occupation required to sustain it, the culturally and geographically disparate entities of West Africa and the Balkans confront an expansionist and imperially aggressive Europe at nearly the same time. Seeking to properly provincialize Europe in this discussion by focusing on the spaces of partition themselves, compared on the basis of this historical encounter, this dissertation theorizes a multi-disciplinary concept of balkanization: a system of techniques of imperial control that precipitated a cultural response of resistance in the spaces of partition in the mid-twentieth century. Drawing on postcolonial, African and Slavic studies, world literature, political science and history, the theory of balkanization responds to the global remapping of two annihilative world wars and explains the subsequent ethnic and nationalist violence that characterized the waning years of the century in these disparate places. The literary extension of balkanization is explored through comparisons of two narrative genres, the travelogue and the chronicle novel, that encode the spatial and temporal dimensions of partition before and after WWII. Rebecca West's travelogue Black Lamb and Grey Falcon (1941) is analyzed next to Ivo Andrić's chronicle-novel Bridge on the Drina (1945) to discuss the pre-WWII cultural and political dynamics of balkanization in Yugoslavia. Next, an investigation of In Black and White (1962), a travelogue by Oskar Davičo written at the birth of the Non-Aligned Movement, is juxtaposed with with Ayi Kwei Armah's apocalyptic chronicle Two Thousand Seasons (1973). These texts elaborate the limits of unity in a balkanized world in terms of culture, economics, race, and ultimately history, whose nearly monolithic violence beckons the end of time and the need for renewal or regeneration, such that balkanization forms the basis of historical inquiry into the very conditions of the present.