Imagining the Balkans

by Maria N. Todorova

"If the Balkans hadn't existed, they would have been invented" was the verdict of Count Hermann Keyserling in his famous 1928 publication, Europe . Over ten years ago, Maria Todorova traced 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 explored the ontology of the Balkans from the sixteenth 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.

Maria Todorova, who was raised in the Balkans, is in a unique position to bring both scholarship and sympathy to her subject, and in a new afterword she reflects on recent developments in the study of the Balkans and political developments on the ground since the publication of Imagining the Balkans . The afterword explores the controversy over Todorova's coining of the term Balkanism. With this work, Todorova offers a timely, updated, accessible study of how an innocent geographic appellation was transformed into one of the most powerful and widespread pejorative designations in modern history.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Politics, Anthropology, Sociology, Travel, Academic

288 pages, Paperback

First published May 22, 1997

Reviews

[Andrew]

Back when I was a kid, there was a Serbian guy in my hometown who ran a good little bakery that I used to go to with my old man. Unfortunately, somewhere around the Kosovo War, he started blaming all the shit going down in the Balkans on the "Jewish New York Times." This colored my view of the Balkan perspective for years to come.

Of course, as I matured, my view became less black and white, but a book like Todorova's helps the reader articulate why the Balkans are perceived the way they are in the West. The Edward Said comparisons are inevitable, but if I had to compare it to anything, it would be Syed Alatas' The Myth of the Lazy Native, in which he attacks the colonial perception of the peoples of the Malay Archipelago. Both are elegant, forceful, well-evidenced salvos.

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Essential reading for anyone interested in challenging the commonly held assumption that "the Balkans" exist as a separate entity from that of continental Europe. While Todorova's style is dense and pedantic, her research is impeccable and her arguments convincing. I recommend this to anyone interested in reading a work of serious scholarship regarding the Balkans.

[Sorin Hadârcă · Rating 4 out of 5]

Impecabilă în definirea a ce nu sunt Balcanii (nu sunt identici cu imaginarul colectiv occidental format după o serie de prejudecăți și conjunctură politică) dar ceva mai puțin convingătoare în descrierea a ce sunt Balcanii, monografia lui Todorova e totuși o sursă enciclopedică rară privind ethosul albanezilor, bulgarilor, sărbilor, grecilor, românilor și a turcilor adunate sub aceiași copertă.

[Alhemičar želja · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ne mogu da se otmem utisku da sam i ja, kao osoba koja živi na ovim prostorima, prihvatila čitav korpus ideja o Balkanu kao anomalnom i nedovoljno razvijenom poluostrvu čije se zemlje, na putu ka EU utrkuju ko će pre dostići stepen evropske "civilizacije". Ne postoji balkanski mentalitet, postoje samo kulturne varijacije u okviru identiteta koje male balkanske nacionalne države nastoje da izgrade.

[Gordan Karlic · Rating 4 out of 5]

Inspired by Orientalism by Edward Said (even it tries not to be) it might be more interesting to the audience that isn't from the region it covers, Balkan.
For me, the book was kinda all over the place and didn't really like emphasize on the Bulgaria (author is of Bulgarian origin).
Many parts didn't really have anything to do with Balkan so that was minus as well.
If you are interested in Balkan you will find this educational, if not, limited use, IMHO.

[Natalia · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Bałkanizm stał się z czasem wygodnym substytutem emocjonalnego wyładowania, którego dostarczał przedtem orientalizm, zwalniając Zachód z oskarżeń o rasizm, kolonializm, europocentryzm i nietolerancję wobec islamu. Przecież Bałkany leżą w Europie, zamieszkuje je biała ludność, przeważnie chrześcijanie (...). Podobnie jak w przypadku Orientu Bałkany posłużyły za magazyn cech negatywnych, w opozycji do których zbudowano pozytywny i pochlebny wizerunek "Europejczyka" i "Zachodu". Ponowne zaistnienie Wschodu i orientalizmu jako niezależnych wartości semantycznych sprawiło, że Bałkany stały się poddanym Europy, jej antycywilizacją, jej alter ego, jej ciemną stroną."

[Ognjen Lopusina · Rating 4 out of 5]

На одмор по Грчкој и Северној Македонији понео сам овај класик балканолошких студија. Чини ми се да сам већ једном читао/прелиставао ово дело али мислим да је добро да сам га сада обновио.
Имагинарни Балкан је култна књига из које је велики број западњака научио своје основе познавања прилика у региону. Ауторка је Бугарка Марија Тодорова, амерички ђак, професорка на америчком колеџу и ћерка Бугарског председника.
Чини ми се да одатле потиче већина недостатака ове књиге а то је академска импотенција и поприлично безмуђе у квалификовњу обимне историографске грађе. Такође књига је поприлично бугаро-центрична (а након тога румуно и грчко-центрична), што је разумљиво. Обзиром на датум објављивања, књига такође очекивано нема одговарајући третман (кључних?) догађаја с краја ХХ века и почетка ХХI века.

Без обзира на то што Тодорова пропушта ложење или нема никакаву визију и емоцију (или не сме јавно да је саопшти) књига јесте занимљива јер садржи доста обимна историографска документа која знаковито ”објашњавају” шта су нам све радили.

За сваког иоле обавештеног сељака, надничара и поштеног интелектуалца, након читања ове књиге јасно је колико смо ми најјаче главе Балкана и колико ми морамо да радимо на развоју идеје да је Балкан део блиског истока јер нико од ових осталих млитавих Балканаца то неће урадити.

[Costangeles · Rating 5 out of 5]

O carte de referință foarte bună pentru tema balcanismului, în special din prisma literaturii de călătorie pe care o abordează. Todorova oferă surse concrete pentru tot ceea ce atestă și se bazează pe argumente solide. Merită 5/5 stele, fiind una dintre cele mai bune cărți despre balcanism pe care le-am citit până acum.

[Amabilis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Na tragu djela "Orijentalizam", Edwarda Saida.

[Sumit Singla · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Balkans - an area considered relatively 'inconsequential' by larger (or more important nations). However, the Balkan states have been through a lot of turmoil and change. The author tries to make us aware of some of the interesting history of this region, albeit in an overly pedantic and roundabout way.

Colonial powers would always maintain that they did folks a favour by 'civilizing' them, and my view of the Balkans prior to reading this book was from a Western standpoint as well. However, in that sense, this book was an eye-opener. I didn't really enjoy the writing style a lot, and it was tedious in parts, nevertheless, a good insight into the history of the region.

[J.M. Hushour · Rating 1 out of 5]

Excruciating blather. Always be wary of a book which admits, in 4-5 pages, its deficiencies and faults. Why not take the time to write that and edit the thing? Anyway, this book is about how people talk about the Balkans, or, how the word "Balkans" is used pejoratively. Whatever. Every ethnicity known to man and humanity has disparaging things to say about everyone else. Take your Derrida, Foucault, and unprintable other-French-guy and toss 'em in the balkans.

[Lina · Rating 4 out of 5]

(this will be a long one, you've been warned)

First off, I want to say how much I appreciate when an author has their own voice and infuses the text they are writing with their personality. I went into this expecting a dense, mentally challenging read, which it did end up being and it was very rewarding. However, it was Todorova's witty and at times sarcastic criticisms of the West's hypocrisies that made it an entertaining read which I did not expect from a political and historiographical book.

That being said, this book is clearly aimed at a Western audience as it deconstructs and contextualizes the historical, cultural, and political background of the term Balkan(s) which much of the West had a hand in shaping and then shaming. Todorova sets out to define the particular ostracization of Balkan people and countries by the West, inspired by Edward Said's Orientalism, and as a result coins the term "balkanism". As a Balkan person who has resided in a Western country for nearly a decade (and frankly, even before that), a lot of the arguments presented supporting Balkanism as a specific form of prejudice felt obvious to me from personal experience, as I imagine they would be for other Balkan people.

That's not to imply that there's no educational value in this book for Balkan people! If anything, I found the chronological historical analysis of the term and the insight into the religious and geopolitical realities of empires during Ottoman rule an extremely valuable contextualization to the (likely flawed and biased) history knowledge I gained in school. Likewise, it was interesting to learn more about the individual histories of Balkan countries and how that shaped their adoption of the term Balkan and what it means to them. It also gave those arguments I "intrinsically knew", concrete political terms which will certainly help me with political analysis in the future. I think every Balkan person would benefit from delving deeper into their neighbors' histories and examining their place in the European tapestry.

Despite her sober and clear-cut teardown of Western prejudices, Todorova is not without her biases either. She rightfully criticizes Romania's interwar intellectuals for their ties to, and in some cases, outright support for Nazism and the Iron Guard, responsible for some of the most gruesome extermination campaigns of Jewish people in WW2, as a way to distance themselves from the Balkans. Yet, she conveniently sidesteps her own country's membership in the Axis powers and complicity in the Holocaust which in times of such widespread historical revisionism is extremely concerning. Moreover, she tends to paint a rosy picture of Bulgaria's acceptance of the term Balkan, going as far as to say that historically, Bulgarians are the only ones who have considered it a positive term as opposed to other Balkan countries. While that may be true to some extent (the Balkan mountain range is in fact located in Bulgaria which could contextualize that), their nationalism and territorial pretensions towards their neighbors are also very well-documented and attest to the fact that they do not put their Balkan identity first as she implies.

Another thing I struggled with a bit at the start was the references to specific arguments from Edward Said's Orientalism, the more complex ones which I found difficult to follow as I haven't read it yet and thus lacked the context. However, there has never been a better time to read Said than right now, so I will be rectifying that mistake and adding it to my to-read list immediately.

[Tanya Ivanova · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am confused as to how good I think this book really is. Setting the unnecessarily pretentious tone it uses aside, obviously Todorova put quite some effort into gathering sources, but I guess that's the only way to write a non-fiction (and sociological?) book. Throughout the book I saw some good deconstruction, such as proof from literature and the public sphere of the categorization of the Balkans as inferior, incompetent, primitive by Western and even Central European countries. Also, it was very interesting to read the account of bourgois/aristocratic Westerners passing through the Balkans while on their Grand Tour in the 18th and 19th centuries and how, themselves representing colonial culture interests, they took the imperial Turkish side to heart, tending to categorize the colonized local Balkan people as primitive, dirty and by nature obsequious savages. Then that kind of attitude of these elite Westerners gets disseminated in their press and literature back home and feeds the image creating and reinforcing loop over time (of course, with several exceptional favorable voices, and even in some of them the tone of condescension can be discerned).

However, at times I was left wondering why Todorova chose just this or that source, because honestly some of the people and authors she cited seemed on the senile side and seemed to self-discredit their own words through their unastute reasoning. Another impression I got - Maria (I am not disrespectfully calling her using her first name, I just was seriously put off by the book's pretentious language and am trying to lighten things up a bit) tends to try to explain certain Balkan realities by offering several alternative possibilities, and then at the end simply states "and the most likely is" without giving the reason why. Sometimes (but not always) she also tends to relativize the cruelty and damage done by Turkish rule on the Balkans, and also seems to suggest that in some ways that regime might have been beneficial (in some cases, the logic seemed flawed - she says among other things that had it not been for the Ottoman empire, the Bulgarian religious icons would not have found their way to churches and monasteries all the way around the Balkans, and here I disagree. You do not need to suffer the humiliation and cruelties of centuries of colonization for trade markets between neighbors to be established over time - this is a natural process, especially when they already share a common religion and therefore interests, and even if the icon market would not have been established otherwise, I think its desirability is rendered absurd if several countries have to be colonized to establish it). All this attains its culmination in the afterword to the updated edition where Todorova insists the Turkish yoke on the Balkans was not colonization and even goes so far as to compare its influence on the area to that of the Soviet Union. She also mentions at one point that "self-understanding as colonial subjects was absent in the Balkans" as a truism, but I think it is rather a strategic device on her part. Not sure who she hopes to fool, but pretty much all contemporary non-Muslim Balkan people believe that their ancestors were "slaves" to the Turks for around 500 years. This ideological bias of hers, which differs from what most actual Balkan people think, must have something to do with the fact that building her career in American institutions must come with a price tag.

I also found some of the reading interesting and it confirmed the personal analysis I have been developing based on reading and observation since I was 17 when I emigrated to the West and where slowly I realized that I am seen as a second-class human being, to later figure out that it was due to where I was born and raised and the perceptions people there had been educated in for centuries through their public sphere and possibly national educational systems as well. Otherwise few things were new for me in the book, though they were worth reading, but maybe it would shed some light on the region for outsiders, as told by a half-insider voice. And I say half because on the one hand, she is quite well aware of popular local attitudes, on the other she seems a little distanced. By saying this I envision the occasional relativizing of the negative effects of the Turkish yoke, maybe done to fulfill the protocol of appearing academically objective, and yet done. As with the other colonizations, I am highly skeptical that colonization can or has ever been any level of mild or beneficial for the colonized people. An association that comes to mind is the analogy with "humanely" killing animals, which kills them after all. I this sense, I find it hard to imagine a way of mildly, slightly or beneficially submitting and humiliating human beings, which really is a contradiction in terms. To be fair, the book was groundbreaking for its time and still is today, considering that the power relationship of the expert, supposedly pluralist, tolerant, democratic West to the incompetent, poor and backward East of Europe not only holds full power still today, but many Bulgarians have internalized it as natural and justified as well as it is perfectly accepted and even promoted in the Bulgarian public space (with the main TV channel doing so being Western owned). This book did an important step toward breaking the silence on this taboo point of view and elevate its status into an issue to be discussed openly.

[Mehmet]

karl marx’ın “hayalet metaforu”nu balkanlara uygulayan maria todovora, imagining the balkans (oxford university press) olarak basılan ve dilimize iletişim yayınları tarafından kazandırılan bu kitabında avrupa’nın kendi içindeki ötekisi olan balkanları ele alıyor.

todovora’ya göre balkanlar avrupa’nın üvey çocuğudur. kendi içinde ötekisidir, batıyla doğu arasında kalmış bir toplumdur. ne kadar avrupa kıtası içinde olsa da…

zamanında oryantalist mantıkla doğu hakkında kurulan fantezilerin şimdi balkanlar hakkında kurulduğunu ve balkanlardan çok farklı bir imajın batı yazınında dolaştığını söyleyen todovora, bunun için kötü kelime olarak “balkanlaşmak” (balkanisation) tabirinin akademik ve gündelik dilde batı düşüncesindeki karşılığın söyler: parçalanmak!

balkanlar, gerçekte böyle midir? kitapta bu konu üzerinde çok fazla durulmaz. balkanların böyle görünmesine ne neden olmuştur? buna daha fazla odaklanır yazar.

yazar kitabında şu konuya da dikkat çeker, balkanlarda da avrupa farklı bir imaja sahiptir. çoğu balkan vatandaşı kendilerini avrupalı olarak görmez. hatta fransa, ingiltere gibi ülkelere gidenlere “avrupa’ya gitti” denir, zira kendileri bu kıtayı sahiplenmez. bu imaj onlara zorla mı aşılanmıştır yoksa tersine, avrupalı oldukları düşüncesi mi dışarıdan gelmiştir bilinmez. ama ironik bir çatışma; yunan kurtuluş savaşında avrupa’dan gelen gönüllülerin döndüklerinde beraberlerinde götürdüğü balkan imajında olmuştur: çoğu yunanlıları büyük bir medeniyetin torunları olarak görerek gelmiş fakat döndüklerinde onların çobanlardan ibaret olduğunu hatta türklerin daha medeni olduğunu söylemiştir.

yazar, kitabında ilginç söylemler de ortaya atıyor:

“balkanlardaki kıyımların çoğu defa avrupa boyutunda olmadığı ortadadır. (sf.22)”

buradan önemli bir şey çıkarabiliriz, todovora da balkanları avrupa olarak görmüyor!

edward said’den oldukça etkilendiği (ki zaten öğrencisidir) her halinden okunan yazarın, kitabında said’e yer vermediği bölüm neredeyse yok.

emil cioran, ki kendisi severek okuduğum bir yazardır, kendi halkından “köylülük ve cehalet fışkıran” diye bahseder. burada aslında temel bir detay gözden kaçmamalıdır, batı yazınındaki barbar doğu imajının aynısı, doğu entelektüelleri ile kendi halkı arasında da simüle edilir. i̇şte balkan toplumu da kendi içinde bu ikiliğe sahip. balkan entelektüelleri kendilerini inatla avrupa’nın parçası olarak görürler. tıpkı balkan sözünün türkçe olmasına tahammül edemeyen milliyetçiler gibi onlar da bu sözü istemez ve ülkelerinin tipik avrupa ülkesi olduğunu iddia ederler.

bu ikilem türkiye’de niyazi berkes tarafından çok iyi dile getirilmiş:

“türkiye bugün ne batılı ne de doğulu bir ulustur: hristiyan, sosyalist veya kapitalist bir toluluğa da mensup değildir… ne asyalı’dır, ne avrupalı.” (akt. todovora, imagining the balkans)

işte todovora’nın temel vurgusu bunun benzeridir. balkanlar, ne avrupalıdır, ne asyalı, ne doğudur ne kuzey, ne rusya’dır ne almanya. balkanlar en nihayetinde kendi içinde bile farklı kültürlere sahip olduklarından ötürü, her biri farklı değerlendirilmelidir.

todovora’nın bana göre düştüğü en büyük yanılgı, aslında balkanlar şöyledir böyledir bize böyle davranılıyor derken kendi taşıdığı kimlikten, yani bir balkanlı kimliğinden dışarı çıkamamasıdır. oryantalizmi eleştirirken doğu-batı ikilemini yeniden yaratırken düşülen hata, todovora’da da var. üstelik, “biz” derken “siz” nasıl öteki haline geliyorsa, “avrupa” “balkanlara” x şeklinde davranıyor dendiğinde ikilem yeniden yaratılmış olur.

türkiye’de de biz avrupalıyız veya avrupalı değiliz derkenki o “bizi kabullenin” meydan okuması, içten içe farklılığın da dramını içermiyor mu? eğer avrupalı olsaydık, bunu söylemek zorunda kalmazdık.



her kesimden insanın rahatlıkla okuyabileceği, öğretici bir kitap.

(Mehmet Baran)

[Bethany · Rating 4 out of 5]

It took me an unnaturally long time to finish this book. In my defense. I got about halfway through it in less than a month and just had to put it aside for school. Now that I've graduated, I'm trying to work through more of my books and this was one of the first I finished. It was quite enjoyable for someone interested in these things, but it was a little too academic even for me. I think I would have appreciated it more if I had a PhD or a much more extensive knowledge of the Balkans.

That said, it offered quite a few very interesting insights into the region and did inspire me to want to read more Balkan history. It was just really dense, too dense for pleasure reading in my opinion.

[Anna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Książka Todorovej przedstawia podejście zachodniej Europy i podróżników pochodzących z takich krajów jak Wielka Brytania, Francja czy Niemcy do Grecji, Bułgarii, Słowenii, Rumunii, Chorwacji i pozostałych krajów "bałkańskich".

[Albert · Rating 3 out of 5]

It has good points, but the author has enlarged the book without reason, the whole book can be summarized up in a few arguments: Crusade wasn't initiated by the Balkans, religious wars either, nor the nationalism, nor the anti-semitism.

[She - wolf · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mariju Todorovu sam čitala u sklopu jednog predmeta za fakultet. Iskreno, srž razumijem i shvatam zašto je napisala knjigu, kao i šta želi reći. U drugu ruku polovinu stvari ne razumijem, jer jednostavno nisam na tom nivou još uvijek. Za sada 3*, a nakon par godina vidjet ćemo.

[l · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good but confusingly organized.

[Elise · Rating 4 out of 5]

theoretically dense text, and incredibly useful for anyone who seeks to engage with historical/ political constructions of Others or of the West and the Orient. An important critique of Edward Said's Orientalism is that it is very discourse heavy, and it is also reifying of the construct of the West by treating all western constructions of the east as interchangable; this critique can be found here and in other successors (or ciritcs) of Said, and Todorova, wonderfully, also shows what an analysis of discourse with regards to national power dynamics/ intranational class dynamics can look like. it wasn't surprising to learn this, but i did not know is beforehand, but because of class disdain and class solidarity it does make sense that british aristocrats would see themselves as more aligned with Turkish bureaucrats than Balkan peasantry. (plastic paddy note ahead) notice how the bar for lacking civilization, to the british, was continuously the irish? so, like, excellent work on the task of racialization, civilization, and power.

something strange that i feel weird about: in deconstructing the West vs East construct, Todorova sometimes instead worked to make the nation as the more rational construction, and to assert that the West as a concept wasn't a unified one. i think they are both disunified concepts, but one is a bit more reified because states undeniably have laws and borders and such in the current era--but there was def political power behind the concept of the West. liberal institutions, especially those that empowered civilization, implicitly were building on a long discourse construction of the West (and the concept was visibly empowered in, say, funding of science through the NSF being a liberal civilizational project in its inception being an example off the dome).

quote from the conclusion i am keeping on hand, as a fan of eastern european films:

"By being geographically inextricable from Europe, yet culturally constructed as 'the other' within, the Balkans have been able to absorb conveniently a number of externalized political, ideological, and cultural frustrations stemming from tensions and contradictions inherent to the regions and societies outside the Balkans. Balkanism became, in time, a convenient substitute for the emotional discharge that orientalism provided, exempting the West from charges of racism, colonialism eurocentrism, and Christian intolerance against Islam. After all, the Balkans are in Europe; they are white; they are predominantly Christian, and therefore the externalization of frustrations on them can circumvent the usual racial or religious bias allegations."

a good book. read for free over two weeks via the internet archive. thank you ia.

[Mateusz Kołota · Rating 3 out of 5]

„Bałkany wyobrażone” Marii Todorovej to dzieło, które na nowo uczy, czym jest stereotyp – jak powstaje, jak się go utrwala i jak może stać się narzędziem politycznym, kulturowym i cywilizacyjnym. To książka fundamentalna nie tylko dla badaczy, ale i dla każdego, kto chce zrozumieć, jak Zachód przez wieki patrzył na Bałkany – z góry, z dystansem, a często z pogardą.

Todorova z chirurgiczną precyzją rozkłada na czynniki pierwsze pojęcie „bałkanizacji”, pokazując, że termin ten nie narodził się z faktów, lecz z imaginacji – z projekcji Zachodu, który potrzebował „innego”, egzotycznego, nieuporządkowanego terytorium, by samemu czuć się bardziej „cywilizowanym”. Autorka – wywodząca się z regionu, który opisuje – łączy naukowy rygor z osobistą wrażliwością. To dzięki temu ta książka nie jest suchą rozprawą akademicką, lecz emocjonalną, miejscami prowokującą podróżą po historii percepcji.

W epoce nowych podziałów i kulturowych etykietek, Todorova stawia ważne pytanie: kto ma prawo mówić, co jest „centrum”, a co „peryferią”? „Bałkany wyobrażone” to nie tylko analiza konkretnego regionu, ale uniwersalna lekcja o tym, jak tworzymy wyobrażone mapy świata – mapy uprzedzeń, nadziei, lęków i iluzji.

Dla polskiego czytelnika – obywatela kraju balansującego między Wschodem a Zachodem – lektura ta ma wymiar szczególny. Pomaga zrozumieć, że prowincjonalność to nie geografia, lecz narracja, w którą można uwierzyć lub którą można świadomie rozbroić.

[Peter Prokopiev]

“By being geographically inextricable from Europe, yet culturally constructed as “the other” within, the Balkans have been able to absorb conveniently a number of externalized political, ideological, and cultural frustrations stemming from ten- sions and contradictions inherent to the regions and societies outside the Balkans. Balkanism became, in time, a convenient substitute for the emotional discharge that orientalism provided, exempting the West from charges of racism, colonialism, eurocentrism, and Christian intolerance against Islam. After all, the Balkans are in Europe; they are white; they are predominantly Christian, and therefore the external- ization of frustrations on them can circumvent the usual racial or religious bias alle- gations. As in the case of the Orient, the Balkans have served as a repository of negative characteristics against which a positive and self-congratulatory image of the “Euro- pean” and the “West” has been constructed. With the reemergence of East and orientalism as independent semantic values, the Balkans are left in Europe’s thrall, anticivilization, alter ego, the dark side within. “

[KT · Rating 4 out of 5]

Building on the tradition of Edward Said and Benedict Anderson, the author provides a comprehensive history of the invention, orientalisation and othering of the Balkans grounding balkanism historically in the Ottoman Period of the 16th century onwards

The book also does an excellent job pushing back on the ghettoisation of the Balkans by covering the history of attitudes and views towards the Balkans, although this did get esoteric at times, as well as exploring how and why these came about including prejudices against the Slavs compared to more favourable views towards the Greeks

Particularly interesting was the use of flawed racial science by British and American academics to justify their racist sentiments towards the Balkans
and the construction of the mythic Central Europe as a grouping of Eastern European/Balkan countries deemed acceptable/white enough at a particular point in time

Highly recommended for anyone interested in the Balkans

[Yiğit Güler · Rating 3 out of 5]

Balkanlar nedir, Doğu Avrupa nedir, Orta Avrupa nedir, hangi ülkenin hangi coğrafi bölgeye ait olduğuna kim nasıl karar verir gibi sorulara bir tarihçi gözüyle cevap arayan ve bu konuyla ilgili mevcut argümanların eleştirisini yapan bir kitap. Zaman zaman çok detaya düştüğü oluyor. Akıcı bir dili yok. 14. yy ve sonrasındaki gezi yazarlığının farklı coğrafyaların tanınmasında ve tanıtılmasında ne kadar etkili olduğunu görüyoruz. Özellikle hangi milletten gezginlerin balkanlardaki gözlemlerini ne şekilde anlattıklarını görüyoruz. Kaçınılmaz olarak Osmanlı İmp. tüm balkan coğrafyası üzerindeki etkisi ile ilgili de çokça detay açıklama ve çarpıcı tespitler var.

[Diane · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book looks at the Balkans' image in the West (both historically and in the present day), and claims that Western writers have unfairly maligned the region. It is an interesting thesis, and the author does a good job of explaining how the region is generally viewed, and why this view tends to be inaccurate. She doesn't really present an alternative view, however, which I see as a missed opportunity.

[Marco Pavan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a pretty excellent read around the history of what the Balkans. I particularly enjoy reading through the wide range of the western world misconceptions, fundamentally spun by sheer ignorance. It's at time a bit too long to read in certain passages, but nevertheless the author did a wonderful job in researching and presenting the different themes discussed along the book

[Milodar · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Balkanist bible -- fantastic book (obviously). The interrogation of the way that the word Balkan is represented in different Balkan/South Slavic linguistics is especially impressive. I do think Todorova is overly critical of Said in her introduction. This may have been addressed in the 2007 updated edition, however, which I have not yet read.

[Magdalena Marciniak · Rating 2 out of 5]

Spodziewałam się, że książka o Bałkanach może nie być łatwą lekturą. Ale nie spodziewałam się, że tak będzie, ponieważ sięgam po rozprawę naukową. Jakaś 1/5 książki to przypisy i bibliografia. Może jest to dobra książka, ale nie tego oczekiwałam sięgając po coś z serii Sulina. Od pewnego momentu bardziej kartkowałam niż czytałam.

[Arved · Rating 5 out of 5]

Truly enlightening work with lots of groundbreaking ideas. Must read for anyone working in the field of Balkan studies, Turkology, etc.
The style of writing is a bit complicated, so progress was slow and frequently needed to backtrack. Huge bibliography with interesting books to read.

[Barbara Em · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dzieło przepotężne i niezwykle wartościowe, ale kiedy 2/3 książki to zdania na ponad cztery linijki czytanie jest naprawdę bolesne.