Inventing Ruritania: The Imperialism of the Imagination

by Vesna Goldsworthy

Greek translation of Inventing Ruritania (Yale U.P., 1998).

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Anthropology, Literary Criticism, Books About Books

254 pages, Hardcover

Published June 16, 1998

Reviews

[Liam Ostermann · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book originally came out in 1998 so it is heavily influenced by the 'orientalist' theories of Edward Said into which the 'Balkans' are forced rather than his 'theory' being adapted to. But much more influential, though not so easily defined as Said's academic theory, was the sheer mountain of nonsense that poured out of instant 'experts' on the resurgence of 'ancient' hatreds as an explanation of the horrors witnessed during the breakup of Yugoslavia. Try and imagine if the Shoah was 'explained' by reference to the martyrdom of the infant St. Simon of Trent!? Yet equally bogus 'historical' events were dragged out to put obscenities like the Srebrenica massacre into a context comfortably distant from ourselves (and avoiding facing up to the failures of those countries armies intervening in the area to do anything to stop such horrors. In fact they handed the 8,000 Bosnian men and boys over to their murderers. At least the Shoah was only ignored by us, we didn't actually hand over Jews to the Germans).

Ms. Goldsworthy does a fascinating job in placing the Balkans within that 'other' context that all foreign/colonial places existed at one time and she looks at a wide variety of literature from short stories by E.M. Forster to novelists like Graham Greene and Ruritanian classics by Anthony Hope. She has many interesting things to say but doesn't always say them in a fresh or readable way. Her Academic prose is leaden but not unreadable, thank goodness, because what she says is fascinating.

Although arising out of a particular context the book is not trapped by it and despite the clunky use of the Said's 'Orientalists' tropes there is much to appreciate and learn from in this book.

[Carole Burton · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I say that this book was rather heavy going, it's not a criticism. It covers a lot of ground and is not the sort of book to speed read, you want to take it all in. I have always liked 'Ruritanian' fiction but I hadn't realised just how popular the genre was in its heyday and the book has brought to my attention many titles I knew nothing about. All I need now is the time to read them!

[Aljoša · Rating 4 out of 5]

not a review, more like notes from the book for my future reference:

so basically:

•to be Balkan was considered to be bad so the people were always pushing the Balkan boundary away from them. (but always including Macedonia, northern part of Greece, Bulgaria, Albania, Bosnia and parts of Romania and Serbia. Croatia, Slovenia, Hungary and parts of Romania and Serbia were debatable due to them being part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, even though Hungary was often considered the start of Balkan, so sometimes by extension AH Empire was also Balkans)
•the Balkan people being equated to Greeks or Turks, without any differences (18-19th century)
•romance novels (British people marrying someone from the Balkans; they're always sort of royal, but studied in the UK, so they're not "the Other" as much)
•strong Montenegrins, Serbs, national identity
•gothic novels (Dracula being the most famous example)
•excursions of Edith Durham (Albania), Rebecca West (Serbia), Olivia Manning (WW2 romance Romania) in the early 20th century, often learning the local languages and writing about the national identity
•orient express (train is going to the East ("from civilized countries to the uncivilized") and often nothing works/something breaks/someone is killed/police are inept... in the Balkans; Balkan served as the East instead of Turkey - something not European, therefore exotic, but not quite East)

[Martaa · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Izmišljanje Ruritanije" je istraživanje Vesne Golsvordi o načinu na koji je Balkan predstavljen u književnosti Zapada, sa fokusom na britanska dela. Cilj istraživanja je da se otkrije kako su ova dela uticala na percepciju ljudi o Balkanu i stvaranje stigme o poluostrvu. U delu se razmatraju pitanja kao što su odnosi "Istok- Zapad" , bavi se time ko smo "mi" , a ko "oni". Bilo je interesantno za čitanje, i jako puno toga se može naučiti iz ove knjige. Meni su predgovor i prvo poglavlje bili najzanimljiviji, pa sam se kasnije razočarala. Bilo je manjih problema oko organizacije u istraživanju, ali svakako preporuka.

[Milodar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well-researched and well-written -- often poignant and witty! You'd be hard pressed to find a more important text to this niche field. The earlier chapters are better organized than the later ones. Also, I am sympathetic to critiques that Goldsworthy has leaned too heavily into a Saidian framework that may not ALWAYS be entirely applicable in this historical case study.