The Balkan Studies: History, Post-Colonialism and Critical Regionalism

Abstract

This article will give an overview of the 20 years of the so-called Balkan studies – a corpus of area studies that, in methodological terms, most fruitfully adopted, altered and debated Said’s analysis of Orientalism. The article will single out and discuss two conflicting approaches to the study of the Balkans: the Balkans as the post-colonial space favoured by philosophers and literary critics, and the more historical approaches developed by the historians of the region and the Ottoman Empire. The article will emphasize some new developments in Ottoman historiography and post-colonial studies and their significance for the Balkan studies.

Keywords:

• Balkan studies
• post-colonial studies
• Ottoman historiography
• critical regionalism

Notes

1. See for instance Jansen (33–72); and Živković (77–99).

2. See for instance Adanir and Farouqhi (1–57); and Green (Notes from the Balkans: locating marginality and ambiguity on the Greek-Albanian border).

3. See for instance Mungiu-Pippidi and van Meurs Ottomans into Europeans: state and institution building in South Eastern Europe; and Lampe (Balkans into southeastern Europe: century of war and transition).

4. For detailed critique of Said’s Orientalism see Ahmad (In Theory: Classes, Nations, Literatures).

5. See also Hansen (345–62).

6. See also Todorova Imagining the Balkans 121–7.

7. Most studies of regionalism today have a decidedly materialistic/economic orientation, especially concerning the above discussed Pacific Rim and Basin studies and the emerging concept of the “Pacific Century”; see for instance Dixon and Drakakis-Smith (75–91); Palat (303–47); and Crone (68–83). Globalization is also seen as a predominantly economic phenomenon with corresponding cultural and political effects that may vary depending on positionality in relation to space and time within the global economy as in, for instance, Sheppard (303–30).

8. Spivak is particularly interested in the work of Bulgarian sociologist Petia Kabakchieva in developing critical regionalism. Kabakchieva refers to “the new regionalism” in Bulgaria which is beyond the nation-state in two critical ways: “First it does not develop along nation-state lines because its centre is thought as not situated on a given territory, i.e. the centre is not “on” but “above”, beyond concretely foreseeable territoriality. Second, this type of region is beyond the nation state, insofar as it covers parts of nation states constituting a common region – and, in this sense, it is not “in” either, but “around” (Kabakchieva “Eurolocal perspectives towards the EU”).

9. Kurcku critically debates the presumed “Turkic” world that streches “from the Adriatic coast to the Great Wall of China” and which emerged in Turkish foreign policy during the 1990s. Kurcku, however, concludes that Turkey “has little real economic or cultural influence over [this] presumed realm of hegemony” (2–3).

10. See also Detrez and Segaert Europe and the Historical Legacies in the Balkans.