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On the Edge of Reason: The Boundaries of Balkanism in Slovenian, Austrian, and Italian Discourse

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Patrick Hyder Patterson
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Abstract

In this article Patrick Patterson offers new perspectives on the critique of Balkanist discourse elaborated recently by Maria Todorova and others. Examining Slovenian, Austrian, and Italian commentary on contemporary southeastern Europe, Patterson concludes that Slovenia's “western” neighbors did not wholeheartedly embrace the campaign by some influential Slovenes to distance their society from other, purportedly “Balkan,” Yugoslavs. Although Balkanism marked the discourse of all three countries, Italian and Austrian opinion often rejected important implications of the Slovenes' exceptionalist rhetoric. Ultimately, the internal dynamics of Austrian and Italian identity and political culture trumped the Balkan - ist logic behind Slovenes' claims to a uniquely “central European” character. Moreover, even in Slovenian sources, Balkanist rhetoric proved less dominant and consistent than the prevailing critique admits. Accordingly, that critique, which treats Balkanism as a rigid, uniform, pervasive, and virtually inescapable “power discourse” of hegemony, should be revised to account for forces that may limit or subvert its power.

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Articles
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Slavic Review , Volume 62 , Issue 1 , Spring 2003 , pp. 110 - 141
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Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 2003

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References

For the valuable comments and suggestions they offered regarding previous versions of this essay, I would like to thank John Fine, Brian Porter, Ray Grew, Tom Emmert, Miha Javornik, Radu Florescu, Stefano Bianchini, Aldo Badiani, and Slavic Review's anonymous reviewers.

1 In this study, the adjective Slovene refers to things linked primarily with the national community of ethnic Slovenes. The term Slovenian is used for matters associated in a more general way with Slovenia, that is, the polity or locale.

2 My identification of Austrians and Italians as die most securely western of the Slovenes’ neighbors may seem to slight the very earnest Croat and Magyar aspirations to membership in the same club. The assessment, however, is simply intended as diagnostic, not normative. At the same time, my analysis here proceeds with an awareness that some contemporary scholars have mounted a full-scale assault against the validity of the very notion of a western identity. My usage runs the risk of reifying that now-suspect classification, but here it is meant to reflect only the rather modest determination that die Italian and Austrian claims to westernness, if not entirely unassailable, are nevertheless for most practical purposes unassailed, especially in the mainstream political and cultural commentary diat forms the source base for the study presented here.

3 Significantly, because of the lengthy Ottoman rule over some of the lands they inhabited, the Croats are included on Maria Todorova's list, along with the Albanians, Bulgarians, Greeks, Romanians, Turks, and the other former Yugoslavs. Todorova, , Imaginingthe Balkans (New York, 1997), 12–13, 31Google Scholar; see also 161-83. See also Todorova, , “The Ottoman Legacy in the Balkans,” in L. Brown, Carl, ed., Imperial Legacy: The Ottoman Imprinton the Balkans and the Middle East (New York, 1996)Google Scholar, where Todorova writes: “It is … preposterous to look for an Ottoman legacy in the Balkans. The Balkans are the Ottoman legacy” (46, emphasis in the original).

4 Gale Stokes, review of Todorova, Imagining the Balkans, on the HABSBURG H-NetDiscussion Network, 10 September 1997, see http://www2.h-net.msu.edu/∼habsweb (last consulted 28 September 2002).

5 The most extensive review of Slovenian sources is to be found in Milica Bakic- Hayden and Robert Hayden, M., “Orientalist Variations on the Theme ‘Balkans': Symbolic Geography in Recent Yugoslav Cultural Politics,” Slavic Review 51, no. 1 (Spring 1992)Google Scholar: 1— 15. Bakić-Hayden and Hayden highlight the statements of five Slovenian intellectuals and public figures (Taras Kermauner, Dimitrij Rupel, Peter Jambrek, Tine Hribar, and Peter Tancig) in support of their argument that, with the eclipse of socialism, the “orientalist paradigm” has attained a hegemonic position in Slovenian and Croatian political rhetoric. The other most significant critiques of Balkanism either omit Slovenian sources entirely or treat them only in passing. This is true even of those works that examine Balkanist rhetoric among the peoples of the former Yugoslavia. See, for example, Bakić-Hayden, , “Nesting Orientalisms: The Case of Former Yugoslavia,” Slavic Review 54, no. 4 (Winter 1995): 917–31CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Guzina, Dejan, “Inside/Outside Imaginings of the Balkans: The Case of the Former Yugoslavia,” Balkanistica 12 (1999): 39–66 Google Scholar; Dina Iordanova, “Are the Balkans Admissible? The Discourse on Europe,” Balkanistica 13 (2000): 1-36; Hayden, , “The Use of National Stereotypes in the Wars in Yugoslavia,” in Faber, Mientjan, ed., The Balkans: A ReligiousBackyard of Europe (Ravenna, 1996), 83–100 Google Scholar. To varying extents, these works are all indebted to Edward W. Said's influential Orientalism (New York, 1978), though in important respects they modify or depart from Said's analysis.

6 An insightful reflection of the state of the critique of Balkanism is Fleming, K. E., “Orientalism, the Balkans, and Balkan Historiography,” American Historical Review 105, no. 4 (October 2000): 1218–33CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7 See, for example, Ash, Timothy Garton, “Mitteleuropa?” Daedalus 119, no. 1 (Winter 1990): 1–21 Google Scholar; Rupnik, Jacques, “Central Europe or Mitteleuropa?“Daedalus 119, no. 1 (Winter 1990): 249–78Google Scholar; Hanns-Albert Steger and Renate Morell, eds., Ein Gespenst gehturn … : Mitteleuropa” [documentation of the conference “Grenzen und Horizonte: Zur Problematik Mitteleuropas in Vergangenheit und Gegenwart,” Regensburg, 1986] (Munich, 1987); Schubert, Markus, Die Mitteleuropa-KonzeptionFriedrichNaumannsund die Mitteleuropa-Debatte der 80erjahre, Libertas Paper no. 3 (Sindelfingen, 1993)Google Scholar. Jaworski, Cf. Rudolf, “Die aktuelle Mitteleuropadiskussion in historischer Perspekuve,” Historische Zeitschrift 247, no. 3 (1988): 529–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Although Slovenian writers were keenly attuned to these discussions of the concept of central Europe and cited them frequently, Jaworski's review illustrates that the flow of ideas went mostly one way. See also Jaworski, “Zur Tauglichkeit und Akzeptanz eines historischen Hilfsbegriffs,” in Eberhard, Winfried et al., eds., WestmitteleuropaOstmitteleuropa: Vergkiche und Beziehungen: Festschrift für Ferdinand Seibt zum 65.Getmrtstag (Munich, 1992), 37–45 Google Scholar.

8 Dimitrij Rupel characterizes this emphasis on cultural matters as one of the fundamental modes of, or perhaps substitutes for, political activity among Slovenes, a reflex born of their long experience as constituents of much broader multinational states. In his view, this “Slovene cultural syndrome” developed as a response to Slovenes’ weakness in more expressly political spheres. Rupel, , Slovenstvo kot politično prepričanje (Ljubljana, 1992), 14–16 Google Scholar. All translations from foreign languages are my own unless otherwise noted.

9 My emphasis on the 1980s and 1990s here is not meant to imply that influential Slovenes had not looked to central Europe as a framework for elaborating their national identity well before that time. See, for example, Kocbek, Edvard, “Sredjna Evropa,” Dejanje 3 (1940): 89–92 Google Scholar.

10 For a representative sample of the journal's political concerns, see Hribar, Tine, “Nova revija v novi dobi,” Nova revija 9, nos. 101-2 (September-October 1990): 1097–1100 Google Scholar.

11 See, for example, Debeljak, Aleš, “Zgodovina slovenske sramežljivosti,” Melanholične figure: Eseji o književnosti (Ljubljana, 1988), 133–44Google Scholar. Debeljak sympathized with the project to affirm a non-Balkan identity, but he suggested that the idea of central Europe threatened to keep Slovenes stuck in their role as “something in between,” as “the Balkan Europeans and the Europeans of the Balkans” (135, 142-43). Tine Hribar, one of die most important members of the Nova revija circle, generally accepted Slovenia's identification with central Europe but expressed doubts that the concept of central Europe could have much in the way of real practical meaning given the supervening processes of European political integration. Hribar, “Podoba srednje evrope” (1991), Slovencihot nacija: Soočanja s sodobniki (Ljubljana, 1995). See also Grafenauer, Bogo, “Srednja Evropa? Zakaj ne preprosto Evropa?” in Vodopivec, Peter, ed., Srednja Evropa (Ljubljana, 1991), 15–26 Google Scholar. The Vodopivec collection offers a particularly valuable sample of the range of opinions that Slovenes and others entertained with regard to Mitteleuropa.

12 For examples of such associations, see Bučar, France, “Slovenija v Evropi,” Nova revija 10, no. 115 (1991): i–vii Google Scholar; Bučar, “Slovenia in Europe,” Nationalities Papers 21, no. 1 (Spring 1993): 33-41; Jancčr, Drago, “Memories of Yugoslavia,” in Grafenauer, Niko, ed., The Case of Slovenia [Nova revija special edition] (Ljubljana, 1991), 64–78 Google Scholar; Andrej Capuder, Mozaik svobode: Politika in kultura 1985-1992 (Ljubljana, 1992), 95; Petrič, Ernest, ‘“Srednja Evropa’ obstaja v sferi duhovnega,” Naši razgledi 37, no. 7 (8 April 1988): 232–33Google Scholar. Historian Ervin Dolenc, a specialist in Slovenian culture, concludes that “just as the political history of the states Slovenes lived in typifies Mitteleuropa, the cultural development of Slovenes does not differ much from the contemporaneous development of central Europe.“ Ervin Dolenc, “Culture, Politics, and Slovene Identity,” in Jill Benderly and Evan Kraft, eds., Independent Slovenia: Origins, Movements, Prospects (New York, 1996), 69. See also Hribar, Valentin, “Slovene Statehood,” Nationalities Papers 21, no. 1 (Spring 1993): 43–49 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

13 Rupel, Dimitrij, Besede božje in božanske (Ljubljana, 1987), 55–80 Google Scholar. See, for example, Dimitrij Rupel, “Slovenia's Shift from the Balkans to Central Europe,” in Benderly and Kraft, eds., Independent Slovenia, 187, 194-95. See also Rupel, , Čas politike (Ljubljana, 1994), 30–37 Google Scholar; Rupel, , Odčarana Slovenija: knjiga o slovenski pomladi injeseni (Ljubljana, 1993), 59, 151, 161Google Scholar; Rupel, “Srednja Evropa, prehodno obdobje,” in Vodopivec, ed., Srednja Evropa, 95-105. Rupel's concern for the “withdrawal of Slovenia from the Balkans” has persisted; see, for example, Rupel, “Narod prihodnosti,“De/o, 30 April 1999, 32.

14 Rupel, Dimitrij, “Samostojna in evropska Slovenija: Poročilo ob prvi obletnici demokracije” (April 1991), Slovenska pot do samostojnosti in priznanja (Ljubljana, 1992), 137–38Google Scholar (emphasis in the original); see generally 100-106, 131-40.

15 Dimitrij Rupel, “Mojstri, vendar ne naši, Republika, 24 April 1993, reprinted in Rupel, Edinost, sreca, sprava (Ljubljana, 1993), 17-18 (emphasis in the original). Along the same lines, see, for example, Rupel, “Ameriski sen,” Republika, 26 November 1994, reprinted in Rupel, Edinost, 176-77 (on how Slovenia saved itself from the “sinking ship of premodern and preindustrial Balkanness“). Related themes surface repeatedly in Rupel's essay on the Slovenes’ fate in postcommunist Europe, “Slovenci in Evropa,” in Rupel, Edinost, 191-250. See also Rupel, , “Slovenia in Post-Modern Europe,” Nationalities Papers 21, no. 1 (Spring 1993): 51–59 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. In thisarticle written in November 1991, Rupel argued that a “part of Yugoslavia has a good chance of remaining outside Europe. Slovenia, which senses that it is Europe or nothing, strives to escape from the Yugoslav bondage which keeps it apart” (55).

16 Taras Kermauner, “Slovenija med Srednjo Evropo in Balkanom” (10 March 1988), in Taras Kermauner and Matjaz Kmecl, Pisma slovenskemu prijatelju (Celovec [Klagenfurt], 1989).

17 Ibid., 215-16.

18 Ibid., 211.

19 Ibid., 224, 225. See also Kermauner, Pisma srbskemu prijatelju (Celovec [Klagenfurt], 1989).

20 Rus, Veljko, “Uvod,” in Rus, Veljko, ed., Slovenia po ktu 1995: Razmišljanja oprihodnosti (Ljubljana, 1995), 9 Google Scholar.

21 Jezernik, Mišo, “Slovenci o sebi in drugih,” Nova revija 8, nos. 84-85 (1989): 964 Google Scholar (emphasis added).

22 Jože Pirjevec, a Slovene historian at the University of Trieste, argues that when Slovenes joined the first Yugoslav state in 1918 they “departed from the cultural and civilizational circle of central Europe and joined a foreign, Levantine world precisely in the hope that they would with its help preserve their ethnic unity.” Pirjevec, Jugoslavia, 1918-1992: Nastanek, razvoj ter razpad Karadjordjevićeve in Titove Jugoslavije (Koper, 1995), 29; see also 14-15, 31, 45, 63, 67, 103. Pirjevec offers a more unreservedly Balkanist analysis in “The Levant and Central Europe in the History of Former Yugoslavia,” in Bianchini, Stefano and Shoup, Paul, eds., The Yugoslav War, Europe and the Balkans: How to AchieveSecurity? (Ravenna, 1995), 83–91 Google Scholar. On the Slovenes as the product of “Central European civilization processes” and the “foreign,” that is, “Slavic, Eastern, Balkan, and Orthodox orientation” of the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, see Prunk, Janko, “The Origins of an Independent Slovenia,” in Fink-Hafner, Danica and Robbins, John R., eds., Making a New Nation: The Formation of Slovenia (Brookfield, Vt., 1997), 22–23 Google Scholar.

23 Tomašić, Dinko [Tomašić], “Osebnostin kultura v vzhodnoevropski politiki,“Mwffl revija 9, nos. 93-94 (January-February 1990): 188–94Google Scholar (translated by Vladimira Štivan from Tomašić, Personality and Culture in Eastern European Politics (New York, 1948). Compare the companion piece in which ethnologist Bozidar Jezernik examines what he identifies as a Serb tendency, influenced by romantic nationalism, to stereotype Albanians as uncultured “savages” and “bandits” (divjaki and roparje). Jezernik, , “Oči, da ne vidijo,” Novarevija 9, nos. 93-94 (January-February 1990): 199–216, esp. 201, 213-14Google Scholar.

24 Snoj, Jože, “Tisoč let samote,” Nova revija 9, no. 95 (1990): 257 Google Scholar. For a critical treatment of other Slovenian opinions along the same lines, see Bakić-Hayden and Hayden, “Orientalist Variations on the Theme ‘Balkans.'“

25 For example, Bućar, , “Slovenija med Balkanom in Evropo,” Nova revija 8, no. 91 (1989): 1491–1503 Google Scholar; Ivan Gams, “Skozi Srednjo Evropo v Evropo?” Nova revija 9, nos. 101-2 (1990): 1338-40. Cf. Urbančič, Ivan, “Refleksije o mednarodnih (ne)razumevanjih vjugoslaviji,“ Nova revija 6, nos. 67-68 (1987): 2053–63Google Scholar.

26 Nova revija 6, no. 57 (1987) [“Prispevki za slovenski nacionalni program“]. In this issue, see especially the editors’ introduction and the pieces by Urbančič, Rupel, Pučnik, Jambrek, Hribar, Bučar, Gregor Tome, and Marjan Rozžanc.

27 In Nova revija 9, no. 95 (1990), see the contributions by Bučar, Hribar, Vodopivec, Pučnik, Niko Grafenauer, Ivan Kristan, Andrej Fink, Bogo Grafenauer, Veljko Rus, Tomaž Mastnak, and the Slovenian political alliance DEMOS, which formed the first noncommunist government following the elections of April 1990; in these pieces Balkanist rhetoric is virtually absent or plays no great role. They may be contrasted with a number of other essays. Among the most emphatic in the use of Balkanist stereotyping are Jambrek and Rupel, Snoj, Viktor Blažič, and Frane Adam. Milder or more limited exercises in Balkanism may be found in the pieces by Peter Klinar, Miro Cerar, and Franc Rozman; compare the more ambiguous contributions of Urbančič, Rupel, Tome, Alenka Puhar, and Boris Pahor.

In Nova revija 12, nos. 134-35 (June-July 1993), see, for example, the pieces by Bučar, Jambrek, Bogo Grafenauer, Debeljak, Rudi Šeligo, Boris A. Novak, Edvard Kovac, and Marko Kos; of special note are the odd typology of nationalisms developed by Jan Makarovic and the ambivalent views of historian Peter Vodopivec as to the Slovenes’ westernness. These may be contrasted with the thoroughly Balkanist perspectives of Rupel, Tome, Miso Jezernik, and Viktor Blažič; rather more muted is the rhetoric found in the contributions by Urbančič, Niko Grafenauer, Tomo Virk, and Niko Prijatelj. This issue was published in book form: Niko Grafenauer, ed., Slovenci inprihodnost (Ljubljana, 1993). The journal's tradition of special “national” collections continues: see Grafenauer, Niko et al., eds., Sproščena Slovenija: Obracun za prihodnost (Ljubljana, 1999)Google Scholar.

28 For Slovenia and Mitteleuropa, see Vodopivec, ed., Srednja Evropa. Slovenian contributors who were in one way or another favorably disposed toward the concept of Srednja Evropa include Hribar, Rupel, Bučar, Rožanc,Jančar, andjanko Kos; of these, the strongest tendency to see the non-Catholic Yugoslavs as alien is probably to be found in the three pieces by Rožanc. By contrast, Bogo Grafenauer takes a decidedly skeptical attitude toward the notion of central Europe. Also valuable are the balanced and subtle introductory remarks by Vodopivec. In the main, these essays treat Slovenia as a part of central Europe and tend to exclude the Serbs, or at least most of them; the status of the Croats is often left ambiguous. But concerning disparagement of the Balkans, note the essay by Hribar: in a conclusion that smacks of Samuel Huntington's “clash of civilizations” analysis, Hribar suggests that the enduring split between eastern and western Europe might be healed by an understanding that the real threat lay elsewhere: “Gradually, the west has begun to realize that eastern Europe, which like western Europe is a part of Christian civilization, represents a protective shield against other civilizations. And eastern Europe has most likely already recognized that its true adversary or competitor is not in the west, but rather in the far east.” Hribar, “Podoba sredjne Evrope,” in Vodopivec, ed., Srednja Evropa, 39. One antidote for Balkanism, it would appear, is simply a new and stronger dose of Orientalism.

29 See Todorova, “Marking Out Is Not an Innocent Act” (address to a plenary session of a conference on southeast Europe, Graz, Austria, 14 November 1998), see http://www.see-educoop.net/graz/graz98/plenary/todorova.htm (last consulted 29 September 2002); see also Todorova, , “Isn't Central Europe Dead?” in Lord, Christopher, ed., CentralEurope: Core or Periphery? (Copenhagen, 2000), 226 Google Scholar. At the Graz conference, Todorova faulted the west for any paranoid streak in Balkan political culture: “When we stricture the Balkans for their delusion of persecution, let us not forget that their affliction is only one part of an inseparable European dyad. It exists next to but also because of the delirium of grandeur of Europe's better half.” Todorova, “Marking Out Is Not an Innocent Act“; the same argument also appears in Todorova, “Afterthoughts on Imagining the Balkans,” HarvardMiddle Eastern and Islamic Review 5 (1999-2000): 145.

30 For historical background on the Slovenes in Austria, see Thomas M. Barker, TheSlovene Minority ofCarinthia (Boulder, Colo., 1984); Priestly, Tom, “Denial of Ethnic Identity: The Political Manipulation of Beliefs about Language in Slovene Minority Areas of Austria and Hungary,” Slavic Review 55, no. 2 (Summer 1996): 364–98CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

31 See Heinrich, Hans-Georg, “Nachbarschaftpolitik, ein Mythos?” Österreichis cheZeitschrift für Politikwissenschaft 17 (1988): 163 Google Scholar. For another of the same author's critical assessments of the Mitteleuropa debate in the country where it has arguably figured most prominently, see Heinrich, , “Die österreichische Gesellschaft und die Mitteleuropa-Idee,” in Pribersky, Andreas, ed., Europa und Mitteleuropa'? Eine Umschreibung Österreichs (Vienna, 1991), 46–58 Google Scholar.

32 Broer, Wolfgang, unidentified text quoted in Schlögel, Karl, “Nachdenken über Mitteleuropa,” in Spangenberg, Dietrich, ed., Die blockierte Vergangenheit: Nachdenken über Mitteleuropa (Berlin, 1987), 20 Google Scholar. Tellingly, Croats were said to share the same bonds, but no other peoples of Yugoslavia made Broer's list, which appears to coincide with the old Habsburg realm.

33 Mock, Alois, “Die Haltung Österreichs in der Balkankrise und die Beziehungen zu den Nachfolgestaaten auf dem Gebiet des ehemaligen Jugoslawien,” Österreichisches Jahrbuch für Politik, 1993 (Vienna, 1994), 121 Google Scholar (emphasis added). A lengthier exposition of Mock's views on events in the region can be found in his book Das Balkan-Dossier: Der Aggressionskrieg in Ex-Jugoslaivien—Perpektiven für die Zukunft (Vienna, 1997). Significantly, the Croatian edition of the book changes its tide to distinguish Croatia from the Balkans and begins with a foreword reassuring readers that despite the explicidy “Balkan” subject matter of the analysis, Croatia, like Mock's Austria, belongs to central Europe. Nikola Ruzinski, “Predgovor hrvatskom izdanju,” in Mock, Dossier Balkan i Hrvatska: Ratna agresijau bivsqj Jugoslaviji—perspektive za buducnost, ed. Herbert Vytiska, trans. Srecko Lipovcan (Zagreb, 1998).

34 Moritsch, Andreas, “National—provinziell—regional? Kärnten und die Alpen Adria-Region,” Kärntner Jahrbuch für Politik 1995 (Klagenfurt, 1996), 45–55 Google Scholar.

35 Otto von Habsburg, interview in Die Presse (Vienna), 8 October 1993, cited in Luverà, Bruno, Oltre il confine: Regionalismo europeo e nuovi nazionalismi in Trentino-Alto Adige (Bologna, 1996), 200n22Google Scholar. Also revealing are von Habsburg's remarks at the opening of a major conference on central Europe held in 1983 in Duino, near Trieste, just as the concept was beginning to find a new life in political and cultural discourse. Lamenting the “tragedy” that “Mitteleuropa” had virtually disappeared from European political vocabulary, von Habsburg argued for the continuing vitality of the idea: “Central Europe is now a reality. Whoever travels with his eyes open across our continent knows that Trieste and Vienna, Budapest and Prague, Bratislava and Zagreb, Ljubljana and Krakow have much in common. The languages are different, but the spirits are to be found on the same wavelength. And the interests are mutual as well.” Colloqui diDuino: Mitteleuropapassato efuturo,ovvero, La signification Européenne de Mitteleurope [proceedings of conference in Duino, Italy, 19-21 September 1983] (Trieste, 1986), 12-13. Conspicuous by omission from this list of the hubs of central European culture are Yugoslav cities like Belgrade, Skopje, and Sarajevo (the latter of which was, at least in the minds of some, rendered more central European by forty years of Habsburg rule from 1878-1918).

36 Rohan, Albert, “Der Konflikt in ehemaligen Jugoslawien: Hintergründe, Reaktionen, Argumente,” Österreichisches Jahrbuch für Internationale Politik, vol. 10 (Vienna, 1993), 7 Google Scholar.

37 Rohan, “Entwicklungen auf dem Balkan aus österreichischer Sicht,” 525 (emphasis added). It speaks to the perceived strength of the Slovenes’ claims that this official raised no doubts about Slovenia's rapid integration into “Europe” but presented Croatia as a more uncertain case. Rohan subtly called into question the argument advanced by Croatian president Franjo Tudjman that, as Rohan put it, “Croatia is indisputably a part of Mitteleuropa [and] has only very litde to do with the Balkans.” Rohan agreed that Croatia shared a “European calling,” but he suggested that the Croatian government was not yet conducting its affairs as befit that calling, with a respect for western values and norms (532-34).

38 Todorova, Imagining the Balkans, 140-60. See also Todorova, , “The Balkans: From Discovery to Invention,” Slavic Review 53, no. 2 (Summer 1994): 478–79CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bakic-Hayden, “Nesting Orientalisms,” 924; Bakic-Hayden and Hayden, “Orientalist Variations on the Theme ‘Balkans,'” esp. 2-5; Iordanova, “Are the Balkans Admissible?” 5, 11, 16-17. tojevo (the latter of which was, at least in the minds of some, rendered more central European by forty years of Habsburg rule from 1878-1918).

39 “UF Professor Explains How Balkans Got Their Reputation” [interview with Todorova], University of Florida College of Liberal Arts and Sciences CLASnotes, vol. 10, no. 10 (October 1996), see http://www.clas.ufl.edu/CLASnotes/9610/Todorova.html (last consulted 29 September 2002). Applying Todorova's analysis to the Croatian case, Nicole Lindstrom and Maple Razsa arrive at much the same conclusion. Balkanism of the sort Todorova describes, they argue, has proved a very effective method of reining in and “disciplining” Croatia and other marginal states with “European” aspirations. Thus Lindstrom and Razsa contend that “the enormous fall in Croatia's international standing did not rely solely on Western perceptions of its political failings or its economic performance but involved a deployment of 'Balkan' stereotypes on a massive scale.” Ultimately, they see in this discursive practice evidence that “the West will designate who will be European and who would be kept out of the club.” Nicole Lindstrom and Maple Razsa, “Reimagining the Balkans” (paper presented at The Socrates Kokkalis Graduate Student Workshop "New Approaches to Southeast Europe," Harvard University, 12 February 1999), see http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/kokkalis/GSWl/GSWl/03%20Lindstrom%20Razsa.pdf (last consulted 29 September 2002). A revised version of this paper is to be published in 2003 in East European Politics and Societies under the title “Balkan Is Beautiful: The Role of Balkanism in Contemporary Croatian Political Discourse.”

40 See Todorova, “The Balkans: From Discovery to Invention,” 479, quoting Lawrence Eagleburger, MacNeil-Lehrer News Hour, 7 February 1994; see also Imagining the Balkans, 158.

41 Todorova, “The Balkans: From Discovery to Invention,” 479; see also Todorova, Imagining the Balkans, 158.

42 Erhard Busek and Emil Brix, Projekt Mitteleuropa (Vienna, 1986). See also Brix, “Europa jenseits der Blockgrenzen,” in Pribersky, ed., Europa und Mitteleuropa? 42, where the writer lists Ljubljana with Prague, Budapest, and Vienna as one of the historical “formative elements” (Baubestande) of central Europe. Brix's inclusion of the Slovenian capital among the centers of central European culture is perhaps all the more significant given that his remarks appeared in the year when Slovenes sought to solidify their central European identity by seceding from the Yugoslav federation, a move that succeeded in no small part due to early support from official Austria.

43 Busek and Brix, Projekt Mitteleuropa, 102-3. See also Busek, Erhard, “Versuchsstation für Weltuntergänge—Hoffnung auf eine bessere Zeit?” in Papcke, Sven and Weidenfeld, Werner, eds., Traumland Mitteleuropa'?Beiträge zu einer aktuellen Kontroverse (Darmstadt, 1988), 15–31 Google Scholar.

44 I am grateful to the anonymous reviewer of a prior version of this study who called attention to the importance of lingering animosity toward Serbia in contemporary Austrian politics.

45 Busek, Erhard, “Kann man noch ‘Balkan’ sagen?” Der Standard (Vienna), 7 May 1997 Google Scholar. See also Busek, “Das Ende von Mitteleuropa?” Der Standard (Vienna), 4 December 1996, 27.

46 Marianne Sajdik, “Nicht zuruck auf den BalkanV”DerStandard (Vienna), 28January 1997.

47 Rohan, “Der Konflikt in ehemaligen Jugoslawien,” 20.

48 For example, Valentin, Hellweg, “Eine schwierige Nachbarschaft: Die Beziehungen zwischen Kämten und Slowenien mit besonderer Berücksichtigung derjahre 1965 bis 1995,” Kärnlner Jahrbuch für Politik 1997 (Klagenfurt, 1997), 303–34Google Scholar.

49 On the many ambiguities of Austrian identity, see Anton Pelinka, Zur österreichischen Identität: Zxuischen deutscher Vereinigung und Mitteleuropa (Vienna, 1990); Pribersky, ed., Europa and Mitteleuropa?; Papcke and Weidenfeld, eds., Traumland Mitteleuropa'?

50 Steiner, Ludwig, “Österreich war schon immer in Europa,” Österreichisch.es Jahrbuch für Politik, 1994 (Vienna, 1995), 455–69Google Scholar.

51 Not every use of language linked to a discourse in disrepute should be treated as suspect, however. It would be wrong, for example, to dismiss as unfair Balkanist stereotyping the Austrian foreign minister Mock's condemnation of the “barbarian” bombing of Dubrovnik, the “brutal” destruction of Croatian towns, the “aggressive” nationalism of the Milošević government, and the “ever more violent” actions of the Serbian leadership against Slovenia, Croatia, and Kosovo. See Mock, “Die Haltung Österreichs in der Balkankrise,” 115-17. It is a serious error to treat the violent acts of any of the Yugoslav peoples as characteristically “Balkan“—indeed, a good case can be made for a traditional “Balkan” mode of comparatively peaceable interethnic coexistence. Nevertheless, adjectives such as these are no less apt for the acts in question simply because they are favored by those who would reduce Balkan history to a collection of misleading set pieces. Sometimes it is justified to decry injustice in harsh but accurate terms and to announce with no apologies, like the protagonist of Miroslav Krleža's novel On the Edge of Reason, that “it is all a crime, a bloody thing, moral insanity.” Krleža, , On the Edge of Reason, trans. Depolo, Zora (London, 1987), 34 Google Scholar.

52 There were exceptions to this pattern, mostly coming from the Italian regions directly bordering Slovenia. See, for example, the Trieste journal Est-Ovest and the Italian contributions to the essays collected in Ferro, Giuseppe Dal, ed., Veneto in Slovenija: DvekulturizaEvropo (Vicenza, 1990)Google Scholar. On the “remarkable lack of awareness concerning the Balkans, and particularly Yugoslavia, within Italian political culture,” see Luigi Vittorio Ferraris, “Contemporary Italy and the Balkan Crisis,” in Bianchini and Shoup, eds., The Yugoslav War, 151.

53 On the transformation of socialist Europe, see, for example, Guerra, Adriano, “Lo spaziodella sinistra,“Rinascità, no. 10 (15 April 1990): 82–84 Google Scholar; Corrado, Sebastiano, “Avanti a destra,” Rinascitd, no. 9 (8 April 1990): 58–61 Google Scholar. See also Giulano Torlontano, ed., “L'idea democratica dopo i sommovimenti dell'Est” [interviews with Gianni Baget Bozzo, Augusto Barbera, Norberto Bobbio, Leo Valiani, Miklos Vasarhelyi, and Mario Luzi], Nuova Antologia 126, no. 2177 (January-March 1991): 1-31. Of those interviewed in this piece, only the Hungarian Vasarhelyi took note of the Slovenian case. He included the republic— along with Croatia, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary—among those countries that “by virtue of their political traditions and their culture, belong to central Europe. These countries have always been connected to Europe” (28).

On European political and economic integration, see, for example, Santoro, Carlo Maria, “La ricostruzione dell'Europa,” Il Mulino 44, no. 357 (January-February 1995): 148– 62Google Scholar; Vera Zamagni, “L'idea di Europa,” Il Mulino 44, no. 357 (January-February 1995): 139-47.

54 See, for example, Sergio Romano, “LTtalie et l'Europe du Danube et des Balkans,“ Politique étrangère57, no. 2 (1992): 353; Caccamo, Domenico, “Laquestionejugoslava (1989- gennaio 1992),” Rivista di studipolitici intemazionali 59, no. 1 (January-March 1992): 53 Google Scholar.

55 See the articles collected under the rubric “Osservatorio: Mitteleuropa” in Rinascitd, no. 16 (27 May 1990): 48-54. For early contributions by Italians (and others) to die resurrection of Mitteleuropa, see Colhqui diDuino: Mitteleuropa passato efuluro. The foremost Italian advocate of restoring (northern) Italian ties to Mitteleuropa has been Claudio Magris. See, for example, his wide-ranging and enormously erudite compendium of reflections on the region, Magris, Danube, trans. Patrick Creagh (New York, 1989). For Italians interested in a renewed central Europe, the concept offered, perhaps most notably, the prospect of happier times for torpid Trieste, a formerly thriving port city that has languished following its severance from the Habsburg lands it once so busily served.

56 For example, de Michelis, Gianni, “Reaching Out to the East,” Foreign Policy, no. 79 (Summer 1990): 50–52 Google Scholar. The author is a former Italian foreign minister.

57 Frescobaldi, Dino,Jugoslavia perché: Ilsuicidio di uno Stato (Florence, 1991), 52 Google Scholar.

58 Ibid., 52-53 (emphasis added).

59 Ibid., 55, 56.

60 Riva, Gigi and Marco, Ventura, Jugoslavia, il nuovo Medioevo: Laguerra infinita e tutti i suoi perché (Milan, 1992), 44 Google Scholar.

61 Ibid., quoting Alenka Puhar, unidentified text. Along the same lines, one specialist in ethnic relations at the confluence of the Italian and Slavic territories cites the remarks of a journalist from Trieste who ridiculed the line from Ljubljana as “Europe, Europe, nothing but Europe!” Pamela Ballinger, “'Convivenza e Civilta': Visions of Europe at the Edge of the Balkans,” in Bianchini, Stefano and Nation, Robert Craig, eds., The YugoslavConflict and Its Implications for International Relations (Ravenna, 1998), 238 Google Scholar, citing Mauro Manzin, “Wary Eyes on a New Neighbor,” Balkan War Report 1994/95, 29. “Italian Triestines,“ Ballinger further observes, “often view Slovene ‘pretensions’ to European status with either paternalistic amusement… or contempt” (ibid.).

62 Giampaolo Calchi Novati, “La Jugoslavia di Tito è dawero finita,” Il Ponte 51, no. 10 (October 1995): 9.

63 Ibid.

64 Casucci, Costanzo, “La dissoluzione della Jugoslavia: Un crimine deU'Europa,” Il Mulino 42, no. 345 (January-February 1993): 159 Google Scholar. Cf. Bianchini, “The Collapse of Yugoslavia: Sources of Its Internal Instability,” in Bianchini and Shoup, eds., The Yugoslav War, 23 (on the danger of Slovenian provincialism and the “anti-southern racist tensions present in Slovenian society“).

65 Casucci, “La dissoluzione della Jugoslavia,” 160-61.

66 Sergio Romano, Guida alia politica estera italiana (Milan, 1993), 208. Romano, a former Italian ambassador to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the Soviet Union, is one of the country's leading commentators on foreign affairs.

67 Along these lines, Stefano Bianchini has observed that the recent stress on connections with central Europe has not successfully induced Slovenes to forget the cultural context in which their society and their nationalism evolved, a context more complex (and arguably much richer) than Balkanist rhetoric admits. “Even though this is denied by Ljubljana's propaganda,” Bianchini suggests, “the appeal of Slav culture is as strong as that of Slovenian ‘exceptionalism,'” and as a result, Slovenia may still be, as before, suspended between “the conservative Catholic world that enveloped and permeated it and the Slav attraction that pushed it southward.” Bianchini, “Conclusions,” in Bianchini and Shoup, eds., The Yugoslav War, 179.

68 See Lachi, Marco, “Le prime secessioni: Pace in Slovenia e tregua in Croazia,” in Carnovale, Marco, ed., La Guerra di Bosnia: Una tragedia annunciata (Milan, 1994), 27–32 Google Scholar; Leante, Lucio, “Allargamento a Est: Prospettive di un'Europa diversa,” Il Mulino/Europa 44, no. 1 (July 1995): 28–46 Google Scholar; Romano, Sergio, “Perché l'ltalia no ha una politica balcanica,” Est-Ovest, no. 5 (1994): 9–17 Google Scholar.

69 Dassú, Marta, “Diplomazia internazionale e Italia: II rebus dei Balcani,” Politica edeconomia, no. 1 (July 1993): 64 Google Scholar.

70 Luverà, Bruno, Oltre il confine: Regionalismo europeo e nuovi nazionalismi in Trentino-AltoAdige (Bologna, 1996), 199 Google Scholar. See also Luverà, , “Prospettive e rischi del neoregionalismo europeo,” Il Mulino 45, no. 363 (January-February 1996): 136–48Google Scholar.

71 Dassú, “Diplomazia internazionale e Italia,” 65.

72 Lampini, Federico, “Ci conviene Framania?” Limes, no. 2 (1995): 22 Google Scholar, cited in Luverà, Oltre il confine, 220.

73 For an exploration of Italians’ “Meridionalist” views toward their country's south, see the essays collected in Schneider, Jane, ed., Italy's “Southern Question“: Orientalism in OneCountry (Oxford, 1998)Google Scholar. Drawing upon the analysis of Bakic-Hayden and Hayden, who diagnose a thoroughgoing Balkanism in the discourse of nationalist Slovenes and Croats, Schneider finds similarities between that separatist rhetoric and the logic of Italy's Northern League. Schneider, “Introduction: The Dynamics of Neo-Orientalism in Italy (1848- 1995),” in Schneider, ed., Italy's “Southern Question,“3.

74 Damiani, Alessandro, “Jugoslavia: Una maledizione storica,” Il Porate 48, no. 1 (January 1992): 19–33 Google Scholar.

75 Ibid., 22-23. See also Damiani, Sandro and Damiani, Alessandro, Jugoslavia: Genesidi una mattanza annunciata (Pistoia, 1993)Google Scholar.

76 For a particularly arresting equation of “the Spirit of the Balkans” with not only nationalism but group hatred more generally, see Paolo Facchi, Melita Richter Malabotta, and Claudio Venza, “Lo spirito balcanico si diffonde per l'Europa?” in Facchi, , Malabotta, , and Venza, , eds., Conflittualitd Balcanica Integrazione Europea (Trieste, 1993), 19–22 Google Scholar, English translation by Diane Crampton at 31-34.

77 This is the case, for example, in the work of Balkans specialist Stefano Bianchini. See, for example, Bianchini, , Sarajevo: Le radici deU'odio; Identitd e destino dei popoli balcanici (Rome, 1993)Google Scholar; Bianchini, “Dimentkare Tito,” Rinascita, no. 2 (18 February 1990): 38-39. More recendy, Bianchini and his collaborator Marco Dogo have stressed the need “to overcome a misperception of the historical isolation of the Balkan region and a sense of exclusion based on the assumption that the Balkans do not really belong to European culture and tradition.” “Foreword,” in Stefano Bianchini and Marco Dogo, eds., The Balkans:National Identities in Historical Perspective (Ravenna, 1993), 15-16; similar skepticism toward Balkanist reductionism may be found in Bianchini, “Conclusions,” in Bianchini and Shoup, eds., The Yugoslav War, 177-92. See also Jean, Carlo, “Interessi e politiche italiane in Europa centro-orientale e nei ha\cam,” Est-Ovest, no. 6 (1996): 21 Google Scholar.

78 See, for example, Calzini, Paolo, “Doppio destino per le nazioni dell'Est,” IIMulino 41, no. 343 (September-October 1992): 913 Google Scholar. Even writers with rather strong pro- Slovenian and pro-Croatian leanings could make their cases against Serbian policy without indulging in crude Balkanist stereotyping. See, for example, Panebianco, Angelo, “La dissoluzione della Jugoslavia: Un'eredità deH'autoritarismo,” Il Mulino 42, no. 345 (January-February 1993): 165–71Google Scholar.

79 For an overview of Italian policy, see the very useful collection Italy and the Balkans [special issue of the Italian foreign-affairs journal Limes] (Washington, 1998). While these analyses place great weight on Italy's unique concern for protecting Serbia in the interests of geopolitical balance, they are not without the occasional slip into Balkanist language. Thus we read, for example, that the “ultimate aim of Italy's policy must be to integrate the entire area with itself and with Europe through the agency of Italy. In short, the Balkans must become southeastern Europe.” Serpicus [pseudonymous, high-ranking Italian diplomat], “Why Italy Helps Serbia,” ibid., 33.

80 See Guzina, “Inside/Outside Imaginings of the Balkans,” 43.

81 Ibid., 49 (emphasis in the original), quoting Laclau, Ernesto and Mouffe, Chantal, Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics (London, 1985), 96 Google Scholar.

82 For example, Todorova, Imagining the Balkans, 11, and more generally, 8-20; Bakic-Hayden and Hayden, “Orientalist Variations on the Theme ‘Balkans,'” 2-3; Guzina, “Inside/Outside Imaginings of the Balkans,” 50, 59; Iordanova, “Are the Balkans Admissible?“ 3-4, 17-18; Goldsworthy, Vesna, Inventing Ruritania: The Imperialism of the Imagination (New Haven, 1998), 9–10 Google Scholar; cf. Lindstrom and Razsa, “Reimagining the Balkans.“

83 Bakić-Hayden and Hayden, “Orientalist Variations on the Theme ‘Balkans,'” 2.

84 Ibid., 3. Studying the nation-building project of a number of Croatian leaders, Daphne Winland likewise finds that their urge to “vehemently denounce any association with the appellation Balkan … reproduces the same tendency to impose essentializing binaries that has been used (by the West) to disparage or marginalise Croatians (as a Balkan people).” Winland, “'Projekt Mitteleuropa': Croatians and the Politics of Recognition in the ‘New Europe'” (unpublished paper presented at the conference “Creating the Other: The Causes and Dynamics of Nationalism, Ethnic Enmity, and Racism in Central and Eastern Europe,” Hubert H. Humphrey Center, University of Minnesota, 6 - 8 May 1999). But interestingly, Winland concludes on the basis of her field research in Zagreb, Split, and Dubrovnik in 1997 and 1998 that such strategies “do not, for the most part, resonate with quotidian sentiments, practices and experiences of Croatians” and thus have had mixed results at best, thanks also to a deep suspicion of state-sponsored messages: “While it is rare to find a Croatian without strong political convictions or opinions about the social and cultural fabric of Croatian society, there were few who expressed their views using the exclusivistand nationalist rhetoric of the state” (ibid). This evidence of daily experience “on the ground” in the former Yugoslavia suggests that we may likewise need to redraw the prevailing picture of publics trapped in the Orientalist nests constructed for them by the west. In this way, too, the concrete realities of life in the Balkans, so strikingly plural and variable, may be seen once again to have frustrated attempts at neat generalization.

85 Hayden, “Use of National Stereotypes in the Wars in Yugoslavia,” 97.

86 Iordanova, “Are the Balkans Admissible?” 3-4.

87 Ibid., 28.

88 Guzina, “Inside/Outside Imaginings of the Balkans,” 40 (emphasis added); see also 49-50.

89 Ibid., 59.

90 Hayden, “Use of National Stereotypes in the Wars in Yugoslavia,” 100.

91 Todorova, Imagining the Balkans, 7.

92 Ibid., 59. Todorova also treats this discourse as one that has powerfully constrained the political and cultural options open to people in the Balkans. Confronted with the hegemonic western construction imposed on them, she writes, “it is hardly realistic to expect the Balkans to create a liberal, tolerant, all-embracing identity celebrating ambiguity and a negation of essentialism” (ibid).

93 Todorova, “The Balkans: From Discovery to Invention,” 482 (emphasis added). Elsewhere, however, Todorova has advanced a somewhat different view, arguing that as politicians, exponents of Balkanist discourse ought not necessarily be seen as “hostages of a tradition of stereotypes.” Rather, she argues, “these figures could be conceived as important architects as well as porte-paroles of a power-political attitude. In this pattern it is authority Uiat shapes representation, or appropriates its existing type, whenever the political expediency arises. That someone operates entirely within the conceptual apparatus of a certain discourse is not, then, the result of the constraints of this discourse, but rather a conscious and deliberate choice.” Todorova, “Afterthoughts on Imagining the Balkans,“ 144-45. In the main, however, the critique of Balkanism is noteworthy for how it tends to treat the discourse as a serious constraint on thought and action.

94 Fleming, “Orientalism, the Balkans, and Balkan Historiography,” 1229.

95 Todorova, Imagining the Balkans, 19. For the concept of “discursive hardening,“ Todorova cites Clifford, James, “On Orientalism,” The Predicament of Culture: Twentieth CenturyEthnography, Literature, and Art (Cambridge, Mass., 1988), 264 Google Scholar.

96 See interview with Todorova at http://www.clas.ufl.edu/CLASnotes/9610/Todorova.html (last consulted 29 September 2002). Here Todorova observes that “even after the most uncivilized violence was perpetrated by the Germans during the Holocaust, Europe continues to view the Balkans as barbaric and always warring.“

97 Todorova, “The Balkans: From Discovery to Invention,” 482; see also Todorova, Imagining the Balkans, 188.

98 The phrase is from Todorova, Imagining the Balkans, 12. It speaks to a fundamental but unresolved tension in Todorova's work—and indeed, in much of the anti-Balkanist critique—a tension between the desire to see the Balkans portrayed accurately and an epistemological stance that challenges the very notion of accuracy and treats categorization and the analysis of historical difference as inherently suspect. Along these lines, see Gale Stokes's review of Imagining the Balkans on the HABSBURG N-Nel Discussion Network, 10 September 1997, see http://www2.h-net.msu.edu/∼habsweb (last consulted 28 September 2002).