In the Wake of the Balkan Myth: Questions of Identity and Modernity

205 Pages·1999·18.365 MB·English

by  David A. Norris (auth.)

IN THE WAKE OF THE BALKAN MYTH
Also by David A. Norris
TEACH YOURSELF SERBO-CROAT
THE NOVELS OF MILOS CRNJANSKI: An Approach through Time
In the Wake of
the Balkan Myth
Questions of Identity and Modernity
David A. Norris
Senior Lecturer
Department of Slal'onic Studie.l'
Uni1•er.1'ity of Nottin~ham
ISBN 978-1-349-99983-5 ISBN 978-0-230-28653-5 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/9780230286535
First published in Great Britain 1999 by
MACMILLAN PRESS LTD
Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and London
Companies and representatives throughout the world
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978-0-333-75168-8
First published in the United States of America 1999 by
ST. MARTIN'S PRESS, INC.,
Scholarly and Reference Division,
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010
ISBN 978-0-312-22175-1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Norris, David A.
In the wake of the Balkan myth : questions of identity and
modernity I David A. Norris.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-312-22175-1 (cloth)
I. National characteristics, Balkan-Historiography. 2. Balkan
Peninsula-History-I 9th century-Historiography. 3. Balkan
Peninsula-History-20th century-Historiography. 4. Yugoslav
literature-20th century-History and criticism. 5. Yugoslav War,
1991-1995-Literature and the war. I. Title.
DR24.5.N67 1999
949.6'0072-dc21 99-11217
CIP
© David A. Norris 1999
Reprint of the original edition 1999
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made
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written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and
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Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to
criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
The author has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance
with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and
sustained forest sources.
109876543 2
08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 00 99
Contents
List of Maps and Plates VII
Preface Vlll
Acknowledgements xi
Pronunciation Guide XII
1 Constructing the Balkans 1
A Very Balkan Tale 1
From a Geographic Term to a Cultural Sign 4
2 Textual Representations 15
Establishing Ambiguities 15
The Noble Savage 23
Twentieth-Century Representations 32
The Anxiety Effect 38
3 The Balkans Talk Back 46
The Drama of Human Misunderstanding? 46
Milos Crnjanski: The Poetics of Exile 49
lvo Andric: The Silence of the East 59
Slobodan Selenic: Cultural Difference Inside and
Outside 68
4 Modernity: Urban Culture and the Balkans 80
City Literature in the West 80
Urban Culture in the Balkans 88
Belgrade 96
Urban Anxieties 103
5 Representations of City Life 108
Borisav Stankovic: The Death of the Oriental City 109
The Rise and Fall of Metropolitan Literature 119
Svetlana Velmar-Jankovic: Belgrade Re-Presented 126
6 Discourses of Identity and Modernity in Times of Crisis 136
Vladimir Arsenijevic: War by TV 137
v
VI Contents
Slobodan Selenic: The Primal Struggle 144
Emir Kusturica: The Great Betrayal 154
Notes 164
Bibliography 173
Index 178
List of Maps and Plates
Map 1. The Balkans xm
Map 2. The Centre of Modern Belgrade: Sketch map XIV
Chapter 4: Plates
Plate 1. Toma Vucic Perisic, between 1850 and 1856
Plate 2. Prince Mihailo Obrenovic, about 1859
Plate 3. The River Bank of the Sava in Belgrade, 1876
Plate 4. A Belgrade Summer Tram, between 1900 and 1910
Plate 5. Teferic (Turkish term for outing in the country),
about 1880
Plate 6. A Family Outing to Soko Banja, 1908
Plate 7. A Girl from Nis, about 1880
Plate 8. Ana Marinkovic, 1906
Vll
Preface
A great deal of attention has been paid to the Balkans and specifi
cally to the areas affected by the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s. Much
of the analysis has concerned the history, politics and sociology of
the region in an attempt to elucidate and explain how a country
could disappear and produce the bloodiest conflict in Europe since
the Second World War. This book takes a sidelong look at the
region from a different perspective. The different historical experi
ences of the Balkans, particularly the many centuries of Ottoman
occupation, have produced fears and anxieties which are specific
to the region by their extremity but not unknown elsewhere. These
underlying cultural differences are inscribed in fictional narratives
by writers and film-makers from the region. The narratives play
out and expose these fears and anxieties over a broad range of
themes and symbolic representations. In this book, I focus on
issues concerning identity in terms of Balkan and non-Balkan cultures,
and continue by examining questions of modernity and the ever
present dread of primitivism which is highlighted in certain types
of narratives.
I begin by following the emergence and development of the term
'Balkan' itself, along with the culturally charged cognate terms of
'Balkanize' and 'Balkanization'. It soon becomes apparent that the
geographic referent in this case is much smaller than Europe's south
eastern peninsula. In Chapter 2 I examine textual representations
by British travel-writers, journalists, poets and others who have written
about the region. There is a consistent pattern of recording certain
types of portraits and reflections which tend to show the peoples
of the Balkans as noble savages. Such signs are never far removed
from the related signs of barbaric primitivism and severely limit
the scope for cultural dialogue. In Chapter 3, having looked at the
Balkans from outside, we turn to look at the issue of negative ima
gery from the perspective of Balkan authors. The views expressed
abroad are internalized and expressed in narratives about the clash
of two worlds where cultural differences and prejudices are high
lighted. There are four novels by three different authors discussed
in this context who variously present the problem of a minor cul
ture facing a special form of cultural colonialism.
Vlll
Preface lX
The subject matter for Chapter 4 begins from the premise that
negative imagery produced in the West denies Balkan identities
access to the European sphere of modernity. The quintessential
image of modernity is the city and many aspects of English and
Western literature in general have been closely linked to urban
environments. However, urbanization in the Balkans with its his
tory of sudden discontinuities has produced a more extreme
representation of city life. In Chapter 5 I examine a number of
novels and stories which show images from an Ottoman urban en
vironment and from the metropolitan life of Belgrade. Much of
the literature is burdened by the city as an expression of civiliza
tion which is under constant threat from more primitive forces
outside. The threat is translated into moments of great crisis when
all that is valued is lost and destroyed. In the last chapter, the
moment of crisis under examination concerns responses to the re
cent conflicts in former Yugoslavia in literature and on film. Some
writers try to make sense out of events by trying to connect them
with others in the past, while others focus on incomprehension and
the unreality of the war. They represent the most extreme narra
tives trying to give form to a critical moment and as such rework
issues addressed earlier in relation to questions of identity and
modernity in the Balkans. The structure of the book begins and
ends with the wars in former Yugoslavia, and therefore sources for
detailed analysis are taken from that region. This area, as discussed
in Chapter 1, is at the heart of what constitutes the cultural sign of
the Balkans.
I owe the initiative for this book to my wife, Vladislava Ribnikar,
when she remarked one day, 'Why don't you write a book about
foreigners' views on the Balkans?' As is often the case with such
research, the focus of the finished product has shifted and falls
more on Balkan responses to those views. I am grateful for her
help at each stage of the enterprise. She has read and commented
on various versions of the manuscript as I worked it through from
a few rough ideas into a more coherent whole. My students of
Balkan cultural studies, literature and history have been another
important source of encouragement, debating ideas and discussing
material which I introduced into our classes both with me and one
another. They would ask the kind of awkward questions which made
me discard some claims and clarify others. I also wish to extend
my thanks to Dr E. D. Goy and Mr Dusan Puvacic who read the
final manuscript and made valuable comments on matters both of