1 The term ‘Balkans’ Images of the ‘Other’ in National Literatures Imagology, Stereotypes and National Images Images of the Balkans First Lesson Lecturer: Petros Marazopoulos petrosmarazopoulos@gmail.com 2 The subject of the course • Representations of the Balkan Other and the Balkans • Imagology- describing the Foreigner and the Unknown in literary texts • The main connotations of the term ‘Balkans’ • The material under examination: novels, travel literature, memoirs, testimonies, political- historical texts, poetry • How were the Balkans perceived in Modern Greek literature and why? • Stereotypical constructions for the Balkan nations- The notions of anti-Westernism, backwardness, exoticism and inferiority • The Greek self-perceptions as a European, Western country • Balkan History: from the Balkan Wars to the post- communist Balkans 3 The term ‘Balkans’ • Which countries constitute the Balkan Peninsula? • Which other names were used to describe the area of the Balkans? • Does Greece belong to the Balkans? • Is Turkey a part of the Balkan heritage? • What are the criteria for a country’s inclusion to the term ‘Balkan’? 4 The Balkans during the Ottoman Empire 5 Contemporary Balkan States 6 Naming of the Balkan Peninsula • Balkan Peninsula (August Zeune) • The term ‘Balkans’ (a ‘continuous mountain range’) and its existence already from the16th century • ‘Greek’ and ‘Roman’ Peninsula (emphasizing the achievements of Greek or Roman civilization) • The term ‘European Turkey’ and the Ottoman imprint in the Balkans (18th and 19th century) • The term ‘Southeastern Europe’ (proposed by Otto Maull- trying to replace a term with negative connotations with a neutral term) • Naming of the Peninsula and geopolitical aspects: a short Introduction • ‘Balkans’ and ‘Southeastern Europe’: used as synonyms or subcategories 77 How did the Modern Balkan states occur? •Overcoming the initial dependence on the Ottoman Empire and the Hamburg dynasty (19th century) •Nationalism and Revolution (19tt century) •The creation of ‘Eastern Europe’ 7 N . 8 Which countries constitute the ‘Balkans’? Do the Balkans ‘change’ from a time period to another? Greece and the Balkans: A relationship under negotiation Defining the Balkans- A complex case 9 Defining the Balkans • The difficulty of precisely defining the countries that constitute the Balkan Peninsula has its roots in ethnic, political, geographical and historical conflicts • The creation of a complex object of study • The example of encyclopedia ‘Britannica Macropaedia’: (1911- Albania, Greece, BosniaHerzegovina, Illyria, Macedonia, Montenegro, Novibazar, Serbia and Turkey # 1995 Romania, Slovenia and Moldova included, Greece excluded) • Greece and Balkans: an ‘integral part of the Balkan Peninsula’ or a ‘Western, European state’? • Greece and the Balkans- a relationship as a question to be further explored 10 Turkey and the Balkans • An ambiguous relationship • The geographical parameter and ‘European Turkey’ • Turkey belongs to the Balkans: 1. the role of the Ottoman Empire 2.the view of ‘European Turkey’ and the Balkans as similar places 3.the Ottoman legacy- shaping the Balkan Peninsula 4. the multileveled role of the Ottoman Empire in shaping contemporary Balkans • Turkey doesn’t belong to the Balkans: 1.Ottoman administration and the constant seek for Revolution 2. The images of the Turk as ‘danger from the East’ 11 Ethnicities, material and time-period under examination in the semester • Which countries are we going to discuss? • The role of Turkey- Contrasting the Turk with the Balkan Other (potential allies or enemies) • Modern Greek and Western sources • Literary Texts, Press and Cinema • Travel literature • Greece and its relationship with the Balkans- Identities and self-perceptions • The role of Europe and Communism • The Western factor- Contemporary texts and the European Union • Depictions of the Balkan Other and the reasons that lie behind those • Exclusion of Slovenia and Hungary (close relations # Central Europe) 12 Imagology and Comparative Literature ➢ The portrayal of the Other- a story from antiquity to the Modern era (different cultures and the intense interest to depict the unknown) ➢ The stranger as a hidden aspect of the Self (self identity and stereotypes) ➢ Depicting the stranger by negative constructions ➢ The ‘Other’ and the confusion with the enemy (Julia Kristeva) ➢ The familiar space and the territory of the unknown. Demons, ghosts, the dead and chaos (Eliade) 13 Imagology and Comparative Literature ➢ The national type of the Other: From Aristophanes to the Middle Ages and the Enlightenment ➢ The Middle Ages and the dictionaries that include adjectives based on nation characteristics ➢ Categorizing the people through ethnic characteristics and the critical attitudes towards those tendencies ➢ Science and typology (19th century- classification of human types) ➢ Ethnic characteristics, National Images and Literature ➢ Racial discourses and Imagology ➢ Imagology as a theoretical science that studies the ethnic characteristics in literary texts 14 Stereotypes and Literary Images ➢ “Image” and “stereotype” as synonymous terms in the academic community ➢ (Cuddon) Image is a quasi-literary term used to describe a person in figurative language, but in a particular way ➢ (Cuddon) Stereotype and the term ‘cliché’ (trivial phrase without value) ➢ (Abrams) Stereotype and Stereotype characters (human types that appear frequently in a particular literary genre and are therefore recognizable) 15 Stereotypes and Literary Images: relevance and distinctions between the two terms ▪ A literary image may reproduce a stereotype, but it is not necessarily identical with it ▪ Stereotypical depictions of the Other are distinguished by stability ▪ Literary images of the Other can vary, not only between literary generations, but also between literary documents of the same period ▪ The images of the Other are not necessarily stereotypical ▪ Image, stereotype and prejudice are used some times as synonymous, but they should be distinguished ▪ Stereotype and the idea of generalization ▪ Self-stereotypes and stereotypes of the Other ▪ Stereotypes and the capacity of long-term survival 16 Defining Stereotype ‘Stereotypes are preconceived ideas that are not based on experience, have no concrete foundations, dominate the members of a group and have the ability to reproduce themselves unchanged' 17 Petros Marazopoulos petrosmarazopoulos@gmail.com September 2024