Syllabus
1. Introduction: The Term "Balkan Peninsula" and Conceptualizations of Southeastern Europe as a Specific Region
Introductory lecture, distribution of assignements, questions.
"Balkans before the Balkans" - antiquity, Turkey-in-Europe, old maps and geographical fantasies. The origins of the term "Balkan Peninsula" - Johann August Zeune (1808). The first conceptualizations of Southeastern Europe as a specific region.
Required Reading: None 2. Founding Figures of Balkan Studies Before WWII
The lecture will outline the beginnings and institutionalization of historiography in different countries of Southeastern Europe. It will underline the close links that the Balkan studies in Southeastern Europe proper maintained with the outside world - throughout the 19th and early 20th century especially with Central Europe. The contributions of the founding fathers of Balkan studies such as Konstantin Jireček and Nicolae Iorga will be highlighted.
Required Reading
Alex Drace-Francis: The Prehistory of a Neologism: "South-Eastern Europe", In: Balkanologie, vol. III., nr. 2, 1999, http://balkanologie.revues.org/index751.html
Recommended Reading
Nicolae Iorga: Byzance après Byzance, Bucuresti 1935. http://www.unibuc.ro/CLASSICA/byzance/cuprins.htm 3. Characterology of Balkan Populations
Since the end of the 19th century until the end of WWII, there have been numerous attempts to describe and classify the geographic distribution, ethnography, mentality and ethnopsychology (national or regional "character") of Balkan populations. Special attention will be devoted to the works of Serbian ethnographer Jovan Cvijić (La péninsule balkanique, 1918) and German slavicist Gerhard Gesemann.
Required Reading
Jovan Cvijić: Zones of Civilization of the Balkan Peninsula, In: Geographical Review, vol. 5, nr. 6 (June 1918), 470-482. http://www.uloz.to/x2CAhmf/cvijic-zones-of-civilization-pdf
Ulf Brunnbauer, Robert Pichler: Mountains as "lieux de mémoire." Highland Values and Nation-Building in the Balkans, In: Balkanologie, vol 6, 1-2, 2002 http://balkanologie.revues.org/index433.html
Recommended reading
Jovan Cvijić: La péninsule balkanique, Paris 1918. 4. Leften Stavrianos: The Balkans since 1453
The lecture will be devoted to the analysis of the most influential synthesis of Balkan history published in the post-WWII period, The Balkans since 1453 by Leften Stavrianos.
Required Reading
Leften Stavrianos. The Balkans since 1453, New York 1959. 1-14 81-115 http://www.uloz.to/xFmveWt/stavrianos-the-balkans-pdf 5. Traian Stoianovich: Balkan Worlds
The lecture will evolve around the most ambitious post-WWII attempt to conceptualize a specific Balkan civilization, history and society: Traian Stoianovich´s Balkan Worlds, inspired by the French Annales school of historiography.
Required Reading
Traian Stoianovich: Balkan Worlds. The First and Last Europe, Armonk (N.Y) and London: M.E. Sharp, 1994.
Introduction, 1-3
Chapter 2: Biotechnics and Social Biology, 47-68.
Chapter 4: Society, 120-185. http://www.uloz.to/xiJuSdP/stoianovich-balkan-worlds-pdf 6. Competing Discourses about History I: Contested Interpetations of Controversial Events
Contesting, mutually exclusive interpretations of history represent a recurrent problem as well as topic of Balkan historiographies.
Required Reading
David Bruce MacDonald: Balkan Holocausts? Serbian and Croatian victim-centered propaganda and the war in Yugoslavia, Manchester and New York 2002, 132-182.
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Annotation
Course Description
The course will outline some key concepts and interpretations of Balkan history and conceptualizations of Southeastern Europe as a specific region, their transformations and re-assessments since the 19th century until present. The first few lectures dedicated to the pre-WWII period will shed light on the origins of the term Balkans and highlight the contributions of the founding fathers of Balkan studies such as Konstantin Jireček, Nicolae Iorga and Jovan Cvijić. The following lectures will be dedicated to some of the "canonical" oeuvres of post-WWII historiography (Leften Stavrianos, Traian Stoianovich, Maria Todorova), main issues of modern history (19th and 20th century), competing nationalist interpretations of history, the contested role of journalists as interpreters of the Balkan past, deconstruction of persistent images and stereotypes associated with the area (alleged backwardness, violence, chaos, "balkanization" etc.) and, finally, to the question whether Southeastern Europe/the Balkans does indeed still exist as a specific region. The texts and excerpts selected as required reading for each lecture present a wide-range of themes and methodological approaches.
Goals and methods
The main goal of the course is to explain the main concepts, interpretations and authors whose ideas have influenced the interdisciplinary field of Balkan studies and wider discussions about the region. This will be achieved through a combination of lecture and seminar in each class, regular reading and discussions. The progress of each student will be checked by a final exam (test) and a final paper.