'The danger zone of Europe': balkansim betwenn the cold war and 9/11

Abstract

This article argues that the Balkans formed one of the major sources of alterity for the West in the decade following the end of the Cold War. Taking the place of the erstwhile communist Other, the region was constructed in journalism, political statement and travel writing as a zone of backwardness, barbarism and violence which threatened to engulf the civilized and democratic West. Using travel writing as a source material, this article argues more specifically that the ideological scepticism and aesthetic conventions of postmodernism have been an important influence on contemporary balkanism, as they have been on the representation of other non-western locations. Although the role of the Balkans has now been superseded by Al-Qaida and the 'international terror network', the post-1989 representational styles continue to have devastating political and economic effects in the region. [author's abstract]