Imagining Eastern Europe - representations of Eastern Europe in 21st century French Vampire bandes dessinées

Abstract

ABSTRACT In the process of forging (Western) modernity, Eastern Europe has been constructed as an uncivilised Other of the West. The Vampire Narrative was created to represent the divide between ‘us’ and ‘the others’, including the fundamental divide between West and non-West. It has evolved over the years, reflecting the processes of inclusion. This article demonstrates that the political inclusion (into the European Union) of some countries of Eastern Europe (self-called ‘Central European’) has not actually led to the cultural inclusion of Eastern Europe in the social Western European imagery. To discover the full meanings of the 21st-century French Vampire Narrative, the study employs a complementary combination of structural analysis, deconstruction, and resistant reading. Vampire bandes dessinées (BDs) are chosen as research material due to their popularity in French culture and their two-dimensionality as graphic and literary works. The chosen analytic corpus encompasses remediations and adaptations of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, diverse versions of Vlad Dracula Tepes’ (hi)story, and perfectly new vampire tales. The representation of Eastern Europe in BDs reveals itself to be surprisingly in line with the 19th-century Vampire Narrative: Eastern Europe is a disturbing, un-real, exotic space of radical Otherness or an in-between ‘Secondary Empire’.