On Postcolonial Influence in Balkan Travel Writing

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to instigate the development of theoretical discourse on contemporary travel writing about the Balkans, especially the works created since the collapse of communism in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The problematization of this discourse is timely, even more so when the unique heritage of the Balkans has to harmonize with that of the rest of Europe. Travel writing vibrantly mirrors this process, but the critical tools through which it is currently read come primarily from postcolonial theory and necessitate revisiting. Although postcolonialism has facilitated the popularity of the genre in academia, it does not adequately satisfy the discussion of an increasingly more complex cultural phenomenon that is that of the Balkans, which cannot be simplistically framed in terms of the ‘Other’. While the Balkans can still be viewed as the ‘Other’ in connection to Europe, as a political and economic union, they cannot be dismissed as such from a wider cultural, geographical and historical perspective. To prove our point, we will list examples of incongruences and suggest possible shifts in perspective. Apart from this, as a polygeneric form, the travelogue demands a multidisciplinary, contextual and comparative approach, while our immediate support will be contemporary travel writing criticism about the Balkans.