Leela Gandhi (La Trobe University) A Complicated Occidentalism: Colonial Desire and Disappointment in V. S. Naipaul In recent years the question of V. S. Naipaul’s relationship to England has begun to complicate his hitherto negative reception within the postcolonial academy. While, in the 1980’s, a generation of colonial discourse analysis-inspired critics were able to…
Read MoreRaymond Detrez (Gent) ‘Hellenization’ and ‘Europeanization’ in Bulgaria during the National Revival Period Summary During the National Revival period, Bulgarians came into contact with the West and created for themselves an image of the Occident mainly through the intermediation of the Greek economic, social and intellectual elite. Although criticism was as a rule imbedded…
Read MoreYelda Demirag (Ankara) Pan-Ideologies in the Ottoman Empire against the West: From Pan-Ottomanism to Pan-Turkism Even as the lands of the Ottoman Empire contained one third of Europe, it was not accepted as a European power, because of the religious affiliation which differed it from the others in Europe.[1] In fact, the Ottomans had…
Read MoreWendy Bracewell Orientalism, Occidentalism and Cosmopolitanism: Balkan Travel Writings on Europe When I was a girl I loved reading travel writing, but it was always a slightly doubtful pleasure. Travel writing was suspiciously fun to read for something that claimed to be non-fiction: it offered all the charms of escapism and vicarious adventure, but…
Read MoreRecep Boztemur (Ankara) Nationalism and the Other: The Making of Nation and Nation-State in the Balkans Summary Throughout the twentieth century, ethnic structures continued to coexist under supranational political organizations not only because of historical legacy of imperial organizations transcending national identities and boundaries, but also due to the ideological coalitions among…
Read MoreYordanka Bibina The Turkish Sight on the West or the Emancipation of the East? Summary The problem of Turkish perception of the West has its deep roots; however we can say that since the Tanzimat the thinly fibers and sporadic touching between these two worlds turn into a lasting interest that finely, accelerated the…
Read MoreAntoaneta Balcheva Occidentalism – rhetorical forms of self-identification Summary Being a subject of admiration, Western Europe and the ascendancy it exercises over the Balkan elites for many years imply the ambivalent manner in which they would treat the national values and universality, as well as their attitude towards the national goals and the liberal-democratic…
Read MoreBoyka Ilieva The image of Italy and Italians in the Bulgarian geography textbooks from the National Revival Summary The desire of the Bulgarians to be a part of the advanced European countries builds socio-political and cultural priorities of the Bulgarian National Revival. The socio-political duties are visible in the fight for clerical independence and…
Read MoreNadejda P. Alexandrova A “European” Gaze to the Turkish Province or What Do Ladies See Summary This paper tries to explore the modes of reversibility of the notion of Europeanness, which do not depend on some clear-cut opposition between Eastern-Western Europe but on dynamic relations, such as those between metropolis and province, culture and…
Read MoreAntoineta Balcheva Digital Era and Nation State Summary The basic interest of this paper is directed at the impact of the new digital era communication technologies on the national state, which to a large extent implies the effects the Internet, because of its capacity and its characteristics, has on the nation state. This concerns…
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