{"id":52688,"date":"2026-04-28T12:52:21","date_gmt":"2026-04-28T12:52:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/?p=52688"},"modified":"2026-04-28T12:57:57","modified_gmt":"2026-04-28T12:57:57","slug":"eleonora-naxidou-and-yura-konstantinova-balkan-perspectives-of-europe-between-east-and-west","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/?p=52688","title":{"rendered":"Eleonora Naxidou and Yura Konstantinova \u201eBalkan Perspectives of Europe: Between East and West\u201c"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Through the lens of the Balkan nations, this volume makes a valuable and significant contribution to the fields of European and Southeast European studies by reconsidering the East\/West dichotomy \u2013 both in terms of the Orient\u2013Occident divide and the Eastern\u2013Western Europe binary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Balkan Perspectives of Europe focuses on concepts of Europe as articulated in the Balkans from the nineteenth century to the present \u2013 an area that remains largely underexplored, despite extensive research on national identity and the construction of the Other. The authors address this scholarly gap through meticulous bibliographic research, drawing on both published and unpublished sources in Balkan languages. A key strength of the collection is its inclusion of contributors from the Balkans as well as from wider European and American academic contexts, enabling a nuanced and comprehensive examination of the subject through internal and external perspectives. The authors argue that, in asserting their cultural identification with Europe, Balkan nations have developed concepts of Europe that resonate with Occidental discourses and offer a counter-narrative to dominant Western conceptualizations of the Balkans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Broadening access to these ideas, this book\u2019s approach allows scholars, students, and general readers to deepen their understanding of the Balkan region and its perspectives on identity and otherness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Table of Contents<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Introduction: Balkan Occidental Discourse or Balkan Counter-Orientalism
Eleonora Naxidou and Yura Konstantinova<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Part I: What Is Europe?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. Diverse Perceptions of Europe in the Newly Founded Greek State
Lina Louvi<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

2. Meeting Europe During a War: Perceptions of the French by Varna Residents During the Crimean War (1853\u20136)
Ivan Roussev<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

3. \u2018Mixed Feelings\u2019: Nineteenth-Century Balkan Intellectuals and the Tanzimat<\/em>
Raymond Detrez<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

4. The West, the East, and the Balkans: Bulgarian Intellectuals of the Revival and the Image of Europe
Eleonora Naxidou<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

5. Between Imperial Legacy and European Identity: The Alchemy of Greek Perceptions of Europe
Stamatia Fotiadou<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Part II: East vs West: The Two Sides of the Same Coin?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

6. Images of Russia in the Greek World and Their European Horizon (Eighteenth Century)
Nikolas Pissis<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

7. Traces of American Protestant Missions in the Nineteenth-Century Ottoman Balkans: Local Perceptions of the USA
Elmira Vassileva<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

8. Modelling Emotions: Bulgarian Perceptions of Russia
Yura Konstantinova<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

9. Postwar Realignment: Yugoslavia Seeks to Join Europe
Robert Niebuhr<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

10. (Step-)Mother Russia: Projections and Mental Maps of Russia in Serbia
Nenad Stefanov<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Part III: Visual Encounters<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

11. Heritage and Civilizational Discourse: \u2018Civilized Europe\u2019 and \u2018Antiquities\u2019 in Mid-Nineteenth-Century Romania
Roxana Coman<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

12. \u2018Grandma Europe\u2019: Political Imaginary and Representations of Europe in Bulgarian Caricature at the Beginning of the Twentieth Century
Dobrinka Parusheva<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

13. The Bulgarian Perception About Russia and the Fate of Russian Monuments in Bulgaria
Tina Georgieva<\/em>14. Americans Appeared in the Balkans: How They Were Imagined in the Movies from the Region?
Gergana Doncheva<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Editor(s)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eleonora Naxidou<\/strong> is Professor of Modern and Contemporary History of Southeastern Europe in the Department of History and Ethnology at Democritus University of Thrace, Greece. She is the author of the book Europeanness in the Context of Bulgarian \u2018Balkanness\u2019: Lyuben Karavelov, Federalism, and the Greeks<\/em> (2021; in Greek), and co-editor of several scholarly volumes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yura Konstantinova<\/strong> is Professor at the Institute of Balkan Studies & Center of Thracology, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. She has published extensively and been involved in numerous academic research projects on subjects including the history of modern Greece, Greek\u2013Bulgarian relations, and international relations in Southeastern Europe in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

December 2, 2025 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

272 Pages 23 B\/W Illustrations<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ISBN 9781032895154<\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/www.routledge.com\/Balkan-Perspectives-of-Europe-Between-East-and-West\/Naxidou-Konstantinova\/p\/book\/9781032895154<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

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