British literature and the Balkans: themes and contexts

Abstract

Over the last twenty years, the manner in which south-east Europe is viewed by western cultures has become an important area of study within international scholarship. The current volume is a wide-ranging and original analysis of balkanist discourse in British fiction and travel writing. Through a study of over 300 texts, it explores the discourse's emergence in the imperial nineteenth century and its extensive transformation during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. There is a particular focus on the ways in which the most significant currents in western thought - Romanticism, empiricism, imperialism, nationalism, communism - have helped to shape the British concept of the Balkans.