In Search of Spatial Perceptions: The Balkans as A Vernacular Region

Abstract

The Balkans are still an imprecisely defined and relatively unknown area in southeastern Europe. They are a historical‐political term, often provoking negative associations that are synonymous with underdevelopment, backwardness, and primitiveness. This research is aimed primarily at exploring how the Balkans are perceived by students of geography in Zagreb and Maribor and what associations they provoke. It further seeks to investigate whether the Balkans are primarily a cognitive construct that is spatially determined on an individual level, based on an individual’s own insights, attitudes, values, and other determinants. Therefore, a questionnaire survey regarding perceptions of the Balkans was conducted. The results indicate that the Balkans can be seen as a sort of vernacular anti‐region: the kind from which states in or near its boundaries attempt to exclude themselves, while simultaneously trying to include their neighbors to the south and east.

Formation and comparison of scenarios of geopolitical development of the Western Balkans

“…The selected survey respondents are geography students in the countries of the Western Balkans and Croatia and represent the first post-war generations. Similar reasons for selecting respondents can be found in the works of Šakaja (2001, 2019) and Pleić et al (2021). Šakaja (2019) examined different perceptions of high school students regarding certain political and cultural issues, compared to the respondents from her paper from 2001, while Pleić et al (2021) examined differences in the perceptions of the Balkans between students from Maribor and Zagreb.…”

“…For a long time, the Balkans were something Other and Different to Europe, an area where European interests should be expanded, ignoring the local peoples or indirectly supporting one nation and ruling according to the system of divide et impera (Kolstø, 2016). It is an area of the late formation of states in relation to the rest of Europe, although Europe itself was more of a vernacular region than a geographical one throughout history, and the Balkans were often labelled as the Orient (Pleić et al, 2021). Moreover, if you look at the religious map of this area, you can again see the presence of numerous religions, and even the historical identification of people according to religion.…”

“…It is safe to say that the capital work on the Balkans is Imaginary Balkans, authored by Marija Todorova in 2009. Taking specifically the area of the Western Balkans into account, there are two very relevant books by Anđelko Milardović (2000Milardović ( , 2009: Western Balkans -Concepts, ideas and documents about the reconstruction of the Balkans in the process of globalization and Western Balcony. The first book is also a capital work for the geopolitics of the Western Balkans, because it shows in detail the beginnings of the Euro-Atlantic integration of the region, while the latter speaks with a certain amount of irony about the relationship between the EU and the Western Balkans.…”