"#$%&'()$*&#

With only a Iew months to go beIore the Second World War

unleashed its Ierocity on Yugoslavia, Bogdan Radica published
Agonifa Evrope (The Agony oI Europe, 1940). The book was a
collection oI interviews with European writers, thinkers, academics
and opinion makers previously published in Belgrade`s literary
magazines and newspapers, which Radica a diplomat posted to
France, Switzerland and Italy between the two world wars had
carried out. Some oI them have been largely Iorgotten, but others still
mean something to the contemporary reader: the writers Paul Valery,
Thomas Mann, Andre Gide, Charles Maurras, Giovanni Papini, F.T.
Marinetti, the thinkers Benedetto Croce, Nikolai Berdiaev, Jose
Ortega y Gasset, Jacques Maritain, Dmitrii Merezhkovskii, Adriano
Tilgher, and the historians Guglielmo Ferrero and Georges Duhamel.
Radica asked all his interlocutors the same set oI questions: what and
where is Europe? Is she really breathing her last breath? II so, what
can be done to save her? It is worth noting that Radica did not bother
asking politicians about Europe: it was the avant-garde and modernist
writers Irom across the continent, and not European politicians, who
had created European identity in the inter-war years (Delanty 1995:
110-11).
Almost all answered by deIining Europe as a set oI values, or
as any place where speciIic 'European values were taken seriously.
Europe was an understanding oI spiritual and moral values which was
quickly disappearing, explained Mann. Europe`s main Ieature was the
idea oI human autonomy and Ireedom, said Gide. Duhamel
maintained that Europe was the principle oI order, measure, clarity
and synthesis, and thus lay in opposition to everything coming Irom
the East, because everything eastern was diseased and dishevelled:

|I|rom the East come only sick ideas to Europe in their primal chaotic state,
all revolutionary and religious movements which with their extremity have
threatened to destroy the order and balance oI Europe. As soon as they
Getting Over Europe


8
undergo western prophylactic analysis and synthesis, they usually become
the sole Iundaments oI all civilization and culture. (Radica 1940: 208)

For most oI Radica`s interlocutors, Europe was not associated
with a particular place, but with values, principles, ideas and methods.
Even Duhamel, who in his Iirst interview in 1928 had replied to
Radica`s question oI 'where is Europe very precisely 'a bit oI
Burgundy, a piece oI Champagne and several kilometres oI
Normandy (Radica 1940: 208) in a second interview eight years
later allowed Ior the possibility that Europe might be Iound in many
places in the east and south oI the continent too, wherever 'there is a
European society in touch with what is being created in the heart oI
real Europe: in Paris, and wherever there is an 'intellectual elite
which Iears and cares Ior the salvation oI European civilization and
the Iuture oI Western culture (Radica 1940:209). The closer the war,
the larger Duhamel`s Europe became: by 1939 it comprised the
territory between London, Oslo, Florence and Athens (Radica 1940:
214).
To Radica`s second question all interviewees gave the same
answer: yes, Europe was sick, iI not already in agony. That it was
heading Ior catastrophe, war and to the apocalypse, was something
that all but Croce agreed upon. He believed that the eclipse was only
temporary. Radica inquired as to why this was so. Because oI
nationalism, replied Tilgher, which had been brought about by a
conjunction oI economic and political Iactors. Because oI the
prevalence oI the quantitative over the qualitative principle, and the
consequent disappearance oI all traditional values, explained Ferrero.
Europe was being murdered by modernity its own product and its
greatest pride would be the very cause oI her downIall. Because oI the
prevalence oI politics over culture, said Valery: when a society`s
technical organization reaches its peak, its culture vanishes. The
Catholic thinker Maritain looked upon it somewhat diIIerently:
Europe is dying because oI the prevalence oI the material over the
spiritual, thus suppressing Christianity in all aspects oI social liIe.
Because oI the collapse oI all values, said Berdiaev simply. Because
oI the invasion oI barbarians, claimed Mann, Maurass and Papini
without agreeing upon who the barbarians in question really were. As
Ior the breakdown oI all values, Papini and Mann blamed the progress
oI 'technical and 'mechanical civilization. Mann, however, also
wanted to add the 'invasion oI sports to the list. But while Papini saw
Introduction

9
Communists, Russians and Asia in general as the source oI barbarity,
Mann believed that Papini`s Fascists and German Nazis should be
viewed as the barbarians in question. Maurass, whom all interviewees
save Papini must have looked upon as a representative oI those
barbarians who were leading Europe into the abyss, blamed the
barbarians who were dismantling universal civilization and its moral
unity.
Radica Iurther inquired as to whether Europe could be healed
and whether a cure could be Iound. Most oI his interlocutors were
sceptical, but suggested that perhaps European Iederalism should be
put to the test. Merezkovskii said that Europeans should await the
return oI the Messiah. Papini maintained that the mission oI curing
Europe should be entrusted to Italy. Maurass laid a wager on France,
Maritain on Christianity, and Berdiaev slightly more speciIically
on Russian Christianity. Ortega y Gasset, however, saw salvation
lying in the young Balkan countries: 'In the young and new Balkan
countries modern thought and new ideas are understood with the
greatest accuracy. The Iuture oI Europe is in these Iresh and
undeveloped countries (Radica 1940: 221). That certainly went down
well in Yugoslavia.
What at the time was thought about Europe in Belgrade, one
oI the capitals oI these young and Iresh Balkan countries? This is the
theme oI this book: the construction oI the image oI 'Europe in
Serbian culture, in the selected writings oI leading writers and
intellectuals between the two world wars. An inquiry will be made not
into the accuracy oI the representation oI Europe, but into the ways in
which it was discursively constructed. The questions will be those
habitually asked by imagology.
1
Who constructed it, and with what

1
Although the traditional history oI motives in literature (Stoffgeschichte) had oIIered
ample material Ior the study oI hetero- and auto-images, and even though many
valuable studies which touch upon what was later to become known as imagology had
been written, imagology only began establishing itselI as a sub-discipline oI
comparative literature aIter Hugo Dyserinck developed his Aachen Programme in the
1960s (Dyserinck 1966 and 2002). Rene Welek`s distinction between intrinsic and
extrinsic approaches to literature at the time very inIluential but rendered largely
irrelevant by the disciplinary and interdisciplinary approaches oI the 1980s and 1990s
did not encourage the study oI national images, which were considered 'extrinsic
to literature. However, both the developments in poststructuralist approaches to
literature, such as Stephen Greenblatt`s poetics oI culture, and the establishment oI
interdisciplinary Iields, such as postcolonial studies wherein the concept oI
Getting Over Europe


10
authority? For whom were these constructions intended? How was
this representation validated? What purposes was it meant to serve?
What was assumed to be the opposite to 'Europe? Which issues were
raised in comparing 'Europe with Serbia, and why? Which textual
traditions were the elements oI this construction borrowed Irom?
Since all representations oI an other are simultaneously selI-
Iashioning processes, we shall also examine how the construction oI
the European other deIined Serbian selI-representation.
The interwar period, which here is extended to encompass
several years beIore and aIter the world wars, had across the continent
a particular signiIicance in the process oI the genesis oI our
understanding oI Europe (Passerini 1999: 8). Although there has
always been a concept, an image, or an idea oI Europe, only the
destruction wrought by the First World War created the conditions in
which the development oI European cultural, political and social unity
began to seem both meaningIul and urgent to many intellectuals. One
more world war and an even larger scale oI destruction were needed
Ior European politicians to come to the same conclusion. The First
World War leIt Europeans disillusioned and pessimistic about their
Iuture, and as distrustIul about progress as the previous century was
conIident oI it. To many, the continent seemed past the point oI
possible recovery, and Oswald Spengler set himselI the task oI
creating a philosophy which would in biological terms explain the
decline oI Europe as an inevitability, thus Iollowing the central
nineteenth-century scientiIic paradigm, enriched with fin-de-siecle
aestheticism: iI die we must, there will be at least a certain aesthetic
quality in dying in selI-consciousness, in being the Iirst civilization to
Iace its death with eyes wide open. Others, on the contrary, preIerred
to leave the end oI the European story undecided. Thomas Mann, no
admirer oI Spengler whom he regarded as 'Nietzsche`s clever ape
did send Hans Castorp to war at the end oI Magic Mountain, but his
saIe return home was not unimaginable. Many other writers,
intellectuals and politicians began the process oI eulogizing Europe as
the continent oI the culture most worthy oI admiration, the only one
with the potential Ior saving the world Irom barbarity as iI it were

representation and the aim oI de-ideologizing our knowledge loomed large
supported Dyserinck`s early intuitions. For more on the history and theory oI
imagology see Beller and Leerssen 2007.

Introduction

11
not Europe itselI which sank into barbarity between 1914 and 1918,
while the rest oI the world reIrained Irom adding oil to the Iire. The
interwar period thus saw the creation oI a Janus-Iaced image oI
Europe: both as an illness and a cure, as decadence and dying, even as
a synonym Ior death, and as the last hope Ior humanity and a synonym
oI the only liIe worth living. 'To the European visionaries oI 1918,
says Katiana Orluc,

Europe not only appeared as a rotten society as it had done in the days oI
Enlightenment, but it also on the edge oI the abyss seemed to oIIer a last
hope as a saIeguard oI civilization, a virtuous and endangered entity and
sometimes even appeared to be the only means to regain hegemony. (Orluc
2000: 130-31)

In the writings oI Serbian intellectuals between the two world
wars, this dual image oI Europe marks the Iurthest limits reached in
the long discussion which took place during the same period: Europe
as an illness and a cure. These several decades were crucial Ior the
discursive construction oI Europe in Serbian culture. BeIore this
relatively brieI period, Europe meant either the Great Powers, which
held the key to Serbian liberation Irom Ottoman rule, or the general
direction oI 'civilization which Serbs had to catch up with by
introducing railroads, industry, and modern political, Iinancial and
educational institutions. Either way, the meaning oI Europe was clear:
one could oppose and resent it in its guise oI the Great Powers
which Iearing Russian inIluence in the Balkans preIerred to prolong
the liIe oI the dying Ottoman Empire or as modernity, which would
have destroyed the pastoral idyll oI a traditional peasant society.
Alternatively, one could celebrate it as the only social, political and
cultural model worth emulating. AIter the Second World War, in the
changed political context, such a discussion would not have made any
sense. Europe was split between a capitalist West and a communist
East, with Yugoslavia, which liked to think oI itselI as neither, placed
between them. Europe was oII the agenda until the late 1980s. Only
aIter the Iall oI the communist regimes did any meaningIul discussion
on Europe become possible again, but this time in a new context
brought about by the existence oI the European Union, the political
and economic doppelganger oI Europe. From the point oI view oI a
historian oI culture it is, as Zhou Enlai put it, too soon to say the last
word about the meaning oI the European debate in Serbian culture,
Getting Over Europe


12
and its Iuture direction. What is not in doubt however, is that in many
respects it has picked up Irom where the interwar one stopped short:
the old books, unavailable Ior many decades, have been reprinted, the
dust has been brushed oII many already Iorgotten names, and the old
arguments have Iound new promoters. It would be diIIicult to
maintain that the second act in the construction oI Europe in Serbian
culture did not give rise to anything new, Ior it was played out in the
shadow oI the wars in the Iormer Yugoslavia in which several EU
countries were involved the complexity oI which is discussed by
Gibbs (2009) but it is quite obvious that this second act was on the
discursive level determined to a large extent by the stockpile oI
images and ideas created between the world wars. This stockpile is
what the present book sets out to inspect.
The active engagement with the image oI Europe became
possible in the interwar period not only because the two big others oI
Serbian politics and culture, the Ottoman Empire and Austria-
Hungary, disappeared during the First World War, thus releasing the
energy and imagination previously tied to the empires, but also
because there was a critical mass oI individuals who could take part in
such a process with reasonable conIidence. The simplicity oI the
nineteenth-century Serbian image oI Europe that oI either the Great
Powers or Civilization was due not only to the Serbs` inability to
resist the imposition oI that which possessed greater power and was
representing itselI as Civilization, but also because oI their modest
experience in dealing with that part oI the world. By the beginning oI
the twentieth century however, the number oI people who were at
home in at least one culture and language other than their own, who
studied and lived Ior extended periods oI time in diIIerent parts oI
Western Europe, and who had an intellectual horizon in which the
relevant questions could be asked, was much greater. This kind oI
intellectual and existential experience was a precondition Ior any
complex construction oI Europe.
Who were the people whose opinions, impressions and ideas
we will encounter in this book? In the spring oI 1947, the essayist and
Iormer royal diplomat Branko Lazarevic (1883-1968) visited a
number oI Belgrade`s antique and second-hand bookshops. He did not
buy anything: neither he nor any oI the other members oI his class had
any money to buy books, but he was curious to see what was on oIIer.
Also, he hoped to spot something Iormerly belonging to one oI his
Introduction

13
personal libraries. His biggest collection, that oI his main Belgrade
residence, had been requisitioned and taken to the White Court the
Iormer royal residence to which Marshal Tito moved aIter the war
and he knew that these books were lost Iorever. However, since the
library Irom his summer villa on the island oI Hvar and the one Irom
his second Belgrade Ilat were ransacked during the war or
immediately aIter it, Lazarevic could reasonably hope that an odd
book oI his might pop up somewhere.
2
Walking between the shelves,
he Iound books with his Iriends` ex libris, which reminded him oI
other items Irom their studies: Bogdan Popovic had a small Degas, he
remembered, Jovan Vuckovic cherished his Rubens drawing, and
Bosko Colak-Antic had a small Rembrandt, though oI doubtIul
authenticity. Lazarevic did not expect to come across the paintings,
but books brought to be sold either by their owners (or thieves) were
plentiIul and would long remain on the shelves. II nothing else, it was
an ideal opportunity Ior a leisurely inspection: what did well-oII
Belgraders read beIore the war? Greek and Roman classics in the
original were rare, noted Lazarevic, and there were no Indian or
Chinese classics whatsoever, not even in translation. As regards
Spanish books, there was only a handIul. The same applied to
Scandinavian. There were some Italian and English books, many more
German ones, and the overwhelming majority were in French: 'out oI
one hundred books, ninety are in French, wrote Lazarevic (2007:
394). Among them he spotted a jewel:

I even saw Maeterlinck`s last pre-war book: Avant le dernier silence.
Whoever had owned this book must have been a reIined reader. Works like
this are not read in young cultures. I am never surprised to Iind albeit only
occasionally Marcel Proust, who was Iashionable, but to Iind the latest
Maeterlinck, Montherlant, or Papini, that is something that demands a
subtler culture. (Lazarevic, 2007, p. 394)


2
Upon returning to his Belgrade house Irom a nearby village, which he had escaped
to during the Iinal days oI the war, Lazarevic Iound a group oI Partisans huddled
around the Iireplace. Since they could not Iind any coal, they had used his books Ior
stoking the Iire. They explained in their deIence that this had been done in a very
considerate manner: the oldest books had been burnt Iirst. It was in this way that he
lost one oI the Iirst editions oI Voltaire`s collected works. (Milicevic 2007: 462)
Getting Over Europe


14
Inspecting the bookshelves inspired Lazarevic to reIlect on
Belgrade`s cultural development in the preceding IiIty years. BeIore
the First World War

books published abroad, especially in Paris, would be in the hands oI our
intellectuals in a matter oI days. |.| People travelled and knew languages.
Journals and magazines were subscribed to. Many Iamilies subscribed to
Tempus, Times, Neue freie Presse, Revue de deux mondes; many young
people studied in Paris and Berlin, and some also in London. Srpski
knfievni glasnik and Delo reviewed the newest literary and academic
publications; the National Theatre staged plays soon aIter their premieres
abroad. The same applied to Iashion and other things. Then came the war oI
1914 to 1918, which wiped the slate clean. Libraries and Iurniture were
blown away. However, in the years leading up to 1941 Belgrade cultivated
itselI once again with literature, science, architecture, music, painting and
sculpture. People began building again, and not at all bad homes, creating
libraries and playing music. Journals and magazines rivalled their
counterparts in Europe, and had a similar character. The theatre and opera
were rather good. |.| All oI that did not amount to much, but it was
evidence that Belgrade cultivated itselI and began to resemble, at the very
least, Central European towns. Then came the collapse oI 1941, and
everything which Iollowed it. (2007: 391-2)

This paragraph Irom Lazarevic`s recently discovered diary is
in many ways characteristic oI the way his generation thought about
culture, history and Europe. One might also add 'his class:
Lazarevic`s culture is primarily Bildungsbrgertum culture, which
Iuses together the possession oI a respectable Iamily library with good
quality Iurniture, while a small Degas or a Rembrandt oI uncertain
authenticity comes as a sign oI special distinction. Here, cultivation
reIers to the removal oI the signs oI Serbia`s Ottoman heritage,
especially in the sphere oI material culture, and seems to be limited to
Iollowing the lead oI the recognized metropolises, by being in the
know about the latest Iashion trends as much as Maeterlinck`s latest
book. Lazarevic acknowledges his own peripheral position through
what Wendy Bracewell has labelled the 'exteriority complex the
sense that the normative horizon oI Europe is somewhere else
(Bracewell 2008: 112). However, knowing one`s proper place is never
a Iault: he did not try to compare Belgrade to Paris or Berlin, but to
Vienna, Prague and Budapest, and Iound that his town did not score
poorly (Lazarevic 2007: 395). But the most telling moment in
Lazarevic`s brieI historical recapitulation is its address to an absent
Introduction

15
other. His diary was not intended Ior publication: this marginalized,
poor, lonely and depressed Iormer royal ambassador could not have
expected that his thoughts would be oI interest to anyone in postwar
communist Yugoslavia, and it is nothing short oI a miracle that the
manuscript was eventually Iound and published. But even in this most
private Iorm, as iI in an inner monologue, Lazarevic betrays that he
had internalized the metropolitan gaze which qualiIied him as an
oriental, non-European outsider: it was this internalized gaze which he
had to dissuade by submitting evidence gathered in his inspection oI
bookshops and through recollections oI happier days. His
contemplation oI Europe necessarily had to be conditioned by deep
riIts which had divided the continent into an Eastern Europe (WolII
1994), a Southern Europe (Dainotto 2007), the Balkans (Todorova
1997, Goldsworthy 1998, Norris 1999), and what remained aIter these
subtractions the north-western part oI the continental landmass, the
only Europe proper.
Was this really necessary? It certainly was not Ior the likes oI
Dositej Obradovic (1739-1811) or Ljubomir Nenadovic (1826-1895),
representatives oI earlier generations oI travellers. The Iormer
travelled extensively throughout Europe, Ielt at home in London and
Paris as much as in Smyrna, met kind people everywhere who would
invite him to lunch and a much appreciated glass oI wine, and never
Ielt looked down upon. The latter studied in Switzerland and travelled
in Germany, noticed both good and less Iavourable aspects oI liIe in
both countries the German countryside struck him as very poor
when compared with Serbian villages and was never intimidated
into explaining his own lack oI Europeanness. On the contrary:
Nenadovic eulogized Montenegro, recognizing in it an equivalent oI
Swiss liberal traditions in a diIIerent Iorm. However, Lazarevic`s
generation lived in a smaller world, in which more Europeans were
literate and had access to newspapers, and to the representations oI the
Balkans that the journalistic and educational elites oI their societies
could oIIer them. Since these representations tended to be wrapped up
in derogatory stereotypes, average newspaper-reading Europeans were
more likely to adopt them as their own intimate knowledge. The idea
that greater proximity between cultures and peoples always brings
about deeper understanding and sympathy does not have universal
validity. On the other hand, Europe itselI had become Iar more
interconnected and integrated by the time Lazarevic`s generation came
Getting Over Europe


16
oI age. Lazarevic`s generation was Iar more integrated in European
liIe than Obradovic`s or Nenadovic`s: they spoke more languages,
lived in more diIIerent places, had a broader intellectual horizon than
the two previous generations, and were overall 'more European than
them. Compared with the typically monolingual and sedentary
intellectuals oI his time, Voltaire had quite an exceptional liIe
itinerary, speaking several languages and residing in France, England,
Germany and Switzerland. By the beginning oI the twentieth century,
what in Voltaire`s time might have appeared as his restlessness
became the norm Ior a selI-respecting intellectual in Europe, and
Serbian ones were no exception. With greater proximity to Europe and
more extensive knowledge oI its cultures also came a more intense
and clearer awareness oI the stereotypes others held about them.
Paradoxically, the more they were culturally and intellectually
integrated into Europe, the more opportunities they had to encounter
stereotypes about themselves, and the greater the likelihood that they
would internalize the Ioreigner`s gaze. This comes with having a
small Degas on one`s wall.
These two dimensions a look onto Europe, and a look back
onto Serbia, which almost always had an added dimension oI the gaze
oI a Ioreigner proved to be inseparable in the writings oI the
academics, travellers and writers interpreted in the present volume. It
is not only a matter oI the widely accepted and already petriIied
understanding oI identity construction in general, which assumes that
all identities are always only relational, but also oI the speciIic
Iunction the Europe-debate had in many continental cultures between
the wars. 'A national discourse on Europe is also a discourse on the
nation speaking about Europe, maintains Robert Frank in an essay
Irom a book which shows how the idea oI Europe has always been an
element oI various national discourses (Frank 2002: 311). The
constructions, projections and deIinitions oI Europe in Serbian culture
between the world wars not only interacted with national selI-
projections, they were created in order to re-deIine, re-construct, re-
invent the nation via the discursive image oI Europe.
Reading the works oI interwar writers Irom metropolitan
areas, one cannot but realize that at the time Europe hardly existed.
The creation oI the European Union has given the idea oI Europe an
anchor, an institutional equivalent which will in time replace the
chaotic cacophony oI voices which between the two wars had pushed
Introduction

17
and pulled the image oI Europa and the Bull in many diIIerent
directions. The Iuture oI European political, economic and cultural
integration will determine which voices will be remembered and
celebrated as precursors and visionaries, relegating the rest to the
repository oI bizarre and uncanny Iantasies. All oI them, precursors as
much as Iantasists, had one Ieature in common: Europe was not where
they lived. The place they spoke Irom, be it Hamburg, Budapest,
Florence, London or Salamanca, was always somehow diIIerent. Even
the most cosmopolitan individuals among them believed that Europe
was something homogeneous and easily generalisable, with an
unquestionable and predetermined proIile, and comIortably existing
everywhere but where they happened to be. Europe was not the sum
oI its parts, but an abstract entity whose real and adequate material
reIlection could be Iound everywhere except in their own homes.
Hence the proliIeration oI treatises entitled 'Europe and X Nation. In
such treatises Europe was a signiIier Ior a sum oI ideas, images and
values, which could be neatly harmonized and satisIactorily
generalised, but which could never be Iound in such a Iorm in any real
place. Not only Ior the usual suspects the geographically liminal
peoples such as Spaniards, the British and Russians but Ior all
Europeans such a Europe was somewhere or someone else. Europe
was always an other, writes Luisa Passerini,

even Ior most oI those who have lived and live on the main continent and
not on one oI its islands, Europe has oIten been an 'elsewhere, in the sense
that it was not and is not openly recognized as a Iatherland, while being the
object oI deep and conIused Ieeling oI belonging. |.| |T|hereIore, 'Europe
as an elsewhere is a central theme oI European identity in every country.
(Passerini 1999: 11)

Few peoples have held themselves to be at the centre oI a
European speciIicity, claims Passerini: 'most peoples have
experienced and continue to experience Europe as something to which
they belong, but where they also Ieel they represent something
separate (2002: 205). How this elsewhere was constructed, what was
imagined as its content, how it was peopled, and how Iears, hopes and
passions were projected into it should be the proper theme oI every
exploration oI the construction oI Europe in a speciIic time and place.
This also means that the correspondence between 'Europe
and the real Europe is oI little interest here. The question oI whether
Getting Over Europe


18
the image oI Europe constructed by Serbian writers between the world
wars corresponds to the real Europe cannot be answered. Europe is
always seen Irom a speciIic place and constructed diIIerently in every
moment oI its existence. Even its name changes over time. For a long
time it used to call itselI 'Christianity; it renamed itselI 'civilization
at the height oI its colonial expansion; it became the 'West at the end
oI the nineteenth century, and kept the 'West and 'Europe
throughout the twentieth century. The authors whose works will be
interpreted in this volume used all oI these designations their usage
never being arbitrary, but always strategic: 'Europe, 'Christianity,
the 'West, and 'Civilization ciphered diIIerent discursive strategies
and indicated tacit or explicit political and cultural aims. The choice oI
any oI them has hardly every been innocent or purely descriptive; then
as now, the discursive strategies behind them have always competed
in imposing their own representations which stand Ior truth, and thus
inIluence both what is said and what is done. This holds true Ior the
actors whose rhetoric we analyze, as much as Ior us, the interpreters.
Even historians whom no one would think oI accusing oI
excesses oI constructivism claim that the continent which is not quite
sure about its eastern borders and spills over its western ones, at any
one time has a discursive double as well: 'At diIIerent times Europe`
has been opposed to the barbarians, the heathen, despotism, slavery,
coloured skin, the tropics and the East. It has been identiIied with
civilization, Christianity, democracy, Ireedom, white skin, the
temperate zone, and the West`, writes Peter Burke. 'It is also worth
emphasizing a process which might be called (euphemistically)
historical synecdoche`: that is, the conscious identiIication oI the
whole oI Europe with some part oI it to which the speaker belongs
(Burke 1980: 22). In this non-geographical sense Europe is not a Iact,
but an interpretation, says Vladimir Kantor: 'We are dealing with a
division into West and East, Europe and Asia. But it must not be
Iorgotten, that the border between them is mobile, because this border
is not a geographical Iact, but a historiosophical interpretation oI the
world (Kantor 1997: 95). That old name meant diIIerent things to
diIIerent people at diIIerent times, writes Gerard Delanty, and Europe
has reality only as 'the discourse in which ideas and identities are
Iormed and historical realities constituted

(Delanty 1995: 3). 'Europe
is a discourse which is translated into a political and ideological
project, maintains Bo Strth; 'II Europe has a meaning it is as a
Introduction

19
political programme (Strth 2000: 14). Consequently, instead oI
trying to determine what a peculiarly European selIhood might be,
'we must shiIt the Iocus away Irom a putative European character or
mentality and towards the uses to which such claims are made and
contested by local actors, writes HerzIeld (2002: 148).
The same has been claimed Ior one oI Europe`s recent
hypostases the 'West which Christopher GoGwilt has analyzed
as 'an abbreviated rhetorical claim oI coherence Ior a whole set oI
incommensurable ideas (GoGwilt 1995: 3). The appearance oI the
'West at the end oI the nineteenth and the beginning oI the twentieth
centuries as a cultural history, a political identity, or a literary
tradition, GoGwilt located in two contexts:

The Iirst context is that oI British imperial rhetoric during the 1890s, at the
height oI the jingoism, propaganda, and politics oI the 'new imperialism.
The second context inIluencing the rhetorical Iorce oI the twentieth-century
commonplace is that oI Russian intellectual debates oI the 1860s as these
came to inIluence the main currents oI Western European thinking over the
turn oI the century. (GoGwilt 1995: 220-1)

While GoGwilt views the emergence oI the West as arising
Irom the interaction between a rhetoric which identiIies with it, and
another which does not, Alastair Bonnett claims that the West has
been entirely the invention oI those who understood themselves as
'non-West: 'Vigorous debates about the meaning oI the West, and
whether Westernisation was a good or bad thing, were going on in
Turkey and Japan well beIore the idea oI the West was at the centre oI
debate in Western Europe (Bonnet 2004: 64). The non-western ideas
about the West, in many cases, preceded Western ones, and it was the
non-West that invented the 'West (Bonnet 2004: 2). These non-
Western constructions oI the West emerged within speciIic national
debates and struggles: Fukuzawa Yukichi and Ziya Gkalp projected
them as positive aims Ior Japan and Turkey, and Rabindranath Tagore
as a negative utopia which India should be wary oI. In all three cases
the constructions oI the West depended more on their authors` visions
oI Japan, Turkey and India than on any empirically veriIiable
description oI the north-west corner oI Europe. Even this unassuming
and tentative geographical location oI the West is disputable, because
its borders are not unambiguous but constantly shiIting. The West is
not a geographical category, maintain Martin W. Lewis and Kren E.
Getting Over Europe


20
Wigen, but a metageographical one, and can encompass various
spaces depending on the strategic and discursive purposes it is meant
to serve.
3
Its key components came to include

a compulsion to control and manipulate nature; a tendency to regard the selI
as an autonomous agent in competition with others; a restless desire Ior
growth and development; a keen appreciation oI personal Ireedom; a hunger
Ior material wealth; a practical, this-wordly orientation that seeks social
betterment through technological means; and perhaps above all, a
commitment to rational inquiry. The Eastern mind has been deIined in
opposite terms: put simply, the essence oI the East is seen as maniIest in
communitarian, aesthetic, and other-wordly values, extolling the submission
oI the individual to a timeless, mystical whole. (Lewis and Wigen 1997: 73)

Even this list oI the western-produced characteristics oI the 'West
makes obvious the strategic and Iuture-oriented constructedness
promoted at the expense oI truth arrived at by the procedures oI
evidential process: it prioritizes the 'statements that associate Western
culture primarily with the sceptical tradition oI the Enlightenment
rather than, say, with the Ianaticism that has always inIected a sizable
proportion oI the Christian community (Lewis and Wigen 1997: 74).

3
The borders oI the West or Europe can be deIined to exclude the south-eastern part
oI the continent altogether, claim Lewis and Wigen: 'This de-EuropiIication` oI
southeastern Europe is not merely an old gambit oI Western jingoists, but one that
continues to be deployed with vigor. As in the case oI Russia, the Balkans` Eastern
heritage can be blamed Ior any problems in the region. A classic recent statement oI
this view can be Iound in George Kennan`s 1993 article on the Balkan crisis`,
published in the New York Review of Books. What we are up against is the sad Iact
that developments oI those earlier ages, not only those oI the Turkish domination but
oI earlier ones as well, had the eIIect oI thrusting into the south-eastern reaches oI the
European continent a salient oI non-European civilization which has continued to the
present day to preserve many oI its non-European characteristics, including some that
Iit even less with the world oI today that they did with the world oI eighty years ago`.
Although Turkish and Islamic inIluences are certainly powerIul in many Balkan areas,
it is a serious geographical blunder to imply that a country like Serbia has more in
common, culturally and historically, with Eastern regions, be it near, middle, or Iar,
than it does with the rest oI Europe. |.| To view such modern horrors as ethnic
cleansing` as a product oI alien Eastern inIluences violating an otherwise virtuous
Europe requires a tremendously selective memory oI the recent European past. The
game Kennan is playing is the same as that involved in turning Nazism and Stalinism
into oriental creeds, and it leads to a comparable denial oI historical responsibility.
Our Ilawed metageography has become a vehicle Ior displacing the sins oI Western
civilization onto an intrusive non-European Other in our midst. (Lewis and Wigen
1997: 68)
Introduction

21
Lewis`s and Wigen`s reminder oI the Iate oI 'rationality, one oI the
most important and contested characteristics oI all metageographical
constructions, is highly illuminating: while Voltaire and philosophes
saw it as East Asia`s virtue and reproached Europe Ior lacking in it,
those who in our day take issue with the 'West look upon rationality
as a Western vice (80).
4
In light oI China`s spectacular economic,
scientiIic and technological growth in recent years, one wonders
whether the compulsion to control and manipulate nature, the restless
desire Ior growth and development, the hunger Ior material wealth, the
practical, this-wordly orientation that seeks social betterment through
technological means and the commitment to rational inquiry should in
Iact be taken to describe the Eastern rather then the Western mind?
The predictable answer that by pursuing developmental goals China is
only being 'westernized rests on the equation oI modernization and
westernization in the popular imagination. However,

|t|he Iormula 'modernization westernization assumes a priority oI origin
over process, oI geography over history. It holds, in essence, that
modernization represents the cultural essence oI Western Europe, because
Western Europe is (supposedly) where it all began. |.| For one thing, we
would challenge the claim that individualism, democracy, secularism, and
the like reveal anything essential or transhistorical about Western culture.
The Ioundational institution oI the Occidental cultural region the Roman
Catholic Church did everything it could to oppose the growth oI
individual Ireedoms, modern science, democracy, market culture, and, oI
course, secularism, and today it Iinds itselI uneasily allied with radical
Islam in an attempt to maintain 'traditional Iamily structures. In Iact, all
the Iamiliar 'isms oI modernization were resisted by important elements oI
the establishment in Western Europe. Moreover, all were driven by
processes that were in important ways global Irom the start, and all have
proven both incomplete and contingent, even in the West. (Lewis and
Wigen 1997: 101)

The task oI researching a construction oI Europe or the West
in a given culture cannot be accomplished starting Irom a
predetermined content oI these two notions. II we try to ignore the Iact
that Europe and the West are but discursive strategies and posit their

4
Samir Amin oIIered a similar example: 'In the nineteenth century, the alleged
inIeriority oI Semitic Orientals is based on their so-called exuberant sexuality` (an
association subsequently transIerred to black peoples). Today, with the help oI
psychoanalysis, the same deIects oI Orientals are attributed to a particularly strong
sexual repression`! (Amin 1989: 95)
Getting Over Europe


22
content Irom the start, all we can do is catalogue the deviations Irom
the norm, or distortions oI the supposedly correct ideas oI Europe and
the West made by the authors we are interpreting. The end result
would be no more than our own Europe or the West, i.e. the discursive
strategy oI the interpreter: such an interpretation would simply posit
what it purports to Iind. Two completely diIIerent approaches can help
illustrate this point. Probably the most radical and provocative account
oI our contemporary construction oI Europe, Iollowed by a
devastating conclusion, comes Irom Hayden White:

For 'Europe has never existed anywhere except in discourse, which is to
say, in the talk and writing oI visionaries and scoundrels seeking an alibi Ior
a civilization whose principal historical attribute has been an impulsion to
universal hegemony and the need to destroy what it cannot dominate,
assimilate, or consume as iI by right divine. |.| |B|ecause iI Europe is a
discourse or exists only in discourse |.| we must consider how discourse
constructs identities, endows them with the aura oI essential being, posits
their existence and goes on to act as iI their being licensed the most
inhumane social comportment. In the discourse oI Europe, that which
escapes the eIIort to determine its intrinsic value, that which is considered
to belong to Europe`s identity but need not be 'remarked since it is what
'goes without saying as an element oI that identity, is nothing other than
the 'barbarism on the basis oI which Europe`s 'civilization has been
purchased. A number oI modernist writers/thinkers have made this aspect oI
barbarism at the heart oI European civilization the object oI their analysis:
Benjamin, Borges, and Foucault can be mentioned. This barbarism is
maniIest in the most recent incarnation oI Europe`s eIIort at integration and
puriIication oI its identity: the Nazi Third Reich and the program Ior the
destruction oI any people, culture, or institution conceived to be corruptive
oI the Aryan race. |.| (T)he general European complicity in the execution
oI the German Holocaust oI world Jewry is what has 'neutralized and leIt
unmarked in the discourse oI Europe over the last IiIty years. |.| Yet iI the
identity oI the thing is to be known by what it does, what it has habitually
done, and what it continues to do (rather than to think, to imagine, and to
wish), then anti-Semitism and racism have to be seen as maniIestations oI
Europe`s essential nature. (White 2000: 67-85)

White Iocuses on what is rarely accounted Ior in our
contemporary discursive constructions oI Europe and Ioregrounds
what is being suppressed. However, his conclusion does not reIer only
to our most popular, selI-congratulating and Ilattering discursive
strategies and their purposeIul omissions and distortions, but to
'Europe`s essential nature as well, to its 'impulsion to universal
hegemony and the need to destroy what it cannot dominate, oI which
Introduction

23
anti-Semitism and racism are the most obvious maniIestations.
Although White`s intention was to expose the workings oI a
particularly popular discursive strategy, to bring out as in a photo
negative what it does not want to account Ior, his end result is a
claim about Europe`s essential nature based on one aspect oI Europe`s
historical existence only, and needlessly simpliIies it. White`s
discursive strategy is to turn an element oI Europe`s identity, its
hegemonic, violent and barbaric aspect, into a cornerstone oI this
identity, while suppressing all other aspects. By doing so, White does
restore a balance which our selI-congratulating discursive strategies
routinely distort, but iI we are to take his claim about Europe`s
essential nature as our starting point, all we could do is categorize the
authors the present volume is about to interpret according to their
proximity to discovering the 'truth oI Europe. Barbarity was
certainly very prominent in their vocabulary; one oI them saw Europe
as the maniIestation oI a drive Ior hegemony and domination, and
another was very close to White`s image oI Europe as the embodiment
oI a racism intent on destroying what it cannot devour. Others would
have disagreed: they saw Europe or the West as gentlemanliness, a
valuable cultural pattern, or as an archive oI cherished cultural
achievements. However, Jovan Skerlic Iused the selI-congratulating
and Ilattering discourse oI Europe with the Ioregrounding oI what
White calls the impulsion to universal hegemony: his West was the
school oI energy, work, democracy, progress, rationalism and
secularism, coupled with heinous crimes oI imperialism covered with
shiny words oI civilizing discourse. Any posited truth oI Europe`s
essential nature would necessarily compel us to deem some oI them
right and others wrong, with Skerlic leIt somewhere in between.
Could it be, instead, that all the authors discussed in the present
volume articulated diIIerent aspects oI a very complex identity, whose
essential nature iI it ever existed as such is impossible to reduce to
one maniIestation only, and which has no intrinsic value whatsoever,
but gains something resembling it only thanks to the maniIold
discourses which we surround it with?
The problem will remain the same iI we decide to ignore
White`s Ioregrounding oI an unpopular aspect oI the continent`s
identity and adhere to the selI-congratulating and Ilattering discourse
oI the West. Holm Sundhaussen understands the West as the
'unfinished project associated with 'concepts such as liberty, human
Getting Over Europe


24
rights, democracy, the rule oI law, individualism, civil society, market
economy, pluralism, the separation oI church and state, rationalism
and some others (Sundhaussen 2008: 272). Sundhaussen is careIul
enough not to claim that these values have been the historical reality
oI the West, but only 'a historically growing and normative
understanding oI it (273). While one may agree with the renaming oI
what has been otherwise known as the unIinished project oI
modernity, by introducing as its new name the geographical
designation which is both in popular as well as in academic usage
regularly associated with the north-western part oI the continent, this
leads to a conceptual conIusion. It does not suIIice to claim that there
were strong anti-Western Iorces in the West, as the author does; iI the
West is postulated in such a Iashion, one must say that throughout its
history and until very recently the West has been proIoundly anti-
Western. This is not the only conceptual trap set by presentism, the
tendency to interpret the past by making modernity the 'standard oI
judgement against which most oI the past, even the Western past,
could be Iound wanting (Hunt 2002: 7). Sundhaussen divides anti-
occidentalism into classical and modern: while modern anti-
occidentalism came into being at the end oI the nineteenth century as a
reaction to the processes oI modernization, classical anti-
occidentalism, which has religious and ecclesiastic connotations and is
characteristic oI eastern and south-eastern Europe, owes its inception
to the separation oI the Eastern and the Western Churches, claims
Sundhaussen (2008: 277). To put it diIIerently, classical anti-
occidentalism is the attitude oI the Orthodox Churches towards the
West. Since classical anti-occidentalism is only a sub-type oI more
general anti-occidentalism, it Iollows that ever since the Schism the
Orthodox Churches opposed the unIinished project oI 'liberty, human
rights, democracy, the rule oI law, individualism, civil society, market
economy, pluralism, the separation oI church and state, |and|
rationalism even beIore its conception. One wonders who was
promoting these values at the time oI Schism, be that in eastern, south-
eastern or western Europe? The anti-occidentalism oI the Orthodox
Churches was aimed at the Roman Catholic Church, which in the
eleventh century certainly did not stand Ior modernity. The conIlation
oI the West, as the project oI modernity, with the West, as a
geographical region oI Europe, does not bring any clarity, and only
reveals the diIIiculties created by a procedure which Iirst posits a truth
Introduction

25
about Europe`s essential nature, and then proceeds to measuring the
proximity oI others to it.
The authors we are about to read in this book were
inextricably entangled with the rhetoric oI Europeanization,
Westernization and modernization: rarely were they adventurous
enough to step out oI the conIines oI Eurocentrism and the dialectics
oI orientalism and occidentalism created by the episteme which
constituted their intellectual horizon.
5
In a very broad sense, this is a
book on Serbian occidentalism-cum-orientalism and its main Ieatures:
Iounded on Eurocentric assumptions, driven by a thirst Ior
Westernization, conscious oI the voice oI hegemony which deIined
Europe in its own image and thus excluded Serbs as well as many
others and which only very slowly and apprehensively approached
the middle ground between despair over not satisIying the European
putative standards, and anger over their very existence; between
attempting the impossible task oI becoming 'like everybody else and
ordering their house 'as it is across the civilized world, and
recognizing that no one is 'like everybody else and that precious
little is exactly the same across the world. This middle position is the
same as the one discovered by Roberto Dainotto in Michele Amari`s
later work: that instead oI trying to prove that one is a part oI universal
history because one also Iollowed in the steps oI the alleged
Europegeist, one should quietly require one`s place in it because oI
one`s unique history and one`s diIIerence (Dainotto 2007: 210).
Rastko Petrovic expressed this idea in a Pythian but powerIul
sentence: 'Until we get over Europe and learn to speak European, we
will not succeed in discovering anything oI value in ourselves, let
alone express it in such a manner that it has some value Ior the rest oI
the world (Petrovic 1974: 19). This is the narrative line this book will
Iollow. We shall begin with the position oI Jovan Skerlic and Isidora
Sekulic, which summed up the nineteenth-century construction oI
Europe as a political, social and cultural model to be Iollowed (but
never to be slavishly copied), and then move to the turbulent 1920s,
which saw both the continuation oI the pre-war paradigm and a
relativization oI Europe as a model (Irom the Expressionists` Slavic
and Indian yearning, to an autochtonist position and rejection oI

5
On Eurocentrism see Amin 1989, and Chakrabarty 2007; on Occidentalism Coronil
1996, Carrier 1992 and 1995; on Orientalism Said 1979.
Getting Over Europe


26
Europe, to a Slav-barbarian superiority over it), and then on to the
1940s in which, primarily in the work oI Ivo Andric, the
occidentalist/orientalist paradigm, and modernization perceived as
Westernization, were overcome. OI course, these steps were not three
acts oI a single drama: there were no clear-cut phases; the same
positions recurred over and over again. The logical and chronological
order could have been reversed, or mixed up, but the general
movement oI Serbian culture towards getting over its own
construction oI Europe is obvious enough. To a certain extent, this
narrative line was also put Iorword by Dragisa Vitosevic in his book
with the indicative title Do Evrope i natrag (To Europe and Back,
1987). However, while Vitosevic claims that the trajectory oI most
writers and artists in Serbian culture Iollowed the pattern oI a
metaphorical and literal return to the 'native realm aIter a period oI
learning 'European ways, this book will argue that this was not the
case either individually or on the level oI culture as a whole. From the
1920s to the 1940s, Serbian culture did not go back, i.e. return to a
nativist, autochtonist position untouched by its own construction oI
Europe; rather, it 'learnt to speak European and only thus was it able
to discover its own value and its modest place in European culture.
As mentioned earlier, amongst Serbs in the nineteenth
century, 'Europe and the 'West stood Ior three interconnected
meanings: modernization social, economic and political, a cultural
tradition, and the Great Powers. All three aspects were present in two
other Balkan cultures, those oI the Greeks and Bulgarians, who shared
with Serbs the same religion and a similar historical and cultural
heritage.
6
(Daskalov 1994 and 2008, Liakos 1998, Tsoukalas 2002,
Mishkova 2008, Leerssen 2008) The main characteristics oI the
Greek, Bulgarian and Serbian discourses on Europe were very similar:
the Ieeling oI historical belatedness, inIeriority and embarrassment, as
well as the hope that catching up with what was understood as the
universal model Ior emulation could be achieved quickly, 'so that one
would accomplish in a decade or two what others have achieved in a
century or two (Todorova 2005: 160). In addition to many
similarities, there were also many speciIicities in the Greek, Bulgarian
and Serbian historical traditions, which resulted in diIIerent emphases

6
Valuable contributions to the study oI the construction oI Europe in the Balkans can
be Iound in Heppner 1997, Heppner and Katsiardi-Hering 1998, Heppner and
Preshlenova 1999, and Heppner and Larentzakis 1996.
Introduction

27
in their respective constructions oI Europe. For instance, Serbs and
Bulgarians did not have the advantage oI nationalizing the heritage oI
the ancient Greeks and thus legitimizing however imperIectly the
claim Ior a privileged place in the European hierarchy oI nations; the
Greeks lacked the opportunity oI occasional and short-lived spells oI
Slav solidarity and unity. In all three contexts, both Europe as
modernization and Europe as a cultural tradition may have been
questioned and contested, but they were never rejected: the resistance
which occasionally arose was similar to that triggered by
modernization in all other traditional societies, and was quickly
overcome. On closer inspection, the developments in these nineteenth-
century Balkan countries seem to be rather typical, as opposed to
exceptional. The Risorgimento in nineteenth-century Italy was a
response to the awareness that Italians were lagging behind and ought
to catch up as was pretty much the case with Balkan Orthodox
Christians. As regards the state they Iound themselves in, Italians
blamed the 'centuries oI servitude, backwardness and isolation Irom
the currents oI modern civilization, and their own character and
mentality (Malmborg 2002: 57). Polish discourse also projected
Europe as a model oI civilization and modernization, but at the same
time perceived it as a threat, and warned that Western egoism, cold
rationalism, pursuit oI economic gain, materialism and superIiciality
presented a threat to the survival oI Polishness, constructed as
embodying spirituality, love oI Ireedom, equality and solidarity
between social groups. What the Ottoman Empire was Ior the Balkan
nations, Russia was Ior the Poles: the East, an abyss oI economic
backwardness and stagnation, poverty, disorder, and lawlessness, Irom
which Poland could only be protected by undergoing a thorough
Europeanization (Trnquist-Plewa 2002). Spaniards too had their own
abyss oI political, economic and cultural backwardness: AIrica, Irom
which Spain had to wrestle Iree through 'deaIricanization and
Europeanization. Europe was the land oI science, education,
technology, progress and rationalism, and as such, both an illness and
a cure: with its scientiIic rationality it could rescue Spain, as Ortega y
Gasset maintained, but it would have wiped out the spirituality,
generosity, idealism, and traditional wisdom oI the Spanish people, as
his opponent Unamuno Ieared (Jauregui 2002). As a rule, this
ambiguity oI, on the one hand, realizing that heading into a particular
direction is necessary, and, on the other, Iearing that one will cease to
Getting Over Europe


28
be what one is once the Iinal destination is reached this discursive
limbo oI being neither here nor there, neither completely Eastern,
AIrican or American nor quite Western or European always Iound
expression in the metaphor oI a bridge between what one is perceived
to be, and what one aims to become. From Finns (Browning and Lehti
2007) and Poles (Trnquist-Plewa 2002), to Czechs (Hroch 2002),
Hungarians (HoIer 1995), Romanians (Antochi 2002), Bulgarians
(Daskalov 1994), Greeks (Liakos 1998), Spaniards (Jauregui 2002),
Germans (Spohn 2002) the British (Ludlow 2002) and, as we will see
shortly, Serbs everybody wanted to be some sort oI a bridge
between East and West, Asia and Europe, AIrica and Europe, America
and Europe, Western Europe and Eastern Europe. One may assume
that it was not motivated solely out oI unselIish concern Ior those who
would be leIt on the other bank; it may also have been inspired by the
Iact that bridges are not only allowed, but also required to stand on
both banks. We shall change, and yet we will remain who we are;
since we are a bridge, there is nothing wrong in having a bit oI both
worlds; moreover, by remaining ambiguous we shall do others a
service, and they will realize that our being imperIectly Western or
European is only a consequence oI the important mission we are
requested to perIorm.
While Europe as modernization and as a cultural tradition was
widely accepted, Europe as the Great Powers was bitterly contested in
Serbia beIore the First World War. The doctrine oI the balance oI
powers, which interpreted one`s gain as another`s loss, Iorced the
Powers to take turns in supporting the survival oI the Ottoman state
against each other. The bitterness that many Serbian nineteenth-
century authors expressed arose Irom what they perceived as a
paradoxical position: Europe simultaneously set an aim (modernizing)
and blocked the way to the means needed Ior achieving it (the nation
state). The nineteenth-century construction oI Europe was brought to
Serbia by its Iirst modernizers, Serbs Irom Hungary, educated at
German, Austrian and Hungarian universities, who would cross the
Danube and settle in Serbia encouraged either by patriotism, or by
Iavourable employment prospects in a country which had Iew
educated people, but needed many: Irom Dositej Obradovic, who
became the Iirst education minister and helped Iound the Great School
which would become the University oI Belgrade in 1905 to Jovan
Sterija Popovic (1806-1856), who devised school curricula and helped
Introduction

29
establish the modern legislature, and Isidora Sekulic, who arrived with
the last wave oI Hungarian Serbs at the beginning oI the twentieth
century. The nineteenth-century construction oI Europe in Serbian
culture was part oI their baggage: they brought in their suitcases the
need to modernize, the canon oI European culture, and diIIusion
theory the conviction that transIusion is the Iastest route to
modernization. They also brought their Janus-Iaced image oI Europe,
which was already in circulation among the Hungarian Serbs 'happy
Europe, the mid-eighteenth century image coined by Zaharija OrIelin
(1726-1785), coupled with the Enlightenment criticism oI colonialism.
Although Jovan Deretic explained the many reIerences to Montezuma
in early nineteenth-century Serbian literature, and the Irequent
comparison oI European colonialism with Ottoman conquest, as an
expression oI solidarity with those who were also unable to resist
mightier conquerors, many oI these expressions actually have purely
moralistic overtones (Deretic 1996: 328-30). Jovan Sterija Popovic
Irequently returned to this theme in his poetry: the discrepancy
between what was being proclaimed and actual behaviour was always
the Iocus oI his criticism. In his poem Godina 1848 (Year 1848) it is
the betrayal oI the ideals oI the American Revolution legal slavery
in the land oI the Iree; in I:obraeniku (To an Enlightened One) it is
the hypocrisy oI those who condemn the Ottoman Empire as barbaric,
while at the same time engaging in conquest and the slave trade
themselves.
By the latter halI oI the nineteenth century, Serbia had at its
disposal a small educated elite consisting not only oI Austrian and
Hungarian Serbs, but also Serbs Irom Serbia proper who had studied
at Central and West European universities. Although German
universities were still very popular, more and more students went to
France and Switzerland, and in the year beIore the outbreak oI the
First World War, French-educated students outnumbered the German-
educated ones.
7
This educational policy somewhat mitigated the

7
Ljubinka Trgovcevic estimates that 70 oI nineteenth-century Serbian intellectuals
received their education abroad. She speciIies that in 1905 all proIessors oI the
Technical Faculty oI the Belgrade University held doctorates Irom Central European
universities; just under a halI oI the Law Faculty proIessors had studied in Central
Europe, and slightly over a halI in France; in the Faculty oI Philosophy, 53 oI
proIessors had studied in Central Europe, 39 in France, and 8 in Russia.
(Trgovcevic 2003: 44)
Getting Over Europe


30
cultural inIluence oI German-educated Hungarian Serbs. This second
cohort oI Serbian modernizers, many oI whom were in their prime in
the decade preceding the War, did not however bring about a
remodelling oI the dominant nineteenth-century construction oI
Europe. For Jovan Skerlic, who was to give it an almost classical
expression, the West was synonymous with social, economic and
political modernization - something he demanded with such Iervour
over so many hundreds oI pages, that his attitude can be summarized
as 'either the West or death. As a literary and cultural historian,
Skerlic rejected everything that he could not situate in one oI the
developmental stages oI the Eurocentric cultural canon Irom Greece
and Rome to the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. The culture oI
the Middle Ages and South Slav oral tradition were oI no interest to
him, Ior he considered Serbian culture to have actually begun with the
Enlightenment, a period in which he viewed Serbia as catching up
with the West. However, he did not consider everything Western to be
appropriate Ior transIusion. Since Skerlic looked upon the West as
representing energy, optimism, work, rationalism and progress, his
canon oI westernness excluded everything which he perceived as
subverting these values: all maniIestations oI opposition to rationalism
such as the main currents in European Romanticism, and the
decadent Iin-de-siecle poetry were the most obvious targets oI his
intolerance Ior inappropriate Iorms oI cultural expression. Skerlic
angrily rejected those in Serbian culture who tried to jump on what he
viewed as the wrong wagon oI the Western train: he looked upon
Ufedinfena omladina srpska (United Serbian Youth) the cultural and
political organization oI young Hungarian Serbs active in the 1860s
and 1870s, which shared similar ideas with the Young Italy or Young
Germany movements, inspired by Mazzini`s liberal nationalism not
as evidence oI catching up with the modernity and contemporaneity oI
the Iiercely nationalistic continent that Europe was at the time, but as
a maniIestation oI their rejection oI the West. However, Janus-Iaced
Europe was still preserved in Skerlic`s work: 'What is called Europe,
he wrote, 'is actually a cluster oI mutually envious, predatory and
soulless bullies, who have not been able to agree upon how to share
their booty, and who have their own interests in artiIicially keeping
alive this living corpse called Turkey (Skerlic 1964e: 285).
Ironically, Skerlic had a lot in common with Isidora Sekulic,
one oI the decadents he angrily condemned. Sekulic`s Europe was a
Introduction

31
canon oI artistic and intellectual values which Iar exceeded those
achieved in Serbian culture. Her vision oI Europeanization
complemented Skerlic`s vision oI economic, social and political
modernization, and consisted oI the transIusion, or in-translation, oI
these values into Serbian culture. The initial motive Ior this elevation
oI Serbian culture to a higher level, as Sekulic saw it, was the
traditionally understood interdependence oI a nation state and national
culture. Sekulic saw national culture as a source oI energy which helps
deIend and sustain small peoples` nation states. In her Norway
travelogue, through a modiIication oI Kant`s understanding oI the
sublime so that it Iitted the historical and political sphere, Sekulic
articulated her belieI that a small nation can resist a mightier power
only iI it is armed with a moral culture, and vice versa: that in the act
oI resisting a mightier power a small nation can discover its own
moral universe. Nothing escaped this pathos oI national liberation at
the beginning oI the twentieth century, but it must be noted that the
actors themselves saw national liberation as the precondition to both
modernization (Skerlic) and cultural Europeanization (Sekulic).
However, iI Sekulic charged national culture with the task oI
empowering the deIence oI the nation state, she also envisaged and
welcomed its innate selI-deIeating development: the progress oI a
national culture deIies the purpose it was meant to serve. An advanced
national culture ceases to be national, breaks away Irom its connection
with a nation state, and becomes cosmopolitan. She made a distinction
between 'cultural and 'bloody nationalism: the latter is nationalism
proper, while the Iormer, by in-translating and creating universal
cultural values, expands a nation`s moral universe, brings about a de-
nationalization oI culture and ushers in cosmopolitanism.
At the beginning oI the twentieth century, Skerlic and Sekulic
gave the nineteenth-century construction oI Europe its highest
expression. It was to become more complex in the interwar period.
Europe as a cultural tradition never lost its most enthusiastic or even
over-zealous supporters. In a particularly Francophile period oI
Serbian culture, Jovan Ducic Iully identiIied with French identity, its
Eurocentric universalism and orientalism. Others, however, began
developing a sense that social, economic and political modernization
was not suIIicient, and that something else was needed. Bogdan
Popovic and Milan Kasanin compared what they viewed as the
mentality oI the Serbs the habitual attitude which determines the
Getting Over Europe


32
interpretation oI situations and the response to them with that oI the
English and Dutch, and Iound it wanting in selI-discipline and control
oI Ieelings. Popovic, who called this missing Ieature gentlemanliness,
hinted at a historical explanation Ior its absence which broadly
resembles Norbert Elias`s idea oI the civilizing process. What they
saw as a Ieature oI mentality, Slobodan Jovanovic generalized at a
higher level as a cultural pattern: Serbian intellectuals, he claimed, had
managed to create political and national patterns, but had Iailed to
devise a cultural pattern such as the French honnte homme, the
German gebildeter Mensch, or the English gentleman. Here, Europe
comes into play not only as a model oI modernization or as a cultural
canon, but as a cultural pattern as well.
However, Skerlic`s West proved unsustainable aIter the First
World War, which shattered the idea oI progress and trust in
'European values across the continent. The belle epoque was gone
Iorever and a gloom set in over the continent`s Iuture. What is more,
national liberation had been achieved: Serbs now lived in a stronger,
larger South Slav state, one oI several new Slav states in Europe, and
it was a source oI pride and conIidence which could not but moderate
the nineteenth-century Ieelings oI belatedness, inIeriority and
embarrassment. A group oI younger authors, the Expressionists and
Bergsonians, envisaged a 'Slav Europe, the neglected and
undervalued third oI the continent, as becoming a counterpart to the
Germanic and Romanic parts. Although the work oI Polish-Yugoslav
and Czechoslovak-Yugoslav cultural societies was not entirely
unsuccessIul (Dimic 1997: 229-244), Slav yearning proved to be just a
brieI interlude instead oI looking to each other, Slav peoples
preIerred to 'go to the source themselves, as Vladimir Dvornikovic
put it - the source being, as beIore the war, the metropolitan cultures
oI Western Europe. The same group oI authors simultaneously went
through an 'Indian yearning: constructing the East, which stood Ior
India, as a space which had preserved spirituality, elsewhere lost
through excessive European rationalism. Although it might have
resembled the Iirst sign oI resistance to Eurocentrism, or a modernized
nineteenth-century Iear that scientiIic rationality would destroy the
spiritual essence oI the nation, this Indian yearning was no more than
an echo oI similar West European cultural and sub-cultural tendencies,
prompted by Bergson`s and Nietzsche`s critique oI rationalism.
Vladimir Vujic, the only consistent autochtonist in this group,
Introduction

33
dismissed it as 'geocultural bovarism, and tried to deconstruct the
East/West dichotomy along with the proverbial bridge metaphor,
which charged Serbs with the mission oI connecting the East with the
West.
8
Vujic was a convinced Spenglerian, and thus a victim oI
another dichotomy - the one between civilization and culture. The
traditional description oI Serbian culture as young and new used by
nineteenth-century authors whenever they wanted to avoid saying 'oI
a lesser value or 'with Iewer accumulated resources became an
advantage in this Spengler dichotomy: since the West was a
civilization which had outlived its prime, it would be Ioolish oI the
Serbs, who were only just living through their cultural phase, to
Iollow the West into its death, and they should Iocus on their own
cultural heritage in order to produce a new, vital and original culture.
An exaggerated expression oI the same idea can be Iound in Ljubomir
Micic`s image oI the 'Barbaro-genius: initially all Slavs, but latterly
only Serbs, would be barbarians Iree Irom the burden oI civilization,
Iull oI vitality and new-Iound strength, who would regenerate an
exhausted Europe. The whole East/West debate was given literary
Iorm in Milos Crnjanski`s travelogue Irom Tuscany, where all
elements were summoned and powerIully expressed: the Slavic
regeneration mission in Europe, the conIidence oI a small culture, the
rejection oI the imitative attitude and Eurocentrism, and a new
perspective on Crnjanski`s own culture which did not result in a
Ieeling oI historical belatedness, inIeriority and embarrassment.
Despite reiterating Micic`s barbarian complex, Crnjanski was the Iirst
in his generation who 'got over Europe: like Vujic, he too tried to
deconstruct the East/West dichotomy, aIIirmed the unity oI the
continent, and painted a picture oI an indivisible expanse oI human
culture in which his people, with their own traditions, had a rightIul
place.
The critique oI European imperialism and the hypocrisy oI the
civilizing mission survived the First World War and Iound even more
eloquent representatives - even aIter the Eastern Question ceased to be
a bone oI contention between Serbs and the Great Powers. Vladimir
Dvornikovic summed it up with the image oI a 'civilized Viking:
Europe Iails to live up to its own standards, he maintained; Europeans
'want to bring a bit oI culture, some happiness and Ireedom to the

8
For 'geocultural bovarism see Antohi 2002.
Getting Over Europe


34
poor little peoples. And then cannons start to roll. And then comes
mobilization, occupation and protectorate, or whatever they choose to
call it. But iI you peer behind these noble words proclaimed Irom high
podiums, you`ll see oil, rich mines, strategic points, and quite
coincidentally all oI it happens to be in the lands oI these small
peoples singled out to receive happiness and civilization
(Dvornikovic 1995: 123). This critique oI power and hypocrisy was
given a somewhat ambiguous expression in Rastko Petrovic`s
travelogue 'AIrica. For Petrovic there is an implicit hierarchy oI
identities in the triangle composed oI Europe, AIrica and the Balkans.
Compared to the AIricans, Petrovic is a European burdened with the
same set oI racial prejudices as his French co-traveller, but compared
with the latter, he himselI Iinds his own Europeanness wanting. His
Europeanness is possible only as a cultural identity hence Petrovic`s
as well as many other Serbian writers` prioritizing oI Europe as
culture, over its other possible aspects. In their identiIication with
Europe`s culture, they always stress its built-in mechanisms Ior
containment oI power the very standards which, Iollowing
Dvornikovic, Europe as a political identity either could not or would
not live up to. Thus their ambiguous position Europe as
simultaneously the selI and the other, the cultural selI and the political
other can be expressed as an intra-European critique oI European
mastery. What is more, it had to be voiced with a European means oI
cultural expression Petrovic`s rewriting oI Joseph Conrad`s Heart of
Darkness is a case in point here Ior they have no other cultural
tradition to base their critique on. However, Petrovic`s travelogue
reveals something else too: a certain Iascination with power. II he is to
rid himselI oI ambiguity, iI he is to complete his 'incomplete selI
(Todorova 1997), he needs to adopt the 'impulsion to universal
hegemony and the need to destroy what it cannot dominate (White
2000: 67). Judging by the number oI sexual allusions Petrovic makes,
this process oI completion which relieved him oI his identity anxiety
was Iar Irom being unpleasant.
During the interwar period in Serbia as well as in other parts
oI the continent Europe was constructed as an illness and a cure, even
by people who started Irom the same premises. Bishop Nikolaj
Velimirovic, an anti-modernist and opponent oI the Enlightenment
and secularism, constructed Europe as individualism, atheism,
rationalism, egoism, science, and imperialism everything but what it
Introduction

35
should have been: Christianity pure and simple. Because it had
abandoned its Iaith, Europe was sinking into illness and death. At the
end oI the Second World War, Velimirovic viewed Europe as a
synonym oI death, and thus rewrote Skerlic`s dictum 'either the West
or death into 'either Europe/death or Christ. Velimirovic went Irom
preaching the spiritual rebirth oI Europe in the early 1920s to a total
rejection oI everything European in the 1940s. His Iriend Dimitrije
Mitrinovic started Irom the same premise that Europe was in dire
need oI a spiritual rebirth but arrived at a completely diIIerent
conclusion. In his metaphorical discourse, Aryan Christianity stood
Ior reason, individualism and Iree will which he looked upon as the
highest values oI humanity, and which had been conceived in Europe.
In order to IulIil the teleological process oI historical development,
Europeans would have to enter its Iinal stage, thereby becoming
individual members oI the human collective. He called that Iinal stage
Socialism, and believed that it would bring about Europe`s spiritual
rebirth. Europe, the 'world`s consciousness, was charged with the
task oI leading the world into this Iinal stage.
The nineteenth-century construction oI the West as modernity
was also modiIied by the generation oI writers who entered the stage
aIter the First World War: they not only made it more complex and
nuanced, but more importantly, loosened the link which had located
modernity only in the north-western corner oI the continent and had
represented it as a Ioreign imposition or importation everywhere else.
For Ivo Andric modernization did not mean Westernization or
Europeanization any longer. In his novel The Bridge over the Drina,
Andric undertook a critique oI modernity similar to the one Iound in
English, French and German high modernism. Like KaIka or Proust,
Andric saw modernity as the triumph oI the structural and Iunctional,
at the expense oI the substantial. Modernity appears in Andric`s novel
as a Faustian project possessed by a drive Ior endless and aimless
change, and intent on destroying everything it creates. He did not
represent modernity as something placed over against himselI, as
Skerlic did, something into which he and his compatriots still need to
be initiated. II modernity is one oI the signs Ior Europe, then Andric
questions Europe as modernity Irom within. Andric`s novel Bosnian
Chronicle is the last stop in the process oI 'getting over Europe. The
image oI Europe, brought to the twentieth century by Skerlic`s
generation, was Iinally overcome: the novel can be read as a
Getting Over Europe


36
recapitulation oI all the themes raised in the long inter-war debate on
Europe. Bosnian Chronicle was based on the conIrontation oI the
images Europeans and Bosnians created oI each other and oI
themselves, and eIIectively dissolves all possible essentializations oI
both Europe and Bosnia. There are several Europes in it, and they do
not get along well: a benevolent, enlightened one is in constant
misunderstanding and even conIlict with the one possessed by the
impulsion to universal hegemony. This second one is, however, not
one but many, as Bosnia is not one but at least Iour-Iold. Recalling all
the Iamiliar arguments about the Eastern Question, civilization and
barbarity, hypocrisy and realpolitik, progress and backwardness,
Andric eventually dissolved and discarded not only the orientalist
global opposition between the East and the West, but also the
Balkanist opposition oI Europe and the Balkans, and got over it.