ABSTRACT
Scholarly interest in the Balkans as a distinct geographical and cultural area, and even its perception and naming as a single region, does not predate the early nineteenth century. The earliest specialized scholarly studies of Balkan cultures, histories and societies is owing to the Slavists working within the confines of the Habsburg Empire. In the constitution of Balkan studies as a distinct academic field, scholars from the Habsburg realm, and Austrian Volkskunde in particular, played the leading role. A Hungarian geopolitical vision and dreams of a Hungarian Balkan hegemony lurked large behind all that, underwritten by a positivist spirit, meticulously detailed work and repeated appeals to scholarly objectivity. Yet, for all their prestige, Hungarian balkanists proved unable to set up a stable institutional base for Balkan studies in Hungary. On the whole, however, South-Slavic and, even more so, Balkan studies in France lagged considerably behind the level of research in Germany and Austria-Hungary.
