ABSTRACT
The failure of self-understanding in Balkan societies could be understood as an instance of what Maria Todorova has called "balkanism", the South-East European version of "orientalism" and of the way it has been internalized by observers and commentators in the Balkans. People could suppose an early instance of ethnic division in the Balkans as being manifested in this form of behaviour, an instance of "ethnic origins" or primordial loyalties that eventually, in the distant future, would provide a substratum to nationalism. A way out may be offered by trying to map out the questions of loyalty and identity in space, to consider them within a geographical dimension in the broad region of Southeastern Europe as they come to the traveller s attention in specific environments. A careful examination of available historical evidence would suggest several alternative perspectives on the symbolic expressions of pre-modern politics.
