SEE Vienna and the Balkans
[ SEE Vienna and the Balkans ]
It is common knowledge and repeated on every possible and impossible occasion that “the Balkans begin at Rennweg”, and, depending on the context in which it is used, the Viennese – and otherpeople south-east of Rennweg - react either flattered or start sulking. The first couple of times I heard the sentence – so long ago, I couldn’t say when it was – I remember finding it funny and interesting. By now, I often feel I can’t hear it any more. Of course, when you’re sick of something it starts coming up everywhere and all the time....
not only in nearly every lecture of the “Interdisciplinary Balkan Studies” (at the IDM Vienna)course I’m doing at the moment. Erhard Busek used the famous Metternich-saying once in an interview, explaining that Austrian and “Balkan”-mentality are somehow similar. Apart from having a problem with the word “mentality” (but that’s another story I want to blog about some other time...), it seems to me that the Balkans are in fact related to the idea the Austrians – or maybe the Viennese in particular – have of themselves: like relatives living far away, we like to party with them, but prefer to have little to do with their reality otherwise.
Apropos party: there are two Balkan-parties in Vienna these days, one is tonight in Aux Gazelles, and it’s called “Balkan de Luxe”, the other, “Balkan Drom”, Tuesday next week in Schikaneder. Now I’d say the flyer for the Aux Gazelles-Party stands for another, predominately male-oriented, aspect of the Austria-Balkans relation...
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imagineSEE
The imagineSEE-weblog is a space about ideas, images, (re)inventions and (re)constructions of and about the Balkans, from outside and within SEE.
Any comments or suggestions are welcomed and appreciated, please use "Reply" at the end of each posting or post directly to Sabine Ballata.
This is a part of the collage 'The Black File' by Croatian artist Sanja Ivekovic, who will be represented at documenta 12 (16/6-23/9) in Kassel this year.
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It is common knowledge and repeated on every possible and impossible occasion that “the Balkans begin at Rennweg”, and, depending on the context in which it is used, the Viennese – and otherpeople south-east of Rennweg - react either flattered or start sulking. The first couple of times I heard the sentence – so long ago, I couldn’t say when it was – I remember finding it funny and interesting. By now, I often feel I can’t hear it any more. Of course, when you’re sick of something it starts coming up everywhere and all the time....
If they'd find their "inner Balkan" - whatever that might be - they'd maybe become more relaxed ;-)Yet, the particular Viennese "Balkanization" seems always to refer only to such male-oriented clichés as shown by the party-flyer you posted. Irrational love for different cultures and/or identities unfortunately most often means a drive-back to first puberty. There ist, in my point of view, nothing sophisticated in picturing young almost naked inbetween girlies-dominas with blond dieted hair, as the makers maybe thought. It is a sign of the worst male puberty, if those ladies are "Balkan de Luxe", the voluptiously luxurioust the Balkans have to offer.
It is common knowledge and repeated on every possible and impossible occasion that “the Balkans begin at Rennweg”, and, depending on the context in which it is used, the Viennese – and otherpeople south-east of Rennweg - react either flattered or start sulking. The first couple of times I heard the sentence – so long ago, I couldn’t say when it was – I remember finding it funny and interesting. By now, I often feel I can’t hear it any more. Of course, when you’re sick of something it starts coming up everywhere and all the time....
It strongly reminds me of the concept of colonial desire, embodying, as Ashcroft writes, “the simultaneous lure and threat of the other”. Now “threat” might seem a strange expression when you look at that flyer, but in a way, that exploitation of a (female) body for party (meaning adventure, fun, and the not-so-hidden implicit promise of possible sex)-purposes is one of many “taming strategies” people use when confronted with ambivalence. And it is not limited to the male-western point of view, even though that is unfortunately the most powerful:
One of many aspects of postcolonial theory that I think might be contrast- and extendable to the field of SEE-studies. And of high relevance regarding the horrible consequences....