That "wild Balkans" again

Several years pass before doctoral dissertations become books, come before the eyes of the public, and can, during that time, become outdated. With Vesna Goldsworthy it was just the opposite. Hers study The invention of Ruritania: Imperialism of imagination, started in 1989 and published in 1996 - in which he analyzes how British popular novels and travelogues from the 19th century created an image of the Balkans as the European Other, and how prejudices took hold and developed during the twentieth century until the "Balkan wars", that is, wars in the former Yugoslavia - "suffers" from constant relevance. The Balkans are still seen in popular culture as the European Other, onto which European fears are transposed, and Goldsworthy's reading has become a must-read for all those dealing with Southeast Europe.

photo: marija janković

Vesna Goldsworthy is a professor of creative writing and English literature at the universities of Exeter and East Anglia, a member of the British Royal Society of Literature, author of a book of poetry Thessalonian Angel and several award-winning novels – Chernobyl Strawberries, Gorski, Mr. Ka i Iron curtain. We begin the conversation with how her research on Ruritania, a fictional country in adventure novels, took off.

VESNA GOLDSWORTHY: I started the research that went into that book in 1988 and 1989, with the idea that Said's Orientalism, which appeared in 1978, with certain changes applicable to the Balkans, which is and is not Europe at the same time. I was interested in that oscillating on the edge. For my master's thesis, I wanted to deal with Romania in the works of writer Olivia Manning. Actually, I realized something important already there: for my colleagues at the end of the eighties, it was all the same - Budapest, Bucharest, Belgrade. Only with the entry of Romania and Bulgaria into the European Community did that change. I remember that I was asked to translate the presentation of a colleague from Budapest at a meeting, I replied that I could, provided that the colleague knew French. They thought that I was dealing with Romania because it is my home field, but in fact it was the other way around, I chose it so as not to follow the line of least resistance. Then I moved on to the Balkans, thinking about Said's thesis and reading hundreds of popular novels.

"WEATHER" Why popular novels by Western authors?

I thought that stereotypes are best seen there, because it is written without reservation, for a wide audience. Nothing is hidden in genre prose and films. Now, in that spirit, I am also interested in sports, especially football championships. At the beginning of the period that I am dealing with, politicians also spoke like that, without hesitation. And now they've trained them a little, which doesn't mean they don't think so, it's just that it's no longer on the surface.

And why the story of Ruritania never gets old?

I defended my doctorate, which is more or less that book, in 1996, and it took some time for it to come out of print, because academic literature is slow. In short, the book hit the spot, it was on the front page of the "Washington Post", it had 200-300 impressions in the year it was published, which happens very rarely. Translations, new editions followed... Every now and then someone asks me to write a new introduction, updated. But there is nothing new, no new concept or dialectical development, but only examples pile up and the pattern remains the same. In popular literature and films, that Balkan Other is immutable, which is not seen as racism.

A Finnish series was shown on "Netflix" all spring omerta, in which a Serbian terrorist group captures the Presidential Palace in Helsinki. Whatever they did, the Serbs were not terrorists, and now they are.

Is it really so ingrained that the average Finn, when he hears Balkans or Serbia, but plunge into that self-explanatory framework, everything is clear to him, or the discourse became vampirized because of Russia's attack on Ukraine?

It is so ingrained because it is allowed. It is a space of freedom - we are small, no one will protest much. At one time, the English complained that in American films they always played villains, cold characters. Not to mention the Russians. Of course, we are not the only ones who are the object of prejudice, but that pattern of the wild Balkans, a powder keg that will infect the entire continent with conflicts, is very persistent.

When I say - no one is as corrupt as us - to what extent do you consider it to be self-balkanization, as a consequence of the adoption of the aforementioned discourse, and how much intensified self-criticism, based, however, on certain arguments?

Maybe it's about a few different things. On one level, I am telling you that you are a true Balkan, in order to show that I am a sanctified European. That self-perception serves to show the difference. On the other hand, for example, when it comes to corruption, it is objectively true that as much as it is a matter of human nature, and it is, in Britain there is a legal framework that does not allow it. At the beginning of his mandate, when he was still popular, Keir Starmer received some gifts such as glasses, suits... And then the British said - that's corruption. In Serbia, it would pass under the radar, it would not even be perceived that way. So, there are also degrees, that is, a format that prevents you or, on the contrary, encourages you.

Who is the most important Other in British public opinion now? I guess Russians.

Definitely the Russians. It is interesting to me because in a certain way I see the British and the Russians as similar - two great powers, to some extent former great powers, at two ends of the continent, with a similar attitude towards their place in Europe, where they are and are not. Currently, Russophobia, for which there are good reasons, is also used as a means to divert attention from British problems. Including the problem of Palestine and Israel, because it is real dynamite there. And the Balkans come here like a pastime: it goes, it comes back, both in popular stories and in those fueling the idea of ​​renewed conflict, which, rationally speaking, is really not easy to imagine.

How self-critical British intellectual circles are? The local public and media?

And there is too much self-criticism. There is no praise, both in relation to one's own history and to the present moment. If you attend an academic scholarly conference on the history of the British Empire, no one will say anything nice. If we are talking about modern Britain, the situation is the same. There is a lot of self-loathing, which is especially characteristic of academic circles, as well as left-leaning papers like the Guardian. And the right-wing ones, such as the Daily Mail, are extremely self-critical, but with a different agenda.

Do you think it is good for a society or not?

British universities are traditionally among the best in the world, but you'd never think it if you listened to the people who work at them, because they always feel that something could be better. It is a small model of the functioning of society. But those things can become a self-fulfilling prophecy: if you think you're not up to something, so be it. Britain's place in the world is interesting in that sense. Is it still a great power and in what sense? If you believe that you have lost that position, then and it is.

U Chernobyl strawberries th, writing about his childhood, said that you were held by the idea of ​​a beautiful future. Is the absence of that idea today, as an almost global trend, at least in this part of our world, it can fall under a self-fulfilling prophecy?

I just thought how these populist parties and their leaders, such as Nigel Farage in Britain, or Trump in America, actually score points on that vision. Make America Great Again. Make Great Britain Great Again. Because people need it. But the key word is again, they believe that they were once great, and will be again, which the groups I mentioned, such as intellectuals, do not believe.

Let me return to the image of Serbia in Britain. Is it written about student protests at all??

On social media, where there are our people, it is the main topic and there is created a so-called echo chamber, because you get the impression that the protests in Britain are widely followed, which is not true. In the local press, very little is written about the student protests in Serbia. Not because the students are not interesting, but because Europe currently has so many hotspots everywhere that Serbia is not in its focus. If major violence broke out, then that would be the topic.

I'm not drawing parallels, but when the translation came out in London Investigator Dragan Velikić, I called my contacts thinking that it would be nice to show that novel. But when I called, they would tell me - I have this Ukrainian novel. So, the spotlight turns to where something is wrong, which does not mean that they are not interested in that novel, but that their attention is limited.

What serious literature can offer, or even create alternative narratives?

They are for "Asymptote" (Asymptote Journal), the famous literary magazine, asked me to write about Crnjanski, Fr A novel about London, because almost no one had heard anything about it and there was no display of that book. And here it was said - it is being translated A novel about London! Translations from the literature of small nations are always seen as a kind of imposition, you offer something to someone and beg them. Perhaps the last time Pavić or Kiš had a big impact. But with Kiš it went much slower, when the first translations came out, approximately 200 copies were sold, and I knew all those 200 people personally.

Transfer from Serbia to Europe

Vesna Goldsworthy came to Belgrade to participate in the promotion of the five-book "Serbia and Europe" published by "Zepter Book World", resulting from the scientific project "Cultural transfer Europe-Serbia from the 19th to the 21st century", and the last book in this series "Serbia and the Balkans: Three centuries of embracing Europe". The promotion was held on September 18, 2025, in the Madeleine Palace of Arts.

About the book itself, Vesna Goldsworthy says: "As I said before, when it comes to Ruritania and its repeated editions, there is a pattern that repeats itself. Nothing new. This book offers, perhaps not a new model in relation to Ruritania, but a new model of conversation, because the question of transfer is complicated in the best possible way. First, there is a transfer that is not necessarily only from the West to the East, from Europe to the Balkans, but also from the Balkans to Europe, then the fact that Europe is not synonymous with modernism, as and that the processes of modernization also work in reverse. It is very interesting to study the transfer routes. For example, European values ​​used to come to Serbia through Russia. I was very pleased to hear new data in the opposite direction, in the direction of Serbia-West."