Between “barbarity” and “brotherhood”: Balcan Slavs in Russian travelogues Cover Image

Между «варварством» и «братством»: балканские славяне в материалах русских путешествий
Between “barbarity” and “brotherhood”: Balcan Slavs in Russian travelogues

Author(s): Pavel Sergeevich Kupriyanov
Subject(s): History, Cultural history, Geography, Regional studies, Regional Geography, Historical Geography
Published by: Издательство Исторического факультета СПбГУ
Keywords: Balkans; Russia; travel writing; image of the Other; «Slavonic brothers»

Summary/Abstract: The article is devoted M. V. Belov’s book «Discovery of the “Slavonic brothers”: Russian travelers in the Balkans in the first half of the XIX century» (St. Petersburg, Nestor-History, 2018). The reviewer notes that in addition to the publication of a representative body of sources, the book includes an analytical article, which sets out the author’s concept of the formation of ideas about the Slavic “brotherhood” in Russian travels in the Balkans. The author of the book convincingly shows the complex nature of this process, discovering that the image of the Balkan Slavs in the studied texts depends on a number of factors. Along with the advantages of the book (deep contextualization of the studied ideas, their consideration in the Balkan as well as in the Russian perspective, attention to the theoretical and methodological aspects of the study etc.), the reviewer also points to some of its shortcomings (non-obvious principle of selection of texts for publication, short description of the texts). According to the reviewer’s observation, the author’s endeavour to combine different theoretical approaches generates an interesting and contradictory effect: the drift of the research focus between the observer’s own views and the reality described by him.

  • Issue Year: 2019
  • Issue No: 1 (25)
  • Page Range: 183-192
  • Page Count: 10
  • Language: Russian