Imagining the Balkans in Trieste

Building on analysis of the Triestine variety of Balkanist discourse, this paper proposes a more nuanced approach to the study of Balkanism. The internal diversity of Balkanist discourse is methodologically related to the loci of its production. Trieste is conceived as one such locus which paradoxically shares certain important elements of the Balkanist discourse with some other Balkan urban centers (in particular Belgrade, Sarajevo, Novi Sad and Skopje). Trieste is further conceived as a frontier town (ville-frontière), which is also represented as a southern extreme of the demarcating line between western and eastern Europe. It has also been positioned on the alleged boundary between the Mediterranean and the Balkans. Triestine Balkanism, together with its imagery of the Balkans, developed through the confrontation of Italian and Slovenian (cum Croatian) nationalisms. During the wars of Yugoslav succession in the 1990s, this local discourse was revived and further elaborated. The central attention was now paid to tracing the cultural frontier which allegedly ran immediately behind the town, separating the civilized town and its Mediterranean Venetian legacy from the barbarian Slavic Balkans.