Euro‐Orientalism and the Making of the Concept of Eastern Europe in France, 1810–1880

Adamovsky analyzes an important part of the process of identity construction, namely, the invention of the idea and the concept of "Eastern Europe" in France, and presents some hypotheses on "Euro-Orientalism" as a discursive formation. He argues that, by means of the concept of Eastern Europe, the narrative of Western civilization transferred onto the Slavic nations many of the stereotypes and prejudices traditionally ascribed to the Orient. In turn, these stereotypes and prejudices became part of a wider discursive formation that he calls Euro-Orientalism, by means of which the West symbolically organized and regulated its relationship with the part of the world called Eastern Europe.