EUROPEAN SPACES THROUGH THE ISLANDERS‘ EYES: TWO CENTURIES OF BRITISH ANTHROPOLOGY IN THE BALKANS (Europske priestory ocami ostrovanov: dve storocia britskej antropologie na Balkane)

This paper traces the development of British conceptualization of the European space by analyzing three anthropological or travel-writing works that represent three distinct periods in the history of the relationship between Britain and Eastern Europe: the Victorian era, the Cold War period, and the post-Cold War present. The aim of the paper is not to evaluate the anthropological validity of these works, which would be outside of the authoress's expertise. Taking Edward Said's Orientalism (1978) as its main theoretical reference, the study explores the degrees and kinds of orientalism present in the language of these works. The paper concludes by reflecting on the power embedded in the language of some EU documents, speeches and media releases concerned with the EU enlargement after the end of the Cold War.