Some Orientalists have said that the Orient begins East of Sarajevo. |
I'd say those orientalists will make a lot of people angry at such a comment. It seems to me like this is more of an "oriental empirializing" then anything else. Especially considering the vast majority of those east of Sarajevo, before entering Turkey, wish to be associated with Europe.
This is certainly true with the place I am from.
Then again, I also do not like this cultural border-making. There are such things as cultural borrowings and infusions; the Balkans has always been a land between cultures, but in the end it was always defined with the west.
Edited by Theodore Felix - 11-Mar-2007 at 19:24