Balcanica
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The Balcanica is an annual, peer-reviewed journal of the interdisciplinary Institute for Balkan Studies of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts (SASA). Their histories have been intertwined since 1934, when King Alexander of Yugoslavia founded the Balkan Institute in Belgrade as the only of its kind in the region. The newly-founded institute started to publish Revue internationale des Etudes balkaniques, a high-profile scholarly outlet that disseminated the findings of the most prominent European experts on the Balkans. This journal was terminated, along with the work of the institute itself, in 1941 by the order of the German occupation authorities. It was not before 1969 that the institute resumed its scholarly activities under its present-day name and within the framework of the SASA. The Balcanica became a principal platform for publishing the results of Serbian (and former Yugoslav) scholars as well as their foreign colleagues interested in different aspects of Balkan studies.
Today, more than ever, Balcanica reflects the original aspirations of its founders: its aim is to publish articles of the highest standard which deal with the Balkans from prehistoric times to modern age and through the prism of a number of disciplines. These encompass archaeology, anthropology, ethnography, history, art history, linguistics, literature, law. Such orientation perfectly fits with the most recent scholarly trends in humanities and it will contribute, along with other sustained efforts to further advance the quality and impact of its issues, to Balcanica’s finding its place among the top internationally-renowned journals of this kind. In order to increase our visibility and reach as wide readership as possible, the Balcanica is published in English language with the exception of a small number of articles written in French or German.
Journal website
Institutional repository
ISSN: 0350-7653
eISSN:2406-0801
Pages
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- Romanisation of the population of the eastern part of the Roman province of Dalmatia
- It is considered that the territory of the eastern part of the Roman province of Dalmatia was inhabited by the population of the same ethnic and cultural identity. The process of romanization of population in the eastern part of Roman province of Dalmatia can be research through epigraphic material from gravestone and votive monuments, and morphological characteristics of gravestones.
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- Serbian Landowners in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia the Case of Bogdan Dunđerski
- Originally from Herzegovina, the Dunđerski family moved to south Hungary, present-day Serbia's province of Vojvodina, in the seventeenth century. From the 1820s the family's progress was marked by the enlargement of their landed property. In the early twentieth century the family owned or rented about 26,473 ha of land in Vojvodina. Bogdan Dunđerski (1860-1943), the third generation landowner, was brought up in a mixture of different traditions including the ethic of Serb highlanders of Herzegovina, central-European middle classes and Hungarian nobility. A wealthy landowner, Serb patriot and benefactor, whose political role in the Second World War remains controversial, described himself as: Serb, Christian Orthodox, landowner.
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- Serbian Language Acquisition in Communist Romania
- The paper analyzes a unique linguistic phenomenon characterizing Romania's western border areas for almost a decade, in the 1980s: the acquisition of the Serbian language by Romanians in Timişoara under the communist regime, primarily through exposure to Yugoslav television programmes. It gives a necessarily sketchy overview of private life under communism, notably the situation in the Banat province, whose privileged position as a result of being closest to the West both geographically and culturally was reflected in the acceptance of pluralism and a critical attitude towards authoritarianism. Taking into account the literature on foreign language acquisition through exposure to television programmes, the study is based on a research involving Romanian natives of Timişoara who, although lacking any formal instruction in Serbian, intensively and regularly watched Yugoslav television programmes in the period in question, and on evaluating their competence and proficiency in Serbian, through language tests, narrative interviews in Romanian and free conversations in Serbian. The conclusion is that most respondents, despite the varying degree of proficiency in Serbian depending on their active use of the language before and after 1989, showed a strong pragmatic competence, which appears to contradict the author's initial hypothesis.
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- Serbian folk lyrical poems in 'Αττική Ίρις '
- Martzokis translated 12 Serbian folk lyrical poems after the Italian translations. The collection was published in "Iris of Attica" between 1903 and 1905. Martzokis' work is, on one hand, a successful poetically inspired presentation of Serbian lyrical poems, and on the other, part of the using cultural values for the purposes of bringing the two Balkan nations closer politically.
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- Serbian-Albanian language contacts and two types of phonological systems in the Balkan languages
- Phonological systems of the Balkan languages do not correspond to the Balkan language union borders, which can be explained by the difference between "intensive" (morphosyntactic) and "extensive" (phonological) language unions. In this case, we are dealing with the entrance of the Balkan languages into a wide transitional zone, stretching along the borders of East and Central Europe, and with the coinciding of their phonological systems with the system of Slavic languages known as vowel and consonant types. The same classification into two phonological systems exists in the Balkans too, and between them there are also two transitional borderlines. As known, the mediopalatal order of the "Macedonian" type [k', g', n', ľ] (q, gj, nj, l) has been generalized in both the standard Albanian language and most of the Albanian dialects. Albanian [k', g', n', ľ] are, just like their Macedonian counterparts, semi-emancipated palatal correlates of basic [k, g, n, l], as proved by examples of their positional dephonologization and dialectal hardening /n'/ > /n/ [n%], when followed by front vowels. Both semi-soft [n%] and typically Albanian lateral opposition [ł-ŀ] confirm a palatal correlation of these phonemes existing also in the neighboring Serbian dialects. Albanian has undoubtedly affected the rise of these features, be it through an unilateral influence or merely through supporting different phonological development in these old-shtokavian dialects. On the other hand, the same could be said for the affrication of palatovelars [k', g'] > [č, ʒ(], which except in south-west region between Ishmi and Shkumbin, Elbasan and Tirana is present in all other branches of the Ghegian dialect. Wide distribution of this phenomenon excludes the possibility of one-sided Serbian influence while its character – reduction of palatovelars [k', g'] (q, gj) and affricates [č, ʒ(] (ç, xh) to one semi-soft affricate pair – has a typological and structural parallel in the Timok region [č, ʒ(] (ч-џ) and reveals a transitional character of this phenomenon, which is undoubtedly related to the phonological system governing the Serbian language. It is well known that, the simplification of palatal pairs was a reciprocal process and it spread to the neighboring Serbian dialects. This simplification is a strong indicator of transitional character of this zone which stretches between semi-emancipated palatal order [k', g'], governing the greater part of the Albanian language territory, and the emancipated palatal order [ć, ʒ(] (ћ, ђ), characterizing the Serbian phonological system.
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- Serbs as Threat the Extreme Negative Portrayal of the Serb 'Minority' in Albanian-language Newspapers in Kosovo
- Through perpetuating negative stereotypes and rigid dichotomous identities, the media play a significant part in sustaining conflict dynamics in Kosovo. Examining their discourse in terms of ideological production and representations is crucial in order to understand the power relations between the majority and the minority, the identity politics involved in sustaining them, and the intractability of the conflict. In an effort to provide a deeper understanding of the intractable conflict in Kosovo, and the role of the media in protracting it, this study uses critical discourse analysis to examine articles related to issues affecting the Serb community, published in Albanian language print media. The master narrative that comes out of the analysis is that of 'threat' - the threat that Kosovo Albanians continue to face from Serbs and Serbia; a threat that is portrayed as historical and constant. The discourse further strengthens the conflict dynamics of opposition, polarization and even hatred. This master narrative implies that Serbs are enemies, to be feared, contested, fought against; conflict is thus the normal state of affairs. The study also looks at the implications of media discourse for reconciliation efforts and the prospects of the Serb minority in Kosovo society, arguing that when the Other is presented as dangerous and threatening, fear of the Other and a desire to eliminate the threat, physically and symbolically, become perceived as a 'natural' response, and thus constitute a significant conflict-sustaining dynamic.
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- Serbs in Croatia (1918-1929)
- The situation of the Serbian community in Croatia in the years following the 1918 unification has been analyzed in order to test whether the clichéd view of Croatia and Croats as having been endangered and exploited had any impact on the status of the Serbian community and, if it did, in what way. Although the topic is far from being exhausted in this contribution, the examples given suggest that the two nations in Croatia were deeply divided. The sources studied cast quite a different light on the thesis that Croats were 'oppressed' by Serbs, a thesis that has for quite a long time been passing as a valid historical interpretation in historiography. These sources suggest that the perception of Serbs as hegemony-minded resulted from propaganda rather than from the actual state of affairs. Besides, they show that the Serbs - systematically portrayed to the Croatian public as invaders and enslavers, while, by contrast, they saw themselves as being 'third-rate citizens' - lived their daily lives under strain, surrounded by intolerance, subjected to various forms of pressure and violence, often fearing for their livelihoods, even for their lives. The inexorable logic of facts leads to the conclusion that members of the Serbian community in Croatia felt discriminated against and not quite safe.
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- Some Serbian parallels to the East-Slavic Vij
- Mada je u novije vreme dokazano da naslovni lik Gogoljeve pripovetke Vij ima folklornu podlogu, ostaje sporno koliki je u njemu udeo piščeve fikcije; isto pitanje postavlja se za „grdobu“ u prvoj Glišićevoj pripoveci Noć na mostu, i to još zaoštrenije, s obzirom na Gogoljev uticaj na Glišića. Lokalna predanja iz Kolubare i jedan običaj zabeležen 1929. u Banatu pružaju osnov za zaključak da je Glišić u ovom slučaju crpao iz autentične narodne tradicije. Lanac identifikacija vodi sa niže na višu mitološku ravan, preko „Hromog Dabe“ i „vodenog đavola“ do Daboga i staroruskog Dažboga, a na širem poredbenom planu do indoiranskog Vajua.
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- Some traces of interlinguistic contacts in the Central Balkan mountains
- The etymology of three Balkan tree names, S.-Cr. munika Pinus leucodermis' molika Pinus peuce' and omorika Picea omorika' is discussed. The latter is supposed to go back, together with Bulg. morika spruce', to Slavic *mъxorъ fringe' describing here the hanging branches of spruce. The Bosnian pine munika, munjika growing in high and rocky places exposed to the thunder, the relation to S.-Cr. munja Common Slavic *mъlnja seems probable, and molika may be explained as a re-borrowing from Alb. molikë traceable to the same Slavic prototype *mъlnika.
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- South Slavic lexicon in Balkanic context
- The paper offers a semantic analysis of the word family of the South Slavic *xala. attested in Serbo-Croatian, Macedonian and Bulgarian, this noun originally used to denote both the storm, tempest and the daemon causing it. According to popular beliefs the principal attributives of *xala are enormous size, strength and obesity, so the noun has secondarily developed such meanings as "a huge creature", "a man or animal of enormous physical strength", "an obese, greedy man". The semantic complex of the noun proper has yielded various meanings of nominal derivatives, such as "windy" "angry", "to rage", "to eat", etc. Certain meanings within this word family have been developed under the influence of etymologically diverse, but formally and semantically close lexemes, Slavic (e.g. *xalг "dirt(y)" *xaliti "to hit; pet") as well as non-Slavic (e.g. Gk. cal(n)w "destroy demolish").