Apr 5, 2009

Pietrusinski on the Balkans

Jerzy PietrusiƄski, a Polish professor of cultural history, speaks of the concept of Europe measuredly and learnedly on PR2. But when he proposes that the bloodbath of the break up of the Yugoslav Empire is somehow an outcome of Turkish (i.e. non-European) domination of the Balkans, does he forget the bloody "civil war" (as Haupt calls the Polish-Ukrainian conflict in Galicia and Wolhynia 1918-1945)? Or the equally bloody conflict in Upper Silesia between Poles and Germans? Or the conflict in Northern Ireland? (To name a few). Or did they all spring from un-European sources? (Whatever non-European source may mean).

No comments: