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sLiving In-between:

The Balkans Between Third Space And Postmodern Geography

Talk

Abstract: The Balkans and the other parts of the world which are located „neither-here-nor-

there“ can be easily transformed into a margin. Edvard Soja’s postmodern geographies can

be regarded as a paradigm of choice in an analysis or the interpretation of political,

economic and cultural state of the Balkans. The aim of this paper is to question the relation

between representations of the Balkans and the nature of heterotopia.

Key words: Balkan, Third place, postmodern geography, postcolonialism, heterotopia.

Between Europe and Colonial Posessions

Today we assume that the Balkans were “discovered” in the nineteenth century. This

assumption leads to a series of others. Namely, 1. Balkan is symbolic and geographic space,

constructed and mapped by Occident; 2. This implies its subalterity and quality of Third

Space; 3. The Balkan is reflected in the Other as the other is reflected in it, so it lacks the

point where it could be recognized as an entity (Lazarević-Radak 92).

When we assume that the Balkans were "discovered," it doesn't mean that it was unknown to

German, French, Italian and many other travelers. After all, the British interest in the Balkans

was apparent from the first attempts of Balkan nations to achieve the independence from the

great imperies. Byron's writing about Greece, which is currently a platform for secular myths

about the cradle of European civilization, speaks in its favor. In the nineteenth century,

precisely at the time when imperialism was at its peak and was renamed as „colonialism“, one

could notice the growing interest in 'European Turkey' or 'Turkey in Europe'. Around 1837.

the first British travel books about the Balkans had the character of ethnographic studies on
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the „Near East“ or the „Middle East“. During the fifties of the nineteenth century, the

character of these studies was changing, since their authors, mainly diplomats, brought more

precise descriptions of the physical terrain, economic potential, with frequent accent on

problems related to the political context and the social culture. In this period, which coincides

with the rise of colonialism, one can recognize the expansion of writing about the Balkans

(Goldsvorti 54). However, the Balkans was not only providing the exciting narrative from an

unknown part of Europe that partly belonged to Turkey, but it offered economic potential, the

resources that could be used. Above all, the Balkans were securing short and relatively safe

way to the possessions in the Middle and Far East, while life of Great Britain largely

dependent on these properties. Balkan was still undiscovered and empty space:

Why „Savage Europe“? Asked one friend who recently witnessed my departure from Charing Cross to

the Near East. „Because“, I replied, „the term accurately describes the wild and lawless countries between the

Adriatic and the Black Sea. For some mystic reason, however, most Englishmen are less familiar with the

Balkan states than that of the Darkest Africa (De Vindt, 15).

Alluding on the Balkans, Edmund Spenser wrote:

Those nations of Europe who were employing every single energy to reclaim from his savage state the

swarthy son of distant India and Africa and make him a participator in the blessings of civilization and revealed

religion, is forgetful of the shame and reproach that lay in their very threshold: forgetful that while the lifeblood

of Europe quickened the extremities of the universe, a portion of her very self remained torpid and corpse-like.

(Spenser, 2).

In a few sentences, which originate from the time of "discovering", one can easily

identify colonial discourse. Simultaneously, it was the time of the Great political Game

between the Great Britain and Russian Empire of which the last was interested in the British

possessions in the East. In the public discourse of the Occident, the Balkans were becoming a

bulwark, a space that must be defended to be able to protect the possessions in the East. Then
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comes the inner gap of the British political scene into the liberal and conservative elements of

which the first were led by William Gladstone, a figure who represented the so-called "small

Balkan peoples" advocating their independence and conservative current led by Benjamin

Disraeli who was prone to Queen Victoria while insisting on diplomatic relations with

Turkey. (Valden 5).

During this period the Great Britain „discovered“ previously undiscovered parts of the

world while sharing the same rhetoric when referring to colonized parts of Asia and Africa.

Stereotypes were used to reproduce along the historical discourse while remaining firm and

mobilizing when required by the historical and political context. Thus, stereotypes and

discourses on the Balkans appear and disappear, obtaining different shades within their

semantics, but remaining instruments of political domination. Having in mind the political

and historical context of the Great Game and Eastern Question it is possible to speak of

discursive colonization of the Balkans in the nineteenth century by the British Empire.

The Balkans As Colonized Space

The interpretation of the text and works in the field of symbolic positions of the

Balkans owed its progress to postcolonial theory, resulting the synthesis of crosscultural

studies, psychoanalysis and linguistics. Postcolonial approaches to the Balkans were

encouraged in the preface of the book Critique of postcolonial mind, in which, the author,

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak draws attention to the results that postcolonial theory could

provide in the application on the Balkan studies. According to Spivak, one of the key tasks of

the (post)modern world should be including the Balkans in the field of postcolonial studies

(Spivak 7). Although the field of postcolonial criticism at first, was not widespread, the use of

the term "colonialism" and "post-colonialism" was becoming more comprehensive. The

expansion of the imperialist action center on the political and cultural sphere was multiplying
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the current forms of colonialism. At first, colonialism was linked to a specific type of

conquest, which involves the creation of colonies and their exploitation. Then the terms of

colonialism and imperialism began using as synonymous, including the term globalization as

a synonym for sophisticated forms of conquest. Post-colonial theorists believe that

colonialism does not have to be directly related to the settlement process, but, they are closely

linked with the consequences of political actions which can destabilize inner relations in the

society (Sharp, 5). These theorists withdraw a demarcation line between the Ottoman Empire,

China, Habsburg monarchy as a non-colonial, and Great Britain, France or Spain as a

colonial. Although the strategy of these empires included economic exploitation, the specific

administrative system and strong cultural influences, they involved the types of non-capitalist

conquest. In accordance with this, the colonial conquests type is based on the needs imposed

by capitalism. Such are the conquest of Spain, France, Great Britain and later the United

States. Despite these starting points, scholars now agree that the colonial experience can be

any repression of a socio-political and administrative system over the other. Therefore, the

type of conquest which is nowadays called colonialism with the economic plan is based on

the political agenda, which produces internal conflicts and antagonisms, followed by

internalization of the winning performances of the population as uncivilized and inferior.

According to Edward Said, direct colonialism (the one that starts with settlement

followed by capitalist exploitation) is over. Today we recognize it in the cultural sphere, and

in the forms of political, ideological, economic and social practices. In this sense,

postcolonialism is a form of analysis that focuses on cultural products and the reasons how

one part of the world has become a formal document of researchers, officials, missionaries,

diplomats and motive of poetry and prose or the visual arts. The question "Can the Balkan be

considered a colonized area" it still softly spoken in the public discourse. Balkans in the text

become paradigm of cultural disparities, syncretism, inharmonies. Following this process

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through the text, inside, it can be understood as an aspiration to move closer to European

identity. Becoming a part of Europe, to be more European, civilized, are now becoming

elements of the internal processes. Depending on the political situation, the borders of the

Balkans are changing – some of its „real“ or symbolic regions and parts are included/excluded

from Europe, or wishing to join the other parts. Inclusion and exclusion are alternated and

coordinated with the current political demands of the major powers. In order to provide an

answer to the question of the process of discovering, storing and symbolizing the Balkans, it

is necessary to make a step backwards, an insight into a capitalist type of imperial conquest,

when it was represented as the "wild" "unused" or as an area susceptible to "conquer." This

was first done early by the discipline of geography which reminds us of Edward Soja.

Third space or postmodern geography?

At the time when discussions on consumability of imagological and Balkan studies

became a part of academic discourse and when polemics on the impropriety of postcolonial

criticism came into academic focus, the paradigm of Edward Soja was recognized as a theory

with new potential. Although his work became widely known during the eighties, the

connection between his views and understanding of the images of the Balkans, was observed

only in the past decade. Before Said's "Orientalism" has reached the peak of its scientific

popularity and even before they were inspired by post-colonial successors, Soja's ideas were

drawn to the problem of spatial, symbolic and, finally, economic peripherization. However, in

the context of studies of the Balkans this theory remains undetected for nearly three decades.

The reasons for this can be found in the privileging of historical science at the expense

of geographic science. Soja suggests that geography has to return at least a part of the status it

once had. We should not forget that it was the geography of the dominant doctrine at the time

of the expansion of imperialism, and that the dominance of historical science occurred later.
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Only if we return at the time when the world was mapped, and when division of North and

South; East and West emerged, it is possible to understand these actions and their motives.

Geography was developing, it later began to resemble the classic ethnography with its

descriptions and classifications of the nations and regions. Hence, from the fifteenth to the

nineteenth century, one could notice a growing interest in science. During this period the

"production" of geographical manuals, new maps, large globes and cartography was evident

in the West and in the East, and in both directions of imperial mapping. To produce the map,

meant to govern with the help of knowledge. During this period, geography was the empress

of science. However, enlightened 18th century unseated geography from the scientific throne

and replaced it with history. During that period, geographers became mere scouts, descriptive

workers and soldiers whose job was linking scientific view with the plans of their

governments. Thanks to its interpretive possibilities, during the enlightened period,

historicism comes to the foreground and deletes its former sensitivity of geography.

Geography and history have been ways of thinking, a scheme which holds the power to

construct, deconstruct and reconstruct the image of the world. Thanks to the modern lobbying

for chronological significance, historians have taken a crucial interpretive role in modern

social theory. They were answering the questions of development, change and modernization.

However, today, we are reopening talks about symbolic geographies and mental maps, which

can be considered as an important reafirmation of geographical knowledge (Soja 2).

Stereotypes on Balkan's metaphor

The private, public, and even academic discourse is loaded by generalizations that

roughy and superficialy form a political organization of space. The qualities which are

attributed to countries, regions and the people who inhabit them are relative. Their relativity

comes from the complexity of cognitive mapping. The Balkans is an illustrative example. Its

borders are fluid to such an extent that at different periods, different countries became a part
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of it; it functions like a stereotype – a symbol of conflict, place that lacks cleanliness, a bridge

between East and West; a strange mixture of cultures. In historical atlases and encyclopedias,

it is named by euphemisms such as Southeastern Europe. Sometimes it includes Romania,

Greece, Slovenia and parts of Vojvodina, but if necessary these countries and administrative

units could be dissociated from it. These and related techniques enable the manipulation and

testify that its symbolization is strong as its ontology. One can notice the mentioned process

by following the media from the first half of the nineteenth century to the present; from

reports and travelogues; through journalism and literature; to the visual representation of the

twentieth century, such as reports, documentaries and art films which plays on the semantics

of the Balkans. As a symbolic geography, one part of the world can become: powder keg;

Peninsula of discord and hatred, or a bridge between East and West; Chains of the world;

Mediator. If there is a need for a country to be represented as a bridge or a boundary between

East and West, textbooks, encyclopedias and popular shows will allow this representation. In

the sam wave it can be removed from these metaphors and phrases in a subtle manner. These

stereotypes can easily be mobilized again when conditions call for it.

Soja uses a historical perspective to explore the history of the relationship between

history and geography. His theory connects space and economy. The first pillar is theoretical

understanding of Foucault's heterotopias which explains the process of marginalization based

on economic interest and secured by the power of symbols and mental maps. The second

pillar is Marxism. Soja abandons the classical model of colonizer / colonized, but he remains

on the problem of inequality between the center and the periphery. More specifically, within

Soja geography, Center is an area that drains and accumulates capital, while capital just flows

next to peripheral area, leaving it without financial support which could move them near to

the Center. But this process has deep roots and dates back to a time of imagining and mapping

the world. One part of the world is not becoming margin in the short term and stereotypes
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about him are not formed quickly. They tend to accumulate along the historical discourse and

ultimately become if not a reality, then a kind of substitute for reality and a mirror in which

the society sees itself (Bart 127). Soja is critical of what he identifies as the dominance of

historical science and historiographical exclusivity while revitalizing geography and

introducing the concept of "spatialization." Thus, he creates an interdisciplinary approach to

the problem of the third space, margin or periphery. He points out that in the last thirty years,

old categories, boundaries and divisions between disciplines are beginning to weaken and

today they are unsustainable. After all, the colonial and postcolonial studies owe its success

and popularity to interdisciplinary approaches. Soja's understanding of spatiality is not far

from the post-colonial as it seems at first sight (Soja 25).

Postmodern Geography And Postcolonial Criticism: Meetings, Crossings, Passings

While Edward Said sees imperialism as an act of geographical violence which enables

exploring, mapping and controlling a different parts of the world, Soja goes a step further,

believing that imperial expansion establishes a special spatial arrangement in which imperial

desires become tangible reality. Thus, in spatial terms, it results in economic dependence and

architectural transformation. While striving to understand "geographical violence," Soja

insists on searching for points of super-profits accumulation because spatialization is directly

linked to the relentless pursuit of profit. Relying on geography, Soja continues to show the

processes which enable money to flow into the world's metropolises.

To understand the applicability of Soja's understanding in the Balkans, we have to begin with

a brief introduction to the history of social relations in the Balkans. Today it is clear that the

Balkans were ostracized in the context of capitalist development, despite a brief period in

which it passed through the process of so called modernization. Along with the discourses

about the necessity of development and modernization, along the discussions on the meaning
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of reforms, social integration, industrialization, capitalism, urbanization, westernisation, one

could recognize those of the necessity to preserve the tradition, the local form of economy,

preservation of authenticity. The debate about the modernization and / or traditionalism, has

slowed the implementation of the capitalist system. The period of foreign investments in the

Balkans, during the twenties and thirties lasted only about twenty years. Twenties and thirties

were marked by the Great Depression and a large number of domestic and foreign banks

collapsed, which was certainly not in the favor of domestic capitalist development. The

continuity of capital development and the capitalist investments completed by the end of the

World War II, when young country tried to find salvation by turning to the Left bloc.

Engaging with the split of the Soviet bloc in 1948, Yugoslavia sought rapprochement

alliances that could strengthen its security. In early 1953, she established ties with Asian

countries that were not under the political influence of the East or the West. Yugoslavia was

finally opted for the path of non-alignment, or more precisely one of its modified variants of

the final allocation neither to the East, neither to the West. But physical geography does not

determine Third world. By the end of the eighties, the movement faced with the challenges

brought by the collapse of the socialist bloc. Ending divisions between the two antagonistic

blocks senseless, its existence, its name and its essence.

As a non-aligned third-world country in Europe, Yugoslavia was largely using the

status of the exotic European country. Passengers at the time, often described Yugoslavia as a

society of successfully completed project of multiculturalism, indicating the population,

institutions and the everyday life with the adjective "Yugoslav". But the price of lending and a

relatively peaceful life was high. Financed with the credits from the West as well as those

from the East, Yugoslavia remained outside the flows of global economic trends, and the

capital was just flowing through it. Like other countries that have not opted for the East or the

West, Yugoslavia has taken the position of third place.

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The first world is the one who determines where and when a country, or a region will

be placed in the Third World. The First world plays with labels and stereotypes, providing

financial assistance or sanctioning the unwanted behavior. In the eyes of the so-called

Occident, the citizen of so called Other (Eastern) Europe can easily be moved to a third place.

This is evident from the examples of travelogues, diplomatic and other statements - The

Balkans since the 19th century was marked as gates, stairs, crossroads. These are the places

that can not be placed on one of the two dominant sides of the world. Designed to be a mirror

of the Occident, a „third one“ is not allowed to think about herself/himself as an object. This

leads to a hibernation in the historic present, which determines future tense, presenting it to us

as a historical destiny. This fate is as follows: third-person point of view does not allow

introspection and falsely informs that both past and future are identical (Hubbard 62).

The answer that Edward Soja is offering is based on Foucault's understanding of

heterotopias - the cities which are and are not places; that are "out there"; out of sight; out of

participation in the global flows of capital, they are not ideal as a utopia but they are the

opposite - the places where all the twists and inversions are gathered. There he meets

incompatible and hybrid. However, heterotopias are special geography in which hybridity has

no metropolitan character, but the character is overturned by dominant values and the way

Centrar / First Person / first area is subjected to irony.

Demanding The 'Geographical Justice'

Edward Soja "seeks geographic justice". In this respect, the third space should have a

right to vote. Hence he develops a theory of the third place which is powerless subalterity,

although it consists of collision, merges, and where various subjects meet. These are symbolic

and real spaces in which collide subjectivity and objectivity, abstract and concrete, realistic

and irrational. The third area is radically inclusive concept which includes epistemology,
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ontology and historiography towards the Other. Therefore, the third space transcends concepts

which constantly expand to encompass the Other, allowing debates and re-negotiation of what

are the limits and where cultural identity can be placed. Soja's concept of hybrid third space

includes all forms of culture which are constantly exposed to the processes of mixing,

changing history and recreate them. The concept of third space that includes philosophical,

psychological, sociological and geographic component, has a political meaning. Robert

Young and Homi Bhabha are accessing extensively to the spatial trope, concluding that the

third space is actually "space" in the geographical sense, but philosophical, psychological,

sociological, anthropological, linguistic it is not neither space nor place. It is something like a

caravan, a place that moves without leaving a trace. What remains stable and secure is

hybridity of the third place, his association with the migrant, fluid and multiple. It's

definitions are blurred in postmodern and postcolonial language that lacks precise definitions.

As a wagon, caravan, or a place where nomadic groups contemporary lives, third space is

geography in motion, one that has no variable nor history; it is fluid and without a stable

contents (Lazarević Radak 205). Although Soja’s third place is identified in the peripheries

of cities like Los Angeles, his theory remains applicable to all societies through which

incompatible cultural elements circulate. But for Shoja's third place represents the

materialization / manifestation of an alternative epistemology, it is an evidence of disparity of

the world. He explains third place as another way of understanding and acting in the direction

of changing spatiality of human life and the introduction of a critical attitude that allows

trialectics spatiality- historicism - society.

Third Place And/or Heterothopia

The third space is a criticism per se because it eliminates the existing fixed division of

center and periphery; urban / rural, the history and geography; the economic leaders and

disadvantaged groups. Soja relies on postcolonial theory, although he criticizes early Marxist
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insistence on the accumulation of history. Still, in the center of his attention is Foucault's

understanding of space and spaciousness.

Foucault pays attention to the structure of prisons and mental hospitals. These are the places

from which wider surveillance and spaces should be monitored. In the eighteenth century,

Bentham invented a special architecture object - panopticon which enables controle (Fuko).

All subjects which are controlled, in a symbolic sense, may be a part of the third space. Those

are: “mental patients”, criminals, homeless people, children whose "legal" identity is

unknown. In modern democratic societies, this system has been worked out so that everyone

can be a potential intruder; that everyone can be recognized as the third one. Foucault's

heterotopy is associated with all transitional states which are characterized by socially

unacceptable behavior, or what a given society defines as "abnormal". Such places as mental

hospitals and prisons. Thus heterotopia may be any place that disturbs the established order,

and even "civilizational principles." I believe, it is not necessary to remind to what extent the

Balkans remained controlled and monitored area. Balkan is controlled in the same manner and

with similar meaning in which this is done with every border, but also the peripheral space

that must be separated, to prevent its dangerous effect to the Center.

The role of heterotopias is to create a space that is different compared to "our", to be a

kind of opposition, playing a contrasting role and becoming "dirty" when "our" is "clean",

"disorganized" when our is "organized." According to Soja, some parts of the world, set

margins and experience poverty and political problems. They remained locked in a state of

marginality. However, we learn how world capital flowed into centers of wealth and power,

leaving aside margin to their labor force. It is certain that the Balkans were outside of these

flows and far from the center of political power and economic authority. The Balkans are

similar to heterotopia. It is a space where Engimas are located - questions to which the society

has no response. Outside these places, or even through them it is possible to locate those
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fragile structure which we call reality. Because these places are different from the others,

because they oppose the ideal and utopian, Foucault calls them heterotopias. Between

heterotopias and utopias, there are other places, other spaces which are divided and mixed, but

they share a unique experience which can serve as a mirror to utopia. However, Foucault

draws attention to the fact that the mirror is utopia because they enable us to see the desired

image of ourselves. After all, a utopia is a place without the real cite. In it we see ourselves

where we are not, but in an unreal, virtual space that opens up behind us. A numerous reports

by journalists, diplomats, adventurers from the middle of the nineteenth century onwards,

were representing the Balkans as a contrasting area. It is necessarily a messy, dirty, in order to

emphasize cleanliness or purity of "our" which is synonymous compared with civilization

(Foucault).

Foucalut is convinced that there is no culture which on one or another way does not

create a heterotopia (Foucault). It is a constant in every human group. However, heterotopias

can take different forms, and there is probably no absolute universal form of heterotopia.

Therefore, they can be placed into two main categories. Specifically, in the so-called primitive

societies, there are certain forms of heterotopias that can call heterotopias of crisis. These are

privileged, sacred or forbidden places, reserved for individuals, who, according to social

demands have to be temporarily relocated to avoid disrupting established order. The examples

are adolescents, women during menstruation, pregnant women, the elderly. This is the

heterotopia of crisis. All of them are considered individuals in times of crisis, so it is

important to dislocate them out from the space that must operate "normally", common,

everyday, routine flow. In the nineteenth century, in Europe one can find parallels in these

forms. For example, men in the army are actually men who is following the rules of the rite

de passage. Man must therefore be moved outside the usual places - on the service in the

barracks. The first wedding night is associated with the consummation of secrets that occurs
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at the site without the cite and thus, spending the first night in the hotels / motels reserved for

this occasion. These places, as Foucault notes can be disappearing, or they can be replaced by

deviation of heterotopias - those in which the behavior labeled as abnormal should be

excommunicated from the everyday life. Such as psychiatric institutions, prisons, nursing

homes, for which it could be said that they are on the border between the heterotopia of crisis

and the heterotopia of deviation.

Even if based in the postcolonial state we can see how the Balkans are expelled from the

city and set on the margin of Europe. It is the site without the cite; He is a similar to shade and

mirrors that reflect the reality and does not reflect it the way it really is. The shadow darkens,

mirror reverses. The representations on the Balkan are full of deviant crisis, unregulated,

unpredictable, he is in exile, caught between identity or his identity can multiply, divide and

torn. Since it is represented as a boundary, it is quite understandable that it is perceived as a

nomad or a space in flux, so in a real sense, on a place without a proper place in which to

reflect shortcomings and undesirable social situation.

Heterotopias function in a variety of ways. Each of them has a specific function within

society, but individual heterotopia can act in different ways. Foucault takes an example of

cemetery. It is a cite of culture like any other place. It's connected with other parts of the city,

state, society, village, so that every individual, every family has the tombs or graves of

relatives and ancestors. Positioning the cemetery in the past few centuries had passed through

various stages. Until the end of the eighteenth century, the cemetery was located in the heart

of the city, near the church. In the nineteenth century, the large estates in England, influential

and rich families could have their own cemeteries. At a time when religion played an

important cultural role and while Christians believed in the immortality of the soul they

introduced the practice of relocation of the cemetery from the city center, to the place which

was near the house. Yet modern era brought atheism. Individualization of the death,
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established connection between the death and illnesses. The dead can bring the infection and

disease and therefore had to be relocated outside the boundaries of what is considered a city,

or a city center. Topic of disease and contagion in the cemeteries appeared at the end of the

eighteenth century and marked the beginning of anxiety and produced doubts about the

theological. Gradually, the cemetery became less sacred place, and more a site disposed of

what we do not want to think, one can not explain, what we fear to touch; something that

invites sicknesness, contagious. In the early nineteenth century, reports on the Balkans testify

about the need to remove this symbolic geography from the framework of European

civilization, and set it on the other side of the border. One part of Europe was “invaded” by

the Ottoman Empire, the one that spreads the disease, first real, then imaginary plague which

requires the building of a new limes, new border between East and West. In this process of

relocation of the boundaries, the “Western Balkans”, was set on the margin, but still it was not

an “authentic” part of the symbolic East. Like the cemeteries, the Balkans are not a part of the

"city". If one has a connection with the center of Europe and the so-called civilization, it is a

kind of suburb. It is a place next to which both East “enters” and West “ends”. In both cases,

it is not a part of it. The reasons for this relocation are similar to those in the relocation of the

cemetery. All that is unclear - "confusion and intertribal conflicts govern this peripheral part

of civilization"; The tourist form Occident is "unable to determine the origin of the people

which comes"; "During the nineteenth century it was named “Near” or “Middle East". These

are some of the reasons why the Balkans is situated at the suburb of civilization.

The heterotopia is capable of the impossible. It connects the entire series, chain places that

are foreign to one another. Foucault notice the same principle in the movie (Foucault). These

are the old places at the end of which a two-dimensional screen projector gives three-

dimensional space. This principle is present on the gardens that connect different types of

flowers, disparate colors and smells, making the area look unique. This is a zoo, which in
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quite similar and unique conditions, artificially links animal and plant species that

spontaneously would never survive together. This is easily possible to link with the old

narrative about the Balkan multiculturalism. Let's remember the French traveler who was

fascinated by the possibility of so many different ethnic and religious groups live in an area

such was the case in Sarajevo or Mostar. Balkan bazaar, a marketplace where different

languages and different costumes were connected with the aim of buying and selling of

various products; coexistence of mosques and churches is one example of such heterotopias.

English, American, German, French travelers since the early nineteenth century were

fascinated and frightened with the possibility of a mixture of languages, "races" and cultures.

In wartime reports from the twentieth century, travelers wrote about the demolition of

multicultural space, an issue on which there is no answer - that the Balkans for decades have

been so polyvalent, so mixed, hybrid, multicultural?

Heterotopias are like excerpts from different times. They can be opened with what has

passed and shut the flow of history. It is also possible to completely erase the past and replace

it with something else. It is possible to live in a kind of quasi-eternity that manifests itself in

cycling history. That is why they are like historical archives. Heterotopia is able to

accumulate epoch, forms, tastes, ideas, and create a time that is outside of the current time.

Museums and archives are places like this. These heterotopias accumulate time, while others

live in the current, transit time. In the Balkan societies there is a need for accumulating and

freezig time, which allows further life in the eternal past / future. Here the past and the future

are firmly connected, but not in the present, but bypassing able "here and now" rather than

merging past and future. This is a characteristic of border space where history can be easily

created and recreated because it has many versions. Political myths in Balkan societies

determine how the future will look like. They rely on the power of holiness, justice, sacrifice,
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revenge. The events from the past are alive, while the future is represented as a moment of

redemption, which allow the rewriting of real and "righteousness" history.

The following principle suggests a system of opening and closing. Both aspects of this

principle isolate it and make it available. Such are the places of purification which have partly

religious and partly hygienic function. Foucault cites examples of touching the holy water, the

customs of washing hands of Muslims and Scandinavian sauna. On the other hand, these

places are simultaneously inputs and outputs. Where is the entrance, there can be an exit and

vice versa. In the Balkans, for a few centuries there are boundaries that divide East and West.

If the traveler wished to travel from the West to the East, he would have to spend forty days in

quarantine. All the objects in his possession and he himself would be subject to testing and

disinfection. If he survives these forty days, he would have been allowed to cross into the

world of "other culture". This has created a confusing situation. Travelers from the Balkans

would often wonder whether they "entered the East," or "left the West." That is why the

Balkans were called "the back door of Europe." These, “doors” were used in the case of exit,

but through them one could get into the heterotopia.

Finally, heterotopias have a role to create a space of illusion that makes visible every real

space. Foucault gives an example of brothels. The role of such places is to produce the second

place as a perfect, well-organized, then when "ours is dirty", "messy" „chaotic". Foucault

argues that it is precisely this symbolic role and meaning of the colony. If the colony is not

already found in the state of internal division and devastated institutions, the colonizer will

divide and destroy it in order to create a mirror of civilization and perfection. There are many

examples in which the Balkans played the role of the mirror, negative savior, and shadow, in

order to maintain the ideal image of „Civilization“. In the context of the term spatial inversion

- axiological inversion, the Balkan is standardized. As heterotopia, the Balkans could serve as

compensation for the system of value inversion, which was punishable. One could admire it,
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but this admiration contained subtext of horror; its hybridity could horrify, or become

recognizable as multiculturalism or "terrible mishmash“. These reactions usually reveal an

ambivalent attitude towards heterotopias and tendency to experiment with untested relations

at the peripheral area (Lazarević Radak 207).

Closing Remarks

Postcolonial world complicates the Orientalist model by replacing the binary

geography from one database - the city, the second and third world. But the new world order

is still based on binary oppositions. The first is between the first and second world: the First

World War provided free capitalist market and formulated the political rights. Western

scholars regard this as an expression of modernity in which things were going according to

binary oppositions, and direct, violent interventions remain largely unnecessary. The Second

World War offered an alternative model of development based on the logic of intervention of

the state in the market and controlled freedom by the state leadership. The Second World War

has been contaminated with a mixture of ideologies that prevent the efficient, rational and

natural, and its consequences are still based on colonial opposition to the rational / irrational.

Both models are secular but “sacralized” opposition of the Third World. The third world is a

kind of “rest of the world”. This concept of third place is primarily geopolitical, because the

third place / third world remains a category of non-aligned objects. Those who can not be

classified / categorized do not belong anywhere and does not share anyone's profit (Lazarević

Radak, 203).

This situation is present in the academic field. Critical cultural geography expands

postmodern approaches to the analysis of the relationship between the center and the

periphery, first at the theoretical level. By treating the West as an object of study and

criticism, postcolonial strategies are transforming the colonial history while discovering
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dialogism or hybridity. It seems that the observation and study of the Balkans as a

heterothopia may temporarily satisfy the requirements for the answers to the questions that we

are constantly setting. However, the critical human geography has just emerged from the

darkness of ignored spatialty. Indeed, we could argue that the Balkans are heterotopic place -

the third area which is due to historical and geographic circumstances is forced to live

"twisted" life, but also that it is an experimental place an alternative epistemology. But, as the

inhabitants of the Balkans can testify, these alternative epistemology and alternative spaces

does not provide pleasure and harmony to those who live in their in-betweeness.