Myths and Boundaries in South Eastern Europe

Myths and Boundaries in South Eastern Europe examines how historical myths have contributed to the crystallisation of national boundaries in the Balkans, primarily among the South Slavs. Myths and the relevance of myth-making in politics are well-established fields of social inquiry, as are boundaries and the mechanisms that define them, but they have largely developed in isolation from each other. Only rarely have studies of historical myths taken into account their boundary-creating effects. Conversely, the study of identity boundaries has mostly focused on mechanisms other than myth-making. One of the achievements of this book is to bring these two traditions of inquiry into dialogue with each other.