Balkan love is fake. Before yugoslav civil war we loved each other. Did rock and roll concerts, and had fun. How was it possible to have war and hate each other until this day? It was fake love and never trust balkan friendship again. I am a pessimist same like Slavoj and I think we are all fake with that balkan bs.
People are misunderstanding what he's trying to say. It's not about actually being from the Balkans or not, that's the whole point. "Balkan" is a projection of one's own failures, fears and insecurities onto neighbours you consider even worse. That's why it's expandable to France on the one side and even the middle east on the other (Turks considering Arabs e.g. Syrians as lesser)
Yes exactly, this is the paradox: "Balkan" is always somewhere else, depending on who you ask, but "Balkan" is also everywhere if you take it as a synonym of disorder, backwardness and disunion.
You could make a similar joke about who's Middle Eastern. Turks will claim that everyone below them is Middle Eastern for they are truly, Europeans. Egyptians will say that their civilization goes much further back, to the pyramids and pharaohs, thus they aren't truly Middle Eastern. The Lebanese will say that they're truly Phoenicians and that their culture is much too distinct to be merely Middle Easterner. Saudi Arabia, Oman, UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, and Bahrain will say that they're Gulf States, with class and wealth that truly separates them from the Middle East. Iranians, much like the Egyptians, will remind you that they're a much older culture and civilization, that they don't even speak Arabic, and thus cannot be Middle Eastern. Georgians and Armenians will say that they're Christian, and that the Caucasus is European. And Israelis will be offended by the question, and pretend that they're a country in Mediterranean Europe.
I think the Caucasus can be safely excluded from the Middle East because it’s very rare that someone refers to it that way and this is all a matter of culture and politics anyway
@@treyebillups8602 I'm Mexican and live in LA, I find it that we think of Armenians as "Middle Eastern" since to us they share more similarities with similar diasporas here, like the Persians and Arabs of LA, than they do to Anglo Angelenos.
@@maximhornby5493 Jesus Christ. No? Have you heard of the Basque? ETA? Spain's IRA, essentially? Also Galicia has a little separatist movement. And Asturias, Aragon, Navarra, Valencia, the islands, and Andalucía do have their own cultural thing going as well.
Slavoj’s intellectual discussions are second to none, especially geopolitical. What he says in the video, the way he says it, might seem superficial at first, but there is a deeply rooted human psychology message that he is trying to convey. Brilliant
And still no one talks about how actually all of yugoslavia is technically, based on concrete and innocent physical geography/topography, corresponding to the dinaric alps, while the actual balkan mountains are for 90% of their territorial extension in bulgaria, which interestingly is a country always forgotten when talking about the balkans...
I guess we can just label it inside the wider grographical zone of "eestern yourope", because if romania is balkan at this point even countries like Slovakia or Moldova are balkan, but they clearly aren't imo. Maybe carpathian?
@@user-yr3zp2br3y i don't think balkans include eastern europe. greece and albania are clearly not eastern europe, and there are other discussable parts.
Any non Anglo nized nations are primitive "Balkans" not including Germanic nations They are a synonym for tribal or primitive Europeans which are stuck in the pre colonial era
No we don't, no one in Britain ever says "northern Ireland is balkanised" or would consider part of their own country to be so. The only context in which British people use the word Balkanised, is when referring to the event of 1 or multiple nations, breaking up into smaller and smaller nations, usually when those following smaller countries are even less functional and more problematic than before, especially when this process happens rapidly, this is what we commonly refer to in Britain as "balkanisation". For example if the UK suddenly all became independent as N.Ireland, Wales and Scotland, England would consider that to be balkanisation. I have no idea where you have gotten this idea from.
This was so magnificently true as a Turk living Toronto by myself, i can confidently confirm this guy's each line is a fact. Additionally basically describing Balkans being the magnetic point of Europe.
The Balkans are the magnetic point of Europe? The theory of electromagnetism isn't enough to describe the region accurately, because the Balkans are a black hole.
This attitude has existed since the Medieval Period. According to Tuchmann's book A Distant Mirror, The English and French nobility considered Germans etc to be cruel and barbaric people.
Which is a bit odd considering the Holy Roman Empire (Germany, Austria, and Bohemia) was arguably more civilized. Same deal with the Romans calling the Gauls cruel and barbaric when there's a case to be made the Gauls were just as if not more civilized.
It is true to some extent. He is referring to the term Balkans in terms of politics, philosophy and understanding Balkans as a place of wars and bad stuff, non-civilization etc. That doesn't correspond with the geographic limits of the Balkan Peninsula, which has its limits in southern Slovenia and Central Croatia, but also in the Central Serbia (Belgrade, for example, is the last Balkan city in Serbia, everything north from the Danube and Sava rivers is Central Europe). But here he talks about cultural conceptions of Balkans. I, as a graduate of anthropology, have been exposed to these theories for almost a decade now and while none all of them are completely accurate from a strictly geographical point of view, they are definitely there as a psychological borders between the "Barbaric" and "Civilized" world. And he is also right, because Slovenia Serbia and Croatia are very, very European countries (Vojvodina and Macva occupy around 40 percent of Serbia, maybe even more), and also he is right because there is always a projection of our INNER BALKANS, our INNER SELF, which we are trying to place somewhere in the subconscious. From that standpoint, every place has its own Balkans-The US had the Old West, now the South as the least wealthy and "civilized" place, Germany has Austria and Bavaria, Croatia has Dalmatia... Balkans is a place from where we all originate, we love that place and also we are ashamed to be a part of that place (but nevertheless we all come back to enjoy it).
No matter who says where the Balkan is, all of them can agree that R.Macedonia and Albania (and probably Bulgaria) are the Balkan. I don't know about Albania, but we here the Macedonians have always considered ourselves Balkaners. Pozdrav do svima Balkanci, od Makedonija!
As an Albanian, I can confirm we indeed see ourselves as Balkans . But we dislike the term Eastern Europe, we prefer south eastern Europe, or western Balkans XD
As another albanian I would agree but also we have this weird lack of self-criticism but we can be self-depricating compared to western europeans and americans so its strange we are in that sense really balkan.
@@Windsofchange99 The UK are ethnic europeans and are europeans no matter what some anglicans might be kept awake at night about. UK comedy is relatively famous for being self deprecating and self attacking, darkish.
@@Windsofchange99 as a Balkaner and a fluent English speaker I must say I am impressed that you as an ethnic Albanian can formulate such compex and well structured sentences, this in turn makes me believe that perhaps some Albanians are capable of higher linguistic thoughts and abstract concepts that may put some of you on the same level as most modern humans thus shedding the well established stereotypes of being medieval mountain peoples
@@sprig3432 I hope that this was a joke, because I laughed. If it isn't, you are the kind of person that gives the Balkans a bad name. But you're obviously joking and being ironic, in which case, kudos.
In sweden the version of this is the southernmost part and west coast are somewhat social and amicable places whereas everything else is stone cold quiet robot land.
@@HaraldSjellose I would say Balkan peninsula is till Attica, Peloponnese and the islands maybe not in Balkans geographically,so you mean 70% is in Balkans, the rest may be not
@@HaraldSjellose Personally, idk the exact percentage, but indeed Turkey also has a European part, the one part of Thrace so in terms of land and historically, and because idk many of Turkish culture,but i can assume we have common aspects, yes Turkey has also a portion of Europe's and Balkan's identity
Sorry for being witty, but as a Greek I TRULY believe that the Greeks are not Balkan. At least, lets say we are the best of the Balkans or an extra-ordinary category of Balkan. And that's due to the fact that the Greeks undeniebly contributed by far the most in the formation of the European and the Western civilization (Europe and America and Australia etc). We had a great civilization. Everhbody has its own vreat civilization. But, lest face is: somw civilizations are STARS. Like Chinese, ancient Egyptians, Romans and a few more... The Greeks were AWESOME and the proof for that is that still today so many countries copy the ancient Greek civilization modus vivendi: eg science, philosophy etc Its not that we Greeks are better than Slavs...nowadays...Nope. Thats not the case. Its just... Our ancestors did a GREAT JOB. FREAKING AWESOME JOB! Maybe in 2250 Slavs will have their own chance in History. Maybe the historians of 3.400 AD will talk about the Great Slavic Civilization that overshadowed everybody ever since. I am sorry to tell you this... But I truly believe that the only one who can compare to the Greeks are the Anglosaxons. The did great. They outsmart us. They are no. 1 in the whole History of Humanity. Not Greeks. Not Chinese. Not Indians. Not Persians. The Anglosaxons! After 5.000 years people are still gonna talk about them. Modern Greece is a piece of sh@t ofcourse. We feel ashamed in comparison to ancient Greeks Thats the hard reality.
@@peterpetrov4809isnt this how it starts? "Proudly rise the Balkan peaks, At their feet Blue Danube flows; Over Thrace the sun is shining, Pirin looms in purple glow."
I saw this video about a year ago and I didnt comment. The term "Balkans" *did not existed* in the area prior the Ottomans and when we speak about the "Balkan Peninsula" this was named by *a mistake* made by an early 18th German geographer, who confused the span of the Balkan mountains considering them dominant in the wider area. "Balkans" is an Ottoman term which is not being accepted by all. The reasons why this ~500yo term is not being accepted by for example the Greeks (and as a Greek myself I can argue on this) is because *on one hand* the Greeks have their own name for this area which *predates* the term "Balkans" by *3-4,000yo (if not more),* and on the *other hand* this term "Balkans" is being used for vastly political and cultural reasons which does not apply to Greece; *while there's also one more* reason, a more devious one *for all peoples of this area that includes the Greeks:* it is being used by foreign politics, politicians and diplomats as a slang word, in order to describe some uncivilized and primitive kinds of people which stand as an example to avoid. These the latters should be reminded that each and everyone of them played a small or bigger part into actually making a mess of this area for close to a century and even as we speak, and all this time *they stand aside laughing.* Anyways, the term Balkans is not just a toponym and it may refer to one's history or not. As a Greek it does not refer to my history, culture and historical toponyms all of which *predate* any Ottoman term by many millennials. Im sorry Slavoj, you know you cant be 100% right in everything you suggest.
@@me213516 Yeah, I know... I had *the exact same reaction* with the bs Slavoj said on this video. He's no God you know. In the beggining of the 1821 Greek War for Independence, a great movement of Philhellenes emerged in Europe and the US. For example, the German Legion was a military body, consisting of German and Swiss Philhellenes and its purpose was the military reinforcement of the rebel Greeks. *All these* Philhellenes were motivated by the Greek History and by hundreds of some of the most significant scholars their time (eg Lord Byron) who were calling them to aid the Greeks in their struggle for freedom and into reclaiming the _Greek Peninsula,_ *not* the south Balkans.
I am Romanian si for me, so if you call me Balkans, it is Ok. I am very Ok to be from Balkans. And I am ok if you say that I have some Slavic blood inside my veins. I like very much all Slavic people. So I am ok, do you understand me?
@@spiritbond8 Being a balkaner is about having a corrupt and conservative mindset. It doesn't matter if you're from Bulgaria or Slovenia. You can be even in country like America and stil lbe balkaner. It's something to be ashamed of btw if you can't tell...
What is Eastern Europe? - German will say that their country is West Europe and to the east is Eastern Europe. - But Poland would say they are not Eastern Europe, but they are Central Europe, and east of them is Eastern Europe. - According to Belarus, there are no Central Europe and say that they are the border between East and Western Europe. - But in the when you go far enough to Russia, they will say that all of the country in the east of Germany is Eastern Europe. They will even claim that former East Germany is actually a buffer zone between East and West Europe.
Nope. Croats and Slovenes want to push this joke since they feel inferior to western and central europe, but all other balkan nations are proud balkan nations. That’s the truth. This joke comes from their shame of being balkan and it’s funny but not true. True only for Slovenia, Croatia and Hungary or should I say catholic countries that always wanted to be separated from Muslim and Orthodox Balkan nations.
Even inside Germany itself there's this division. We "Prussians" in the North don't really consider Bavaria part of the civilized world. They're too religious and in some ways backwards, they are part of the "weird mountain guys", together with Austria. Bismarck once said "The Bavarian is the missing link between human and Austrian". In Bavaria itself, the northern part of the state, there's a region called Franken/Franconia, around Nuremberg, the people there get very angry when you call them Bavarian, because they really are closer to the neighboring states Hesse and Thuringia in terms of culture and dialect and just happen to not get their own federal state after WW2 and have to stick with Bavaria now. Even inside Cologne, there are jokes between people who live on the left and right bank of the Rhine river. The Romans founded Cologne (as a colony, hence the name Colonia -> Cologne), but the Empire's border went precisely along the Rhine, so that left-Rhinish Cologners are either civilized or weak, and right-Rhinish Cologners barbarians or part of the strong resistance, depending on who you ask of course. I also know that there's a division between northern and southern France too, but I'm not French. All I know is the North prefers butter and the South olive oil.
Idk, aside from the Croats, I think everyone else I've met from the area (Serbs, Bosnians, Albanians, Bulgarians, Macedonians, etc) admits that they're from the balkans.
Kosovo is as Serbian as England is American. Americans know that their culture originates from there, but do they beliefe England should be part of the USA? No.
@@ekesandras1481Wrong. The US and the UK are 2 seperate fully internationally recognised states and members of the UN. Kosovo, the Serbian province and heartland, according to United Nations SC resolution 1244, is Serbian sovereign territory, currently de facto under control by local Albanian sepatarists and occupied by nato (the US).
Croatians are right. Balkan starts and ends with Serbia for a very simple reason that serbs do not have problem with being Balkan. Everybody else does and would rather run away from its Balkan identity
Greeks are Balkans as much as British are European. For geographic reasons mainly. And MAYBE for historical/cultural reasons a little bit. Mostly for geographic reasons
Žižek is on point about the "they" and the "we" thing, but otherwise: historically Balkan was a term that one German geographer used for Ottoman European territories, named after a mountain in Bulgaria which is named Balkan (Turkish for a mountainous forested terrain) because he thought that mountain range was all over the region, which is wrong. Balkan penninsula is wrong as well - it doesn't fit with scientific determinaton of a pennisula (wrong ratio between water and land borders). Balkan is in fact a geopolitical term, that is mostly obsolete, it doesn't reflect cultural, historical and geographical realities in their fullest, but only (past) political ones. To make everything short - Balkan is a very vague term that most of people wrongly use as a fixed defenition. Edit: Žižek in video is using the river Ljubljanica as the border for Balkan, when in fact Slovenia was never under the Ottoman rule and before the end of WW1 was never thought of as a Balkan region. Even Serbian geograpers in times of Jugoslavia were using river Sava (and Danube) as the border of Balkan - their goal was to enlarge the borders of Balkan for unitarian purposes (there are many defenitons of Balkan borders).
Zanmljiva mi je karta Jugovine od Žižeka, nema autoceste, nema granica republika, Bjelovar je neka selendra kojom se dolazi samo iz Križevaca i nema dalje. Tema Balkan je već stara otrcana, Žižek ju samo obradio. Cijeli svijet je Balkan-balkon.
Serbs wouldn’t say serajevo, Bosniaks are lighter than us, this is western propaganda to make it seem like Bosniaks are more minority than us and thus deserve sympathy
Read about the Dinaric race The Dinaric race is largely present among the Serbs, so they appear to have olive skin Many also have Balto-Slav ethnicity The Russians even have a denarius race
From most Europeans the Balkans are all the former Yugoslavian republics. Even if technically Greece, Albania, Bulgaria and Romania should be included because they are part of the geographical balkan peninsula, most of us don't consider it as such
@@bulgariainsight429 I thought that it was the peninsula going from the top of the adrian sea to the black see. Looking it up that seems be the definition with the addition that it is only the mountain region. There are also the Balkan mountains wich are much smaller and the word itself seems to come from Asia at some point and was used to simply refer to mountains.
Can't be more further from the truth. Balkan is the mountain which separates Northern and Southern Bulgarian. That's all. Therefore - You should simply ask a Bulgarian.
"This guy" is one of the mot relevant cultural theorists of the last 50 years who happens to be from "there", the Balkans. At least he was, since his country of birth is Yugoslavija. His point is that the concept of "Balkans" or "Balkanic" is a cultural concept that has to do with notions of identity and otherness rather than precise geo-political terminlogy.
@@zearcher4633 i don't think you understood the concept of Atheism? Or that atheist scholars are often better equipped to understand and explain religious phemonenae.
@@andredemony do you understand that the biggest faces in science and philosophy were Christian, Žižek just uses archaic language to portray the thoughts of a 17 year old guy after he watches dead poets society for the first time
Maybe the real Balkans are the friends we all made along the way
more like the civilians we kill along the way
*the friends we genociced along the way
Balkan love is fake. Before yugoslav civil war we loved each other. Did rock and roll concerts, and had fun. How was it possible to have war and hate each other until this day? It was fake love and never trust balkan friendship again. I am a pessimist same like Slavoj and I think we are all fake with that balkan bs.
Lmao
Made my day, what a wholesome comment.
>Bad times make strong Slavs
>Strong Slavs make bad times
>Bad times make strong Slavs
and repeat
slav never weak, but no good time
except slovenia where weak men create femboys
You mean slaves?
@@kostaborojevic498 No Slaves. Slavs.
Slav, Slavs from Slava (glory).
Glorious people (Slavs) from glorious land (Slavia).
And so on and so on
People are misunderstanding what he's trying to say.
It's not about actually being from the Balkans or not, that's the whole point.
"Balkan" is a projection of one's own failures, fears and insecurities onto neighbours you consider even worse.
That's why it's expandable to France on the one side and even the middle east on the other (Turks considering Arabs e.g. Syrians as lesser)
More than that it is just a joke, that you should not take too serious
You are clearly from the Balkan. Stupid and everything.
Yes exactly, this is the paradox: "Balkan" is always somewhere else, depending on who you ask, but "Balkan" is also everywhere if you take it as a synonym of disorder, backwardness and disunion.
If Yugoslavia wasn't a failure everyone would want to call themselves a valkan
@@sharymitidieri4632 Only Bulgaria will never deny it is Balkan
"Brussels is the new Istanbul", I love this man.
You could make a similar joke about who's Middle Eastern. Turks will claim that everyone below them is Middle Eastern for they are truly, Europeans. Egyptians will say that their civilization goes much further back, to the pyramids and pharaohs, thus they aren't truly Middle Eastern. The Lebanese will say that they're truly Phoenicians and that their culture is much too distinct to be merely Middle Easterner. Saudi Arabia, Oman, UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, and Bahrain will say that they're Gulf States, with class and wealth that truly separates them from the Middle East. Iranians, much like the Egyptians, will remind you that they're a much older culture and civilization, that they don't even speak Arabic, and thus cannot be Middle Eastern. Georgians and Armenians will say that they're Christian, and that the Caucasus is European. And Israelis will be offended by the question, and pretend that they're a country in Mediterranean Europe.
I think the Caucasus can be safely excluded from the Middle East because it’s very rare that someone refers to it that way and this is all a matter of culture and politics anyway
@@treyebillups8602 I'm Mexican and live in LA, I find it that we think of Armenians as "Middle Eastern" since to us they share more similarities with similar diasporas here, like the Persians and Arabs of LA, than they do to Anglo Angelenos.
@@nemesis962074 Interesting perspective, I’m from upstate New York so I’m not equipped to contest it any further
@@treyebillups8602Depends… what about the Azeris though?
@@ExploradorMundialX Why would they be Middle-Eastern? Because they're Muslims? Then wouldn't Albanians and Bosniaks be Middle-Eastern too?
"Slovenia, balkan begins; slavic = primitive..so on" LMFAO this is hilarious.
Balkan isnt a state .... its a state of mind :)
Perhaps Yugoslavia was doomed to fail since it's foundation after the Great War.
"Where are the Balkans?"
Me, a Spanish person: **lives in a mountainous country with several nationalistic independence movements**
Soon...
What are the ones other than catalonia? Muslim grenada?
@@maximhornby5493 Basque Country, Galicia and of less prominence, Leon, Asturias and Cantabria.
@@maximhornby5493 Jesus Christ. No?
Have you heard of the Basque? ETA? Spain's IRA, essentially?
Also Galicia has a little separatist movement. And Asturias, Aragon, Navarra, Valencia, the islands, and Andalucía do have their own cultural thing going as well.
@@arkle519 no idea they were going for independence. Basque and galicia are the only ones ive heard about
"Where Balkan begins...Slavic, Primitives, etc"
Love this guy
Slavoj Žižek: ceo of the funny zone
Only the Bulgarians can't find an excuse not to be in the Balkans since the Balkan mountain that gave its name to the peninsula is in Bulgaria.
Yet no one considers them Balkan lol
@@mimisvet8671 What? Literally anyone but you lol
@@mimisvet8671 wat
They'll tell you, that they're part of the EU and they're not even slavs, but descendents of the great Bulgarian Empire.
@@kundbalint4091 But they will never deny that Bulgaria is Balkan.
History, geography, a dash of social-political humour and Žižekian joking around...
What a video!
The king of ideology. He truly shows how deeply rooted ideology is in words like Balkan
This is actually very accurate lmao
Why?
@@santa173 How you ever talked with a Slovenian or Croatian?
@@astrolillo can confirm as someone with a Slovenian parent lmao
Very inaccurate - Sava and Danube are convention border between balkan and mitteleuropa
@@dcinput7645 So Romania is in mitteleuropa, ja?
Slavoj’s intellectual discussions are second to none, especially geopolitical. What he says in the video, the way he says it, might seem superficial at first, but there is a deeply rooted human psychology message that he is trying to convey. Brilliant
And still no one talks about how actually all of yugoslavia is technically, based on concrete and innocent physical geography/topography, corresponding to the dinaric alps, while the actual balkan mountains are for 90% of their territorial extension in bulgaria, which interestingly is a country always forgotten when talking about the balkans...
the real question is romania. geographically speaking it doesn't seem balkan, but clearly balkan.
I guess we can just label it inside the wider grographical zone of "eestern yourope", because if romania is balkan at this point even countries like Slovakia or Moldova are balkan, but they clearly aren't imo. Maybe carpathian?
@@user-yr3zp2br3y i don't think balkans include eastern europe. greece and albania are clearly not eastern europe, and there are other discussable parts.
Yugoslavia is remembered because it stood for several ideas and did things differently.
@@theo3357 Romania is as balkan as ones can imagine. Its so underrated, it flew under the underrated talks.
Except the British also believe that Northern Ireland is "Balkanized"
Any non Anglo nized nations are primitive "Balkans" not including Germanic nations
They are a synonym for tribal or primitive Europeans which are stuck in the pre colonial era
Most British people don't even know Northern Ireland is in the UK. Only Americans are worse at geography than us.
@@sprig3432 does that include the Iberian nations and Italy?
@@sprig3432 As an anglo i can tell you this is not how we think of or use the word "Blakan"
No we don't, no one in Britain ever says "northern Ireland is balkanised" or would consider part of their own country to be so. The only context in which British people use the word Balkanised, is when referring to the event of 1 or multiple nations, breaking up into smaller and smaller nations, usually when those following smaller countries are even less functional and more problematic than before, especially when this process happens rapidly, this is what we commonly refer to in Britain as "balkanisation". For example if the UK suddenly all became independent as N.Ireland, Wales and Scotland, England would consider that to be balkanisation. I have no idea where you have gotten this idea from.
I'm Italian and I feel like professor doesn't call me for oral exam. That kind of relief.
E l'Istria?
@@federicoclaps5099 Balkans too. Trieste too
This was so magnificently true as a Turk living Toronto by myself, i can confidently confirm this guy's each line is a fact. Additionally basically describing Balkans being the magnetic point of Europe.
The serbs are your children
Yes, the point everyone wants to stay away from
Point of exploitation and frustration, area they wanna spit on to feel better about themselves - Europe is quite pathetic
@@mimisvet8671 Odakle si😘
The Balkans are the magnetic point of Europe? The theory of electromagnetism isn't enough to describe the region accurately, because the Balkans are a black hole.
Every country has its own balkan neighbour.
And you ask an American and they will tell you, "What's a Ballcan?"
"where are the balkans you ask? I'll tell you...
...the real balkans are in your heart"
We in Croatia have a saying; "Što južnije to tužnije" meaning the southerner the sadder, guess other nations think the same way
As an Argentine, I think Balkan is everything north of Paraguay and east of Uruguay.
Word up for trying
The same works with where Eastern Europe starts as well
I'm balkan 100% no problem
Ok Ante pogaži njima xD.
samo da ja nisam
The area between cities of Vienna and Istanbul is the Balkans.
Exactly
Balkan is all the independent countries we made along the way
This attitude has existed since the Medieval Period.
According to Tuchmann's book A Distant Mirror, The English and French nobility considered Germans etc to be cruel and barbaric people.
Which is a bit odd considering the Holy Roman Empire (Germany, Austria, and Bohemia) was arguably more civilized. Same deal with the Romans calling the Gauls cruel and barbaric when there's a case to be made the Gauls were just as if not more civilized.
@@spikem5950 Versailles palace had no toilets until 18th century.Civilization starts with your own hygiene.
Beautiful
It is true to some extent. He is referring to the term Balkans in terms of politics, philosophy and understanding Balkans as a place of wars and bad stuff, non-civilization etc. That doesn't correspond with the geographic limits of the Balkan Peninsula, which has its limits in southern Slovenia and Central Croatia, but also in the Central Serbia (Belgrade, for example, is the last Balkan city in Serbia, everything north from the Danube and Sava rivers is Central Europe).
But here he talks about cultural conceptions of Balkans. I, as a graduate of anthropology, have been exposed to these theories for almost a decade now and while none all of them are completely accurate from a strictly geographical point of view, they are definitely there as a psychological borders between the "Barbaric" and "Civilized" world. And he is also right, because Slovenia Serbia and Croatia are very, very European countries (Vojvodina and Macva occupy around 40 percent of Serbia, maybe even more), and also he is right because there is always a projection of our INNER BALKANS, our INNER SELF, which we are trying to place somewhere in the subconscious.
From that standpoint, every place has its own Balkans-The US had the Old West, now the South as the least wealthy and "civilized" place, Germany has Austria and Bavaria, Croatia has Dalmatia... Balkans is a place from where we all originate, we love that place and also we are ashamed to be a part of that place (but nevertheless we all come back to enjoy it).
Excellent clip
No matter who says where the Balkan is, all of them can agree that R.Macedonia and Albania (and probably Bulgaria) are the Balkan. I don't know about Albania, but we here the Macedonians have always considered ourselves Balkaners. Pozdrav do svima Balkanci, od Makedonija!
As an Albanian, I can confirm we indeed see ourselves as Balkans .
But we dislike the term Eastern Europe, we prefer south eastern Europe, or western Balkans XD
As another albanian I would agree but also we have this weird lack of self-criticism but we can be self-depricating compared to western europeans and americans so its strange we are in that sense really balkan.
@@Windsofchange99 The UK are ethnic europeans and are europeans no matter what some anglicans might be kept awake at night about. UK comedy is relatively famous for being self deprecating and self attacking, darkish.
@@Windsofchange99 as a Balkaner and a fluent English speaker I must say I am impressed that you as an ethnic Albanian can formulate such compex and well structured sentences, this in turn makes me believe that perhaps some Albanians are capable of higher linguistic thoughts and abstract concepts that may put some of you on the same level as most modern humans thus shedding the well established stereotypes of being medieval mountain peoples
@@sprig3432 I hope that this was a joke, because I laughed. If it isn't, you are the kind of person that gives the Balkans a bad name.
But you're obviously joking and being ironic, in which case, kudos.
In sweden the version of this is the southernmost part and west coast are somewhat social and amicable places whereas everything else is stone cold quiet robot land.
Romania here. We are in Balkans because we are poor
Even the map is shaking like an addict
The image and imagination of Balkan depends on your historical knowledge level on your consciousness level
Scientists are still trying to answer this question.
In Greece we also say that we are in Balkans, we don't exclude our country of this region.
%70 of greece is not located in balkan. you go south of thessaloniki and its a mixture of south europe and levant
@@HaraldSjellose I would say Balkan peninsula is till Attica, Peloponnese and the islands maybe not in Balkans geographically,so you mean 70% is in Balkans, the rest may be not
@@user-mr5on2le4i I could also say %70 of Turkey is actually culturally and historically located within europe. But some politician guys say otherwise
@@HaraldSjellose Personally, idk the exact percentage, but indeed Turkey also has a European part, the one part of Thrace so in terms of land and historically, and because idk many of Turkish culture,but i can assume we have common aspects, yes Turkey has also a portion of Europe's and Balkan's identity
@@HaraldSjellose vay amk soyadımız aynı
brilliant
Geography-wise the Balkan mountains are mostly in Bulgaria and Eastern Serbia.
Sorry for being witty, but as a Greek I TRULY believe that the Greeks are not Balkan.
At least, lets say we are the best of the Balkans or an extra-ordinary category of Balkan.
And that's due to the fact that the Greeks undeniebly contributed by far the most in the formation of the European and the Western civilization (Europe and America and Australia etc).
We had a great civilization. Everhbody has its own vreat civilization. But, lest face is: somw civilizations are STARS.
Like Chinese, ancient Egyptians, Romans and a few more...
The Greeks were AWESOME and the proof for that is that still today so many countries copy the ancient Greek civilization modus vivendi: eg science, philosophy etc
Its not that we Greeks are better than Slavs...nowadays...Nope. Thats not the case. Its just... Our ancestors did a GREAT JOB. FREAKING AWESOME JOB!
Maybe in 2250 Slavs will have their own chance in History.
Maybe the historians of 3.400 AD will talk about the Great Slavic Civilization that overshadowed everybody ever since.
I am sorry to tell you this... But I truly believe that the only one who can compare to the Greeks are the Anglosaxons. The did great. They outsmart us. They are no. 1 in the whole History of Humanity. Not Greeks. Not Chinese. Not Indians. Not Persians. The Anglosaxons!
After 5.000 years people are still gonna talk about them.
Modern Greece is a piece of sh@t ofcourse. We feel ashamed in comparison to ancient Greeks Thats the hard reality.
Actually it starts in Syldavia. Although the Syldavians says it starts in Borduria.
for all of the croatians celebrating their entrance into the EU: the goal post is always moving...
Bulgaria is the true Balkan! :D
i was thinking what excuse can he say for bulgaria its even in their anthem xd
@@derp8184 The word "Balkan" is nowhere in the lyrics.
@@peterpetrov4809isnt this how it starts?
"Proudly rise the Balkan peaks,
At their feet Blue Danube flows;
Over Thrace the sun is shining,
Pirin looms in purple glow."
@@derp8184 It's bullshit translation.
@@derp8184 The lyrics is "Горда Стара планина, до ней Дунава синей".
The dutch: lmao, brits 😂😂
I'm Greek and i don't call my country balkan !!
real "post the most racist joke ya got" energy here, i love it ❤
I saw this video about a year ago and I didnt comment.
The term "Balkans" *did not existed* in the area prior the Ottomans and when we speak about the "Balkan Peninsula" this was named by *a mistake* made by an early 18th German geographer, who confused the span of the Balkan mountains considering them dominant in the wider area. "Balkans" is an Ottoman term which is not being accepted by all.
The reasons why this ~500yo term is not being accepted by for example the Greeks (and as a Greek myself I can argue on this) is because *on one hand* the Greeks have their own name for this area which *predates* the term "Balkans" by *3-4,000yo (if not more),* and on the *other hand* this term "Balkans" is being used for vastly political and cultural reasons which does not apply to Greece; *while there's also one more* reason, a more devious one *for all peoples of this area that includes the Greeks:* it is being used by foreign politics, politicians and diplomats as a slang word, in order to describe some uncivilized and primitive kinds of people which stand as an example to avoid. These the latters should be reminded that each and everyone of them played a small or bigger part into actually making a mess of this area for close to a century and even as we speak, and all this time *they stand aside laughing.*
Anyways, the term Balkans is not just a toponym and it may refer to one's history or not.
As a Greek it does not refer to my history, culture and historical toponyms all of which *predate* any Ottoman term by many millennials.
Im sorry Slavoj, you know you cant be 100% right in everything you suggest.
"I saw this video about a year ago and I didnt comment." You should have stuck with that.
@@me213516 Yeah, I know... I had *the exact same reaction* with the bs Slavoj said on this video. He's no God you know. In the beggining of the 1821 Greek War for Independence, a great movement of Philhellenes emerged in Europe and the US. For example, the German Legion was a military body, consisting of German and Swiss Philhellenes and its purpose was the military reinforcement of the rebel Greeks. *All these* Philhellenes were motivated by the Greek History and by hundreds of some of the most significant scholars their time (eg Lord Byron) who were calling them to aid the Greeks in their struggle for freedom and into reclaiming the _Greek Peninsula,_ *not* the south Balkans.
Average Triggered Balkaner
@@Kiki-ov2xw Average triggered mo***n
So how do you call the peninsula?
I am Romanian si for me, so if you call me Balkans, it is Ok. I am very Ok to be from Balkans. And I am ok if you say that I have some Slavic blood inside my veins. I like very much all Slavic people. So I am ok, do you understand me?
I'm surprised that he left us, the Albanians, out! You guys should watch the long version.
It is so confusing to read about west Balkan countries applying for the EU membership.
Hello youtube algorithm, this will blow up.
At least no one disagrees Bulgaria is Balkan.
I do, we don't have that much in common with other Balkans countries, we're not really that balkan
@@user-di8kl4cc5u You are the definition of Balkan, if you think you're not like other countries that makes *them* un-Balkan.
@@spiritbond8 Being a balkaner is about having a corrupt and conservative mindset. It doesn't matter if you're from Bulgaria or Slovenia. You can be even in country like America and stil lbe balkaner.
It's something to be ashamed of btw if you can't tell...
@@user-di8kl4cc5u You have been duped! It's the capitalist imperialists who corrupt your politicians that should be ashamed, not their victims!
@@user-di8kl4cc5u Balkan is primarily Kosovo and Bosnia, but also Serbia, Albania, Montenegro and Macedonia. Basically all non-EU States.
/r/2balkan4you Origins.
Another episode of Trial of Civilization
MAYBE THE REAL BALKAN IS THE FRIENDS WE MADE ALONG THE WAY
And then you go to the iberian peninsula and every country outside the peninsula is balkan and we're the true rulers of the world
A bit exaggerated to say the least
Now there is even a verb in politics "to balkanize".
Imo standard its atleast the former yugoslav countries, bulgaria, romania and greece. Maybe hungary also
Not Greece
What is Eastern Europe?
- German will say that their country is West Europe and to the east is Eastern Europe.
- But Poland would say they are not Eastern Europe, but they are Central Europe, and east of them is Eastern Europe.
- According to Belarus, there are no Central Europe and say that they are the border between East and Western Europe.
- But in the when you go far enough to Russia, they will say that all of the country in the east of Germany is Eastern Europe. They will even claim that former East Germany is actually a buffer zone between East and West Europe.
I know just how enraged they get at being called “Eastern Europe”, didn’t know Balkan was also a problem.
Most Greeks consider Greece to belong to the balkans
So basically, *The balkans refuses to admit* that it exists.
Nope. Croats and Slovenes want to push this joke since they feel inferior to western and central europe, but all other balkan nations are proud balkan nations. That’s the truth. This joke comes from their shame of being balkan and it’s funny but not true. True only for Slovenia, Croatia and Hungary or should I say catholic countries that always wanted to be separated from Muslim and Orthodox Balkan nations.
No
TLDR: in Germany 2028
Bulgaria???!!!
Even inside Germany itself there's this division. We "Prussians" in the North don't really consider Bavaria part of the civilized world. They're too religious and in some ways backwards, they are part of the "weird mountain guys", together with Austria. Bismarck once said "The Bavarian is the missing link between human and Austrian".
In Bavaria itself, the northern part of the state, there's a region called Franken/Franconia, around Nuremberg, the people there get very angry when you call them Bavarian, because they really are closer to the neighboring states Hesse and Thuringia in terms of culture and dialect and just happen to not get their own federal state after WW2 and have to stick with Bavaria now.
Even inside Cologne, there are jokes between people who live on the left and right bank of the Rhine river. The Romans founded Cologne (as a colony, hence the name Colonia -> Cologne), but the Empire's border went precisely along the Rhine, so that left-Rhinish Cologners are either civilized or weak, and right-Rhinish Cologners barbarians or part of the strong resistance, depending on who you ask of course.
I also know that there's a division between northern and southern France too, but I'm not French. All I know is the North prefers butter and the South olive oil.
Idk, aside from the Croats, I think everyone else I've met from the area (Serbs, Bosnians, Albanians, Bulgarians, Macedonians, etc) admits that they're from the balkans.
I'm Croat and Balkan. Some just say that because of turks invasion
@@Ante_Knezevic slavs also invaded balkans, that's why you are in croatia and not in ukraine 👎🏼
@@Seyma0816 Yes but when we come here nobody was here
@@Ante_Knezevic Wrong, it was already an habited land. You just changed the language of the locals and made them new slavicized croats.
@@Seyma0816 Really who was here before Croatians
Wonderful. Can you link the source here or in the description?
Slavoj, nice of you to mention our Serbian province of Kosovo and Metohija, Slovenians are always true friends.
Kosovo is as Serbian as England is American. Americans know that their culture originates from there, but do they beliefe England should be part of the USA? No.
@@ekesandras1481Wrong. The US and the UK are 2 seperate fully internationally recognised states and members of the UN.
Kosovo, the Serbian province and heartland, according to United Nations SC resolution 1244, is Serbian sovereign territory, currently de facto under control by local Albanian sepatarists and occupied by nato (the US).
Croatians are right. Balkan starts and ends with Serbia for a very simple reason that serbs do not have problem with being Balkan. Everybody else does and would rather run away from its Balkan identity
Because those others have an identity crisis and several complexes. 😂
serbs dont fit in this, they will tell you that Serbia is Balkan and Balkan is Serbia 😁
We are the epicenter of Balkan we dont have to prove anything lol
We Romanians also say that Europe civilisation started from Romania and that we are not Balkans either.
Greeks are Balkans as much as British are European. For geographic reasons mainly. And MAYBE for historical/cultural reasons a little bit.
Mostly for geographic reasons
Besides geography Greeks have nothing to do with the balkans
But where is Belka?
Lmao
AM I A BALKAN OR NOT? ZIZEK?!
No.
What is this from
Your mother xaxaxaxaxa.
is he wearing a fucking zodiac message t shirt?
OMG, this makes the whole thing even better.
LOL
Žižek is on point about the "they" and the "we" thing, but otherwise: historically Balkan was a term that one German geographer used for Ottoman European territories, named after a mountain in Bulgaria which is named Balkan (Turkish for a mountainous forested terrain) because he thought that mountain range was all over the region, which is wrong. Balkan penninsula is wrong as well - it doesn't fit with scientific determinaton of a pennisula (wrong ratio between water and land borders). Balkan is in fact a geopolitical term, that is mostly obsolete, it doesn't reflect cultural, historical and geographical realities in their fullest, but only (past) political ones. To make everything short - Balkan is a very vague term that most of people wrongly use as a fixed defenition.
Edit: Žižek in video is using the river Ljubljanica as the border for Balkan, when in fact Slovenia was never under the Ottoman rule and before the end of WW1 was never thought of as a Balkan region. Even Serbian geograpers in times of Jugoslavia were using river Sava (and Danube) as the border of Balkan - their goal was to enlarge the borders of Balkan for unitarian purposes (there are many defenitons of Balkan borders).
где бакланы, кароч
Post modern karl marx
Zanmljiva mi je karta Jugovine od Žižeka, nema autoceste, nema granica republika, Bjelovar je neka selendra kojom se dolazi samo iz Križevaca i nema dalje. Tema Balkan je već stara otrcana, Žižek ju samo obradio. Cijeli svijet je Balkan-balkon.
Wait so its all Balkan?
Always has been 👨🚀 🔫
Serbs wouldn’t say serajevo, Bosniaks are lighter than us, this is western propaganda to make it seem like Bosniaks are more minority than us and thus deserve sympathy
what do you mean by lighter? skin-color?
@@slXD100 …yes?
Seres cedo
Read about the Dinaric race
The Dinaric race is largely present among the Serbs, so they appear to have olive skin
Many also have Balto-Slav ethnicity
The Russians even have a denarius race
tfw you are baltic but everyone assumes you are "balkan"
Those poor mountains.
Literally no ones says these
Balkan has become a bad word
EU = Yugoslavia? Oh gosh, what will happen if EU breaks up ...
He he heee 😈
Omg hahaha good comment hahahaha milošević will rise from his grave to join the feast.
In Romania we call ourselves balkans
If you are from the south of Romania. Which yes, it is primitive compared with Transylvania and Banat.
From most Europeans the Balkans are all the former Yugoslavian republics. Even if technically Greece, Albania, Bulgaria and Romania should be included because they are part of the geographical balkan peninsula, most of us don't consider it as such
Who doesnt include Albania as part of the Balkans?
@@bulgariainsight429 I thought that it was the peninsula going from the top of the adrian sea to the black see.
Looking it up that seems be the definition with the addition that it is only the mountain region. There are also the Balkan mountains wich are much smaller and the word itself seems to come from Asia at some point and was used to simply refer to mountains.
True
@@HansPeter_ the Balkanians dont consider Albanians keen lol its true
This is so true, ask anyone in Vojvodina and they will tell you they are not Balkans...except in you are unfortunate enough to run into a dodjos
I am from Vojvodina and we are definitively agreeing up here we are Balkan with fancy touch
Can't be more further from the truth. Balkan is the mountain which separates Northern and Southern Bulgarian. That's all. Therefore - You should simply ask a Bulgarian.
🙄😒
The map he's using is outdated...
Just saying
Serbia is the heart of the Balkans
Bulgaria is the heart of the balkans
Serbia is the heart of toilet
@@thehussar9399 no its testicle if you wanna be anatomicly correct
Kosovo xD.
i dont even know if this guy actually knows what he is talking about or if he just is talking
"This guy" is one of the mot relevant cultural theorists of the last 50 years who happens to be from "there", the Balkans. At least he was, since his country of birth is Yugoslavija. His point is that the concept of "Balkans" or "Balkanic" is a cultural concept that has to do with notions of identity and otherness rather than precise geo-political terminlogy.
@@andredemony hes atheist, so not relevant
@@zearcher4633 what a stupid thing to say
@@zearcher4633 i don't think you understood the concept of Atheism? Or that atheist scholars are often better equipped to understand and explain religious phemonenae.
@@andredemony do you understand that the biggest faces in science and philosophy were Christian, Žižek just uses archaic language to portray the thoughts of a 17 year old guy after he watches dead poets society for the first time
To us italians everything east of Triste is Balkan.