Europe “without boundaries”, or the Balkans in the light of “border studies”

Abstract

The article deals with the actuality of “border studies” in the European ethnological discourse focused on the symbolic, cultural, geographic, sociological, political, anthropological and other aspects of the investigation. Correlation of the global and the local, or macro- and micro levels in “border studies” is seemed to be one of the principle theoretical proposition, especially when the question is the ethnic mosaic Balkan region. The many-sided scientific study causes the breadth of the terminology, connected with the necessity to divide ‘boundary’, ‘border’, ‘frontier’, understanding that each of them can give the adequate model constructing different border zone peculiarities. Anthropological discourse is based on the concept of the boundary as a real territory and at the same time as a symbolically space marked with the certain cultural and mythological senses.

Processes of the European integration are held simultaneously with the new borders’ establishment – real and as well as symbolic, that is especially typical for the Balkan region which space appears as a row of the variants. The aim of the paper is to show the necessity to take into account when we analyze the certain ethno-cultural dialect interaction and correlation of different historical periods, traditions and cultures. The actuality of such discourse is determined by the historical heritage of the region revealed as the continuation of tradition or noticeable as its reflection.