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Ljubljana, Slovenia.
Maribor, Slovenia.
Portoroz, Slovenia.
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What other Europeans think about Slovenes. Click to enlarge.
Where do the Balkans begin? For the Austrian chancellor Klemens
Wenzel Nepomuk Lothar Fürst von Metternich-Winneberg-Beilstein (or
"Metternich" for short) the Balkans began at the Rennweg in Vienna and stretched down from there.
Today, Slovenes take great exception to being called "Balkan," to the point of considering it an insult. Considering that "Balkanize" has entered the English dictionary as a decidedly negative term, who can blame them?
Two years ago, the alternative Russian paper the eXile published 18 Ways to Hate Your Neighbor, which included this large chart demonstrating the stereotypes Europeans have about each other. Slovenia appears in the Balkan group, where it rates every other country as NRE — not really European. As anyone who has spent time here can tell you, that’s not too far off target.
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Portugal in Central Europe?Otherwise it is fairly tame. I can contribute what Greeks really feel about fellow Balkan tribes here:Turks: bloodthirsty barbarians, they probably smell, backward, wife-beaters, NRE
Bulgarians: bloodthirsty barbarians, backward, women all prostitutes. NRE
Macedonians: barefoot, name-snatchers, half of them Albanians anyway, NREAlbanians: thieves and murderers, perfidious, ugly and without taste, NRESerbians: orhtodox brethren, albeit a tad bloodthirstyRomanians: poor, burglars, weighed down by communist pastBosnian: Victims, probably Turks, half of them Serbians anywayCroatians: (bloodthirsty) closet NazisSlovenians: closet AustriansBut then Greeks are known to be real bastards…;-)
Ever heard of this one: "You can remove a man from the Balkans but never the Balkans out of the man"?:)
Re: “Balkanize”.
It’s true that in Slovenia the Balkans is also usually considered a negative term, but I think it’s for different reasons than in the case of the English word “Balkanize”. In English, Balkanization is the division of an area into smaller, often hostile units. I never had the impression that when Slovenians are snooty about the Balkans it’s because of its supposed division into smaller hostile units, but because the Balkans is in our minds too often associated with backwardness, primitivism, poverty, and an altogether lower level of civilization. I don’t mean to imply that these stereotypes of the Balkans are in any way justified; I’m just trying to point out that the negative images of the Balkans among Slovenians are not the same as those that gave rise to the term “Balkanization” in the English language.
the chart , well all of them aren’t to be taken seriously if you ask me .
It’s definitely not meant to be taken seriously.ill-advised:
Your distinction is spot-on, although both point to a similarly
negative connotation: chaos. I wonder if the term "Balkans" is viewed
negatively throughout the Balkans, though, or just outside?
Supposing Slovenia is ‘outside’…:-P
Micheal M.: No, mostly just outside. I’m not sure about Greece but e.g. in Belgrade there’s hotel Balkan and Balkan street is one of the central ones; the Bulgarian national carrier used to be called Balkan Air Tour and in Sofia there’s "Sheraton Sofia Hotel Balkan". Besides sme other places there’s even a Hotel Balkan in Prague.
Greeks = Turks
Greeks=Turks? WTF? !!!I saw that chart AGES ago thanks to
Metafilter. The views of Balkans people of one another are a bit more
complex of course. I think it was meant for laughs, did anyone have a
good look at the original article, with the Scandinavians and the
peoples of the British Isles? Similar stuff. It was a comment on the
tendancy of different European groups to hate each other badly. I mean
seriously, at one time the British Isles had serious issues, such as a
DISGUSTING level of slaughter. I am refereing of course to the era of
Cromwell and the Jacobite Wars. There were mass graves and rape and
attrocities and everything else. The Empire meant the English had to
quit killing quite so many Scots and Irish, because they were needed to
conquer the Africans and the Indians and to carry out the occupation
and help in the plunder of far flung parts of the Empire. That is the
only reason the British Isles are quieter than the Balkans. There are a
LOT of ancient repressed hatreds there.
Well, my Eurasian grandmother hated her Irish cousins(although she
never talked about it around us kids), so there are a lot of hard
feelings based on centuries of conflict between the different groups
found in the British Isles. Irish have a reputation as being frightful
snobs, and here in America we do have the "Irish martyr" suffering
Irish stereotype.
Let’s not forget the enclosure movement that forced many Scots
to emigrate out into England, the colonies, and in the case of one of
my great-greatgrandfathers, China, where he built a fortune that
lasted until the Communists took over in 1949.
Scots pride themselves on their English, and think that few British
really know how to use their native tongue. Kinda like the way
Brits think about American Anglophones, I guess……..
Sorry for the ignorance from a latinamerican, but how can an European be NRE? How can French be more European than Greeks or Turks. In a continent with so much variety which is the criteria for being more European than others? Which is the point or reference… there is not. The European word is variety, so there is no way of being more or less European.
Greeks are Turks…
(daaah!…?)
Strange i didnt know that , since im a journalism /history major…, well i must revise my knowledge and maybe update my bibliography.
Then Cypriots are most likely to be English and the people from the Ionian islands are definitely Italian.
Certainly.
and as we say here, we are not Greeks , we are Athenians…
LOL
Search your feelings, you know it to be true
i doubt it dear!i doubt it…
no, you’re dorians =P
Actually it’s not the Irish who are the worst snobs, it’s the Scots.
Both Scots and Irish when they use ‘proper’ English do speak the
language better than either English or Americans in my considered
opinion.I would not say that the ’suffering martyr’ thing is
part of the American Irish reality anymore. It definately was until
recently. Probably the facts of war had something to do with it. That
has toned down a lot. Both Scots and Irish are very unaccepting
of people who are not full blooded members of their groups which is
ridiculous in America because most American families are mixed,
ethnically and racially.I would say that Scots and Irish are NRE
because there’s funny ways they are closer to being culturally American
in the case of the Irish, and culturally the Scots have a lot in common
with Canada. I feel just like I’m in the States when I’m in Ireland.
It’s almost like not going abroad at all.