The enlargement of the EU with the Balkan countries has aroused the skepticism of many.
Although EU admission is primarily a matter of economic and political concerns questions of
cultural import are readily brought into play: Does the country in question conform
sufficiently to «our» standards of a «European identity»? The problematic status of the Balkans
in this respect largely consists in their common Byzantine and Ottoman legacies. By focusing on
Bulgaria and its neighbours Romania Greece and Turkey the authors of this collection attempt
to elucidate how mutually incompatible the «cultural identity» of the Ottoman «successor
states» and that of Europe are. Ample attention is devoted not only to the perception of the
Balkans in the West but also to the self-image of people in the Balkans and perceptions they
hold of the West. If anything like a Balkan identity can be said to exist what is its relation
to the various ethnic national religious and linguistic communities? Notably what was and is
the role played by religion in nation state formation? The relationship with Europe forms the
thread that runs through the discussion of these issues.
