Part III: Framing Balkan Biographies or Mission Possible: Rogue Nation

No, it is not a mistake. The titles of this year's IWM Lectures in Human Sciences alluded to Mission Impossible, the Tom Cruise film series. While it is impossible to perform his physical stunts, the tricky mountainous terrain of the Balkans and their trickier history offer enough vertigo. Still, there is nothing comparable to looking down from a mountain peak in the Balkans. But Gadamer is there, with his defence of humanities, with his thoughts on tradition, prejudice, experience, dialogue, negotiation, reciprocity, situatedness, and the fusion of horizons. In three consecutive lectures, Maria Todorova took stock of her own shifting horizons as she has both experienced and contemplated the Balkans throughout her life.

The third lecture – Framing Balkan Biographies or Mission Possible: Rogue Nation – shifted the perspective drastically to focus on individuals, to let them speak and enter in a “true conversation, a conversation in which we seek to find ‘our’ language––to grasp what we have in common” (Gadamer). By presenting brief biographies of several relatively unknown individuals from different social backgrounds, the lecture highlighted the power (and pitfalls) of “framing.” Maybe on top of the mountain, we can reach a momentary fusion.

Maria Todorova is a Bulgarian historian specializing in the Balkans. She publishes extensively on Eastern Europe, the Balkans, and Communism. Imagining the Balkans (1997) is her most influential book. Todorova is Edward William & Jane Marr Gutgsell Endowed Professor Emerita at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Currently, she is Guest of the Institute at the Institute for Human Sciences (IWM Vienna).

Ivan Vejvoda, IWM Permanent Fellow, moderated the evening.

The video recording of the lecture is available below.