The Black Arab, Bolen Dojcin and White Angelina
Preface PREFACE Kata KULAVKOVA (Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts) An Arabesque for the Black Arab, Bolen Dojcin and White Angelina Our research into the subject of The Black Arab as a (Balkan, Mediterranean) Figure of Memory, conducted within the framework of the European project Interpretations managed by the Macedonian Academy of Arts and Sciences, was aimed at initiating a new mode of thinking and perception of Slavic and non-Slavic Balkan cultures. This mode of thinking might not be completely new in the general sense of the word, but it is new within the framework of the contemporary Balkan social constellation. For this constellation has long been char- acterised by mutual negations; animosities; exclusive interpretations of the past; immoderate appropriations of the spiritual legacy of neigh- bouring cultures; denials of the right of others to partake in a shared cultural and historical heritage; indicative explications of ethnic cultural identity through the application of historical paradigms; a fi xation on history; adoration of ancient ‘scripts’ of culture; the politicization of our shared spiritual heritage; revision and negation of identities; cultural xeno-skepsis; and the increased prevalence of ethnic or bi-ethnic prin- ciples in the constitution and functioning of states. Our mode of thinking starts from the belief that, at the beginning of the 21st century, in an atmosphere of global crisis and threatened prosperity, the peoples of the Balkans are in need of a scientifi cally based, multi-focal interpretative methodology which will observe his- tory as an intersection of autochthonous and shared constituents. The contemporary hermeneutics of history should be founded upon a com- parative and inclusive epistemological model.
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