Did the “Balkan Enlightenment” actually exist? If yes, when and where did it take place, and within which geographical area, religious context or linguistic frame? Should it not be more accurate to label it as the “South East European Enlightenment” or even the “South Slavic Enlightenment”? 
The terminology issue reflects the multiple strands of conversations that cohered around the poetical questions of the epoch and sheds the light on the complex and often contradictory processes of the Enlightenment that were at work in the Balkans during the 18th and 19th centuries. The multiple and conflicting terms of identity affected the works of the representatives of the Balkan Enlightenment. By acknowledging the linguistic, national and religious differences between the Enlightenment thinkers and their multitudinous, often conflicting intellectual traditions, within the seminar we will attempt to recognise the identity markers of the Balkan Enlightenment and to define the key words that would sum up the characteristics of the Enlightenment Project arising on the margins of the 18th century Europe. The works of the representatives of the Balkan Enlightenment such as belonged not only to one specific geographical region or one nation but rather that they, with their knowledge and language competence, were the members of the international Republic of Letters and the cosmopolitan society of the Age of Reason. 

The module “Balkan Enlightenment” is taught by Dr Dragana Grbić. You can chose it again in the summer semester 2021.