Abstract
Edward Said's epochal work "Orientalism" from 1978, with its appearance, launched not only the critical-theoretical field of postcolonialism and the issue of cognitive privilege, but also a kind of scientific domino effect in the research of the concept of "otherness". Bulgarian historian Maria Todorova, by publishing her work "The Imaginary Balkans", provides us with an insight into the results of applying Said's concept of Orientalism to the Balkans - where, due to the centuries-old activities of the Ottoman Empire, it is viewed as an Ottoman legacy, or rather, a European, internal "other" - which is defined by Todorova as "Balkanism". The paper highlights how the initial stigmatization of the Balkans influenced the development of the Balkanistic discourse, or Balkanism, and somewhat later the emergence of a new subcategory - "Serbian Balkanism".