Between Balkanism and Orientalism: British Imaginative

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British cultural engagement with the Balkans, initiated by the Greek War of Independence (1821-29) and continuing to the Balkan route refugee crisis (2015-present), has produced a corpus of literary/visual representations of the region. This study examines contradictory representations of Balkan Muslims found within these materials, as, blurring the opposition between Christian Europe and the Islamic Orient, they were associated with both the exoticism of Arabian Nights (Trevor, 1913: 78) and European familiarity (Glenny, 1996: 139). It highlights how European cultural/political factors altered images of Balkan Muslims, thus illustrating Europe's shifting geo-cultural boundaries, and asks what political/economic interests these representations support.