Balkan Geography and the De-Orientalization of Freud

The invention of the Balkans as Europe's subaltern pre-dates Freud, but he established future justification for curing the Balkans from its "Oriental Yoke." During a trip to the Balkans in the spring and summer of 1898, at the peak of his self-analysis, Freud encountered his repressed sexuality, but his forbidden desire helped him to craft the theory of the "unconscious." On the one hand, Freud relies on the Balkan subaltern and its potent libidinal force to challenge established sexual dogma and the morality of the European bourgeoisie; on the other hand, he declares the Balkans a dangerous zone—pathological, anal, "archaic," and in need of Oedipalization. During his visit to the Acropolis in 1904, Freud had a brief glimpse into Western colonial geography and Orientalism as its constitutive bias, but he failed to develop a proper response to it since he had regarded Orientalism to be part of being civilized and European.