Literary work of Bora Stankovic and Vranje: Identity strategies, discourse and practices

Vranje is a town located in the southern Serbia. Until 1878 the town was ruled by the Ottoman Turks. The period after 1878, at the crossroad of the centuries, was described in the works of a literary writer, Bora Stankovic (1876, Vranje- 1927, Belgrade). His opus describes many old forms of the town life that were replaced with the new forms; in effect, as a writer, Stankovic provided an artistic transposition of reality and not the facts. Vranje is a town with rich layers of reality, but the image of the town, both from the insiders but also the outsiders perspectives, is constantly being associated with only one period of the town's past- the one marked by Orientalism, its symbols and motives originated in the works of Strankovic, and whose meanings continue to be replicated even today. This paper discusses various processes of interaction of inter- and intra- self-determination of the Vranje's identity, as well ad the Orientalistic discourse which characterize the whole process. Vranje's identity construction is made of contradictory elements (both on the inner and outer levels), mutually connected and determined.