Through the Balkan States: Home movies as travel texts and tourism histories in the Mediterranean, c.1923-39

Newly available lightweight cine camera equipment provided affluent British holidaymakers with an innovative travel accessory in the mid 1920s. Travel narratives produced by early camera-touting enthusiasts may be likened to preceding forms of travel experience depicted in art and written form, but important differences occur too. This discussion explores issues of place representation, ethnography and perceptions of regional identities, cultures, and histories through reference to amateur holiday footage filmed in the Balkans in 1934. Analysis of rural and urban scenes, traditions, and itinerary, as well as the cinematic processes found within this filmic travelogue, are related to earlier outsiders’ responses and contemporary travel texts including guides, diaries and other genres of travel literature. Contemporary debates on post-conflict identity in the Balkan region and tourism history within the Mediterranean, as well as socio-cultural and aesthetic aspects of non-professional film-making form a wider context for this focus upon Balkan imagery.