Teo Bileta, writing for Tor:
"Foreign audiences often tend to exoticize various Slavic cultures, having relatively little access to our literatures and history. Partially, the narrowness of their perception comes from the basic tendency to divide the world into ‘us’ and ‘them.’ While this tendency can seem unavoidable, it obscures our perspective. Thus, Western scholars have long tended to juxtapose their ideas of a ‘developed and progressive West’ with their conception of a ‘backward and barbaric’ East."
There is a vast body of Slavic literature that can challenge the Western perceptions of the Slavic cultures, history and attitude, but many works have difficulty reaching potential readers because of the translation barrier.
Read more on Tor.
