The article interprets Miloš Crnjanski’s (1893-1977) travelogue Love in Tuscany (1930) in the discursive context of the debate on the cultural position of Slavs in Europe which took place in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes during the 1920s. The Expressionist writers constructed Slavdom as a cultural programme, the scientists Jovan Cvijić and Vladimir Dvorniković viewed it as a counter-balance to ‘Romano-Germanic’ Europe, and Ljubomir Micić, following the re-semantization of ‘barbarians’ in the European avant-garde movements, looked upon it as a harbinger of strength and vitality which would offer a new lease on life to an exhausted continent. Combining elements from all three positions, Crnjanski stylized Slavs as ‘barbarians’ who were bringing a new life, but also as those who had always taken part in the culturally unified continent: they had always been a part of wider European cultural processes, and after the First World War, they stepped forward as bearers of a newly-found cultural energy. In this respect, Crnjanski rejects the traditional feeling of inferiority which burdened many Balkan intellectuals of his generation, and represented his ‘home’ as a place which had to be valued. The article, however, also relativizes this interpretation by pointing to the transformation of the idea of ‘home’ in Crnjanski’s oeuvre and biography
