Beschreibung:
<jats:p>It is argued in this paper that Braudel's view of mountain communities (which he, though allowing for numerous exceptions, depicted as isolated, largely immobile and prolific) remains heavily indebted to the tradition of the Vidalian School of Human Geography, characterized by its immobilism and anti-urban bias. Braudel is famous for “dynamizing” the Mediterranean and thereby opposing Vidalian immobilism. However, Braudel's dynamism and his stress on mobility and connectivity applies only to his view of the urban part, whereas his view of the rural, and especially mountainous, hinterlands remains largely exempted from it. This questioning of the Braudelian model of mountain migrations is based on the recent developments within Alpine anthropology made possible by its cross-fertilization with historical demography (Pier Paolo Viazzo and his “school”) as well as within recent mountain studies in general. The new picture of mountain communities emerging from these studies is one of highly mobile mountain populations who are characterized by entrepreneurial spirit and proactive strategies of migration, and is often based on prosperity instead of misery and hunger, and it aims at making the survival of mountain communities possible. As this “Alpine model” has been progressively expanded and tested on other mountain environments, this paper argues for the continuities between the Alps and the mountains of the Balkan peninsula.</jats:p>