The post-Yugoslav wars have shaken the foundations of the European peace project. However, the newly formed stereotypical image of the Balkans is just as much related to the historical implications of Austria and Germany. Therefore, at the very beginning, discourse formation and concrete war events are intertwined to analyze the literary processing of the recent wars from a dual perspective of 'inside' and 'outside' for the first time. The central question is how literature is topographed by the war-torn landscape and how it, in turn, topographs that landscape. Eyewitness accounts not only criticize relevant discourses, such as the 'Clash of Civilizations,' but also emphasize genuinely literary techniques to articulate the trauma. In contrast, the external perspective appears almost modest.