The Image of the Turks in the Croatian Literary Culture of the 18th Century

Dukić, Davor. (2011). The Image of the Turks in the Croatian Literary Culture of the 18th Century. In: Europa und die Türkei im 18. Jahrhundert = Europe and Turkey in the 18th Century / hg. von Barbara Schmidt-Haberkamp. V&R Unipress, Bonn University Press, Göttingen, pp. 109-120. ISBN 978-3-89971-795-2

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Abstract

The image of the „Turk“ is the most commonly represented figure of the enemy in early modern Croatian literary culture. In comparison to the two preceding centuries, the interest in the Turkish theme declined in the eighteenth century, probably because of the decline in Ottoman power after the second siege of Vienna in 1683 and a long period of peace in the Croatian lands (1718 – 1788). The most frequently addressed political event, especially in the popular epic works, was the war between the Habsburg monarchy and Russia against the Ottoman Empire (1788 – 1792). The interest in the Turks became provincial, focusing no longer on Ottoman culture and civilization as such, but on the major contemporary wars and the permanent border conflicts between Christians and Muslims. The new stereotypical images and motifs which evolved in the eighteenth century are the stereotype of Turkish cultural inferiority, the hope of driving the Turkish out of Europe and the motif of mercy towards defeated Turks.

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