Zmiana modelu kulturowego w Serbii na przełomie XIX i XX w. na podstawie opowiadania „Ibisz-aga” Stevana Sremaca
Streszczenie
The article provides an analysis of Stevan Sremac’s short story Ibisz-aga, which illustrates
the change of customs that was gradually taking place in the 19th-century Serbia. This was the
time of the formation of a specific cultural paradigm that joined the elements of the Osmanli
tradition and the ideas of the middle-class Europe. This transformation of the cultural paradigm
was characterized by the slow national emancipation, as well as the modernization. Their aim
was to take over and assimilate the style of life which was dominant in Europe at that time. The
19th century marks the period of the slow formation of independent Serbian state, although
due to the historical circumstances not all territories were liberated from the Turkish authority
simultaneously. Because of the Turks’ centuries-old presence on the Balkan Peninsula, the 19thcentury
modernization processes were seen there as the marginalization of the Osmanli legacy,
which was considered the expression of lower culture. However, contrary to the elites’ intentions,
through the subsequent decades, at least for a part of the Serbian society these were the values of
Western Europe that symbolized everything that was alien, antagonistic and potentially dangerous
for the traditional state of affairs. Sremac’s short story perfectly displays its author’s sympathies
and antipathies. Unlike the stereotypical approach present in the 19th-century literature, the
writer perceives Turks as the guardians of these values which are indirectly opposed to the ones
that Western Europe – through the Serbs from Vojvodina – offered the Serbian state.
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