Fascynujący czy przerażający świat islamu w wybranych utworach chorwackich ilirystów i późnych romantyków?

Abstract

By exposing the image of Croatia as bulwark of Christianity, the Croatian literature of 19th century takes up the topic of Muslim threat in Balkans. The ideogemes of bridge (between East and West) and antemurale christianitatis, lastingly associated with Croatian culture, often caused the projection of anti-Turkish and anti-Islam stereotypes, according to which the Muslim world seems: dark, primitive, dirty, chthonic, insatiable, old-fashioned, wild, threatening (Christianity), strange, etc. In the flagship Croatian literature of national revival, focused on building own, national and Christian identity, curiosity and fascination with the Islamic world interlaces with reluctance towards the strange. Muslim space (religion, mentality, practices) becomes indispensable background for typically romantic characters, a synonym of culture clash (Christian fight with the Tatar invasion, later Turkish raid generating the common contradictions: good – evil, civilization – barbarity, etc.). In other cases the fascination with the vivid Orient appears not only as a pose typical for the Romanticism, but also as inspiration with magical and spiritual East in universal tale of a man.