Abstract :
The paper presents a survey of anti-Turkish themes in European literatures in the 15th-16th centuries from both Western and Central Europe and from the Balkans. Comparative analysis shows that some European literatures developed their characteristic forms of expressing anti- Turkish content: Poland specialized mainly in orations (as a literary genre, orations were intended for reading rather than delivering) while the countries directly occupied or threatened by Turkey (Greece, the Balkans, Hungary, and Italy) developed poetic literary forms: lament, prayers, or poems. These were works which were largely part of oral culture, meant for declamation to an audience rather than for silent reading. The principal goal of the article, however, is to examine how the image of “the Turk” was shaped in European literatures. The author’s thesis is that we are dealing with a dynamic phenomenon, changing during the investigated span of 120 years. During that time one could observe a change in the attitude of the European public to the Ottoman Turks, from the negative towards more positive, and an increase in the genuine interest in the enemy of the Christian Europe. One of the factors contributing to this change was the invention of printing, which made all kinds of literature concerning the Turks more available.
NaturalLanguageKeyword :
anti , Turkish literature , Western Europe , Balkans , Ottoman Empire
