Frontier Orientalism and the Turkish Image in Central European Literature [Hardcover]

This comparative study analyzes the ways that Central European writers used stereotypes of the Turks to develop their national identities from the early modern period to the present. Charles D. Sabatos uses Andre Gingrichs concept of frontier Orientalism to foreground his analysis of Central European Orientalism, designating the nations of the former Habsburg Empire as the occident and the Turks as the oriental Other. This study applies theoretical approaches to literary historyas developed by scholars such as Stephen Greenblatt and Linda Hutcheonto a range of texts from the early modern period, the nineteenth-century national revivals, interwar independence, and the communist and postsocialist regimes. By following these depictions across literatures and over an extensive historical period, this study illustrates how the Turkish stereotype evolved from a menace to a more abstract yet still powerful metaphor of resistance, and finally to a mythical figure that evoked humor as often as fear.Charles D. Sabatos is associate professor of comparative literature at Yeditepe University.

Frontier Orientalism and the Turkish Image in Central European Literature makes an exciting contribution to scholarly debates on the role of Ottoman ideas in the formation of European identity and nationhood. Both ambitious in scope and grounded in theory, this study traces self-fashioning and nation formation in Slovak and related literatures from the early modern period through to the present day. It is a reminder that Central and Eastern Europe were vitally connected to both Western Europe and the Mediterranean, and that these cross-cultural interactions sparked great creativity, as storytellers navigated the intersections between power and identity against shifting political boundaries. These stories are important not only for specialists in Central European literature, but also for anyone who studies the development of nations and national identities. Laura Lisy-Wagner, Sanlè