Abstract
THE TURKS AND THE TURKISH IMAGE IN THE HEROIC POEMS OF THE SOUTHERN SLAVS
The fact that Turks represented the most important military and political power in Europe starting from the 14th century onwards, has led to the creation of a pejorative Turkish image in the memory of European Christians throughout Europe. The struggle between Turks and European societies and the centuries of struggles and defeats have determined the Turkish image in the world of European thought. From this point of view, the Turks were envisioned as horrible, barbaric, and people who were fed with feelings of hatred towards themselves, a punishment sent by God and wrath of God. This pejorative image created by the Turks in the minds of Europeans has been verbalised by various literary and folklore products up to the present day, and Turkish perception that exists in the minds of Europeans has inspired the literacy such as novels, ballads, epics. On the other hand, in the era of romantic nationalism, the pejorative Turkish perception and the Turkish hostility in the minds of the peoples living in the Balkan region, which constitute the most complex region of Europe in terms of multiethnic structure, have a great role in the formation of their national history and identities. In this study, we will focus on how Turks and Turkish images are reflected in the heroic poems of Slavic communities that we defined as Southern Slavs, living in the borders of Bosnia, Herzegovina, Croatia, Serbia and Montenegro. We will also try to determine effect of the ethnic and religious identities of the Catholic, Orthodox and Muslim epic narrators on the structure of the epics and the Turkish image in the epics. The aim of this study is to reveal the positive and negative characteristics of the Turkish image formed by the influence of the Turkish domination that has lasted for centuries in the depths of the South Slavs through the epics of folklore products which best reflect the collective subconscious of societies.
Keywords
Southern Slavs, poetry of poetry, Turks, Turkish image, nationalism.
