Slovenska Literatura (May 2015)
The Image of the Turk in the Works of the Slovaks and the Macedonians
Abstract
The goal of the article is to outline the development of presenting (anti-)Turkish themes in Macedonian and early Slovak literatures (especially in the 17th century). The first part is followed by a comparison of two selected folk ballads (Slovak and Macedonian), which mainly reveals their common genre characteristics. The article is built on the research and findings of literary scientists from both of the countries (Kiril Penušliski, Jozef Minárik, Zuzana Kákošová and others), however, the resources needed for analysing the subejct matter in question also come from linguistic research and history. (Anti-)Turkish themes thus develop further to take a wider comparative-interpretative view aiming at a Slavic inter-literary and inter-ethnic context. What is also partly challenged is the classification of folk ballads in both countries in terms of subject, while the comparison is mainly focused on the writings featuring personal and family tragedies which take place against a background of the Ottoman invasion. The main outcome of the article is a finding that the folk ballads feature common genre characteristics as well as similar subject matters, themes, motifs and styles, while frequently the same stylistic means of expression and artistic techniques are used. At the same time, it is one of very few attempts at finding direct or at least indirect cultural and „literary“ contacts between the Slovaks and the Macedonians in the period of time from the 9th to the 18th century. And last but not least, what could be considered another contribution of the article is the first translation of a Macedonian folk balld titled Бог да убије Дебрани (May God Kill Debrans) into Slovak.
