Baština (Jan 2017)
Slavic and Serbian cultural heritage in the 17th century Ottoman Balkans in the eyes of Serbian travel writers: Published by Stojan Novaković
Abstract
Today's modern research culture, especially the cultural heritage of tangible and intangible culture is increasingly turning to the private testing, personal in history, overlooking the 'little' man in the social, political and cultural opportunities and conditions in general, at a given time and space to reveal collective 'state of mind'. Serbian travel writers, as a source of research of Serbian cultural heritage in the Balkans, especially over a wide area of the Serbian lands, can be a very useful historical source, because of the good knowledge of the local languages, the culture of the area and the period that is the subject of this brief survey. In his fruitful and comprehensive scientific historiographical work, Stojan Novaković paid great attention to the issue of historical sources, which are considered to be essential to a better understanding of the history of the Serbian nation. The reason why Serbian travelogue texts seem to be important for our history is certainly a more immediate and realistic attitude towards the Christian and Slavic, primarily Serbian, population as well as the information about them which has a great historical value. Their very existence and the time in which they are obtained represent a history for themselves and we can indirectly indicate the socio-cultural situation of our people at that time. In medieval culture and heritage, under the auspices of the church, travel literature found its important place. Travelers appear to be indispensable and irreplaceable in the study of ethnological, sociological, cultural, religious, philosophical and psychological, economic and even social (cultural) issues of modern social sciences and humanities, both domestic and foreign, and in many ways are more important than the primary historical sources, because of their subjective-personal character and direct information that they can provide enabling us to 'freeze' a cultural-social picture of the time and space.
