Cahiers Balkaniques (Dec 2008)
Barbare et infidèle
Abstract
The author argues that the patriotic mobilization of the Russians in favor of their Slavic brethrens during the Balkan crisis and the Russian-Turkish war of 1876-1878 was to a large extent based on various stories of atrocities committed by the Turks against the Slavs propagated by the press and other medias. For over two years, the Russians were exposed to an avalanche of images and stories with gruesome violence as their main theme. The Turks were represented as “barbarians” and “uncivilized” on the one hand, and as “enemies of Christianity” on the other. The denunciation of atrocities led to the justification of an essentially religious conflict based on mutually exclusive world-views. The image of the enemy thus created associates both traditional and modern themes, and is based on the bedrock of shared representations.
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