Reflections on Turkey by Pre-Modern German Writers and Poets (14th and 15th Centuries)
Albrecht ClassenWhile modern literary research has focused much, and for good reasons, on the significant contributions of contemporary Turkish-German authors, artists, movie makers, composers, and others, this paper offers new perspectives regarding the presence of Turkey and Turks in late medieval German literature and travelogues. - Although the West has regularly viewed the Ottomans with great suspicion and fear, already in the late Middle Ages a variety of authors of different sorts of texts explored alternative perspectives and invited their audiences, at least indirectly, to consider the Turkish culture as an intriguing alternative to their own. This did not, of course, diminish the global terror, especially in the wake of the Ottoman attacks of Europe throughout the early modern age, but the documents examined here highlight the extent to which the discourse was rather complex and consisted of negative (slave reports) and positive perspectives (poetic allusions, travelogues). A number of times, the comments about the Turkish society were even used as a positive foil against the profound shortcomings of Christian society, as much as Islam was regarded as a grave danger for the West. Through a close textual analysis, examining the deeper meanings of the writers’ or poets’ statements, this article intends to explore significant cultural-historical perspectives concerning Western views of the Turks, pursuing xenological investigations.
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