Bośnia – {hortus horridus}. Obraz Bośni w podróżach franciszkanów Grgi Marticia i Ivana Frano Jukicia
Bosnia – {hortus horridus}. The image of Bosnia in travels of Franciscans: Grga Martić and Ivan Frano Jukić

Summary/Abstract: The subject of discussion in the present article are travel accounts of the nineteenth century given by two Franciscans, namely, Grga Matić and Ivan Frano Jukić as a result of their visit in Bosnia. The image of the territory, reconstructed on the basis of their accounts, manifests itself as a devastated Arcadia. Bosnia turns out to be a country which may not be taken under rational consideration, since it is embroiled in absurdities and contradictions, streaked with poverty, but rich in all resources of nature. The visited country is perceived as a paradisiac place destroyed by its contemptible inhabitants, who being dirty themselves, sully the whole space with their own impurity. It is a place where everything is out of place, which is transformed into a borderland, dominated by divisions, far from social and divine order. Presented as such, Bosnia, {hortus horridus}, becomes a sort of gothic garden in which, among beautiful, yet wild, nature and ruins imperfect and scared people live; their tainted women who transgress against the established roles, the oppressor (Ottoman Turks), a lazy local Muslim, and a member of the Orthodox Church who breaks out of the Illyrian common visions.

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