Nasreddin Hodja’s foolish wisdom: Slavic literary adaptations of a Turkish folk hero
Nasreddin Hodja’s foolish wisdom: Slavic literary adaptations of a Turkish folk hero

Summary/Abstract: The Turkish comic folk hero Nasreddin Hodja is known across the Muslim and former Ottomanworld, but he also has a unique place in modern Slavic literatures (Russian, Bosnian/Serbian, Bulgarian, and Czech). What is interesting in each of these works is the way that thischaracter has been adapted as a transcultural icon, transforming his medieval Islamic spiritinto something suitable for modern national literatures while preserving his essential comicqualities. Nasreddin’s Slavic “afterlife” is not simply a forerunner of literary globalization, italso shows how exotic figures allow expanded freedom of expression under various forms ofcultural repression.

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