From frontier Orientalism to transnational communities
From frontier Orientalism to transnational communities

Images of the Tatars in modern Romanian literature

Summary/Abstract: This article is both an analysis of the image of Tatars in modern Romanian literature (c. 1830–1948) and a theoretical reflection on the manner in which, in some Central and EasternEuropean literatures, such as the Romanian one, “frontier Orientalism” (Andre Gingrich)contributed to the creation of transnational communities. Thus, although the Tatars are notvery frequently depicted in Romanian literature, they have acquired a pivotal function here.In contrast to the image of Oriental Muslims in the Western area of Central and EasternEurope, which tends to polarize along the ethical axis of good vs. evil (e. g., the Bosnian vs.the Turks), Tatars have an ambiguous function in modern Romanian literature, caused bothby their Orientalization as a Muslim Other and by the discovery of various ethnic similaritieswith the Romanians, generated by their common status of “small(er) nations”

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