Dositejevo viđenje Dalmacije i fenomen morlakizma: prilog historijskoj imagologiji
Dositej’s View of Dalmatia and the Phenomenon of Morlakism: A Contribution to Historical Imagology

Summary/Abstract: Starting from the theoretical premises of historical imagology, this paper analyzes Dositej Obradović’s image of Dalmatia and the Morlak inhabitants of its hinterland. The central issue is the question to what extent the mental attitudes of the Enlightenment epoch and the specific socio-cultural context of “Morlak” Dalmatia, especially its Serbian Orthodox element, have influenced Dositej’s writing and the formation of his images and attitudes towards the region and its people. This study actually postulates two Dositejs: the “younger” one from the Dalmatian period, who was still under the influence of the ecclesiastical tradition, and the “mature” one from the later period, who has already appropriated the ideas of the Enlightenment era. For the most part, Dositej’s images originate from this mature period and function as a part of his enlightened and rational value system, which he had already elaborated by that time. His multilayered views on Dalmatia are mirrored in his critique of three different phenomena: the superstitions and customs of the Morlak people, the religious culture and mutual intolerance between the Morlaks of “Greek” and “Latin” confessions, and the role that folk customs played in creating the individual and culture as a whole. Dositej does not always resort to the Morlakist literary discourse, which prevailed in the European literature of the Enlightenment. For him, the Dalmatian Morlaks were not the “noble savages”, but rather noble simple people; he did not “discover” an exotic tribe, but rather his own (“Slavoserbian”) people, whom he sought to educate and awaken in the spirit of Enlightenment. What links him more than anything else to the Morlakist discourse is his moderate idealization of the inhabitants of the Dalmatian hinterland: he describes them as justice-loving and honest people, albeit backward in all respects owing to their lack of education and to their superstition. In fact, he seems to have had an ambivalent attitude towards the Morlaks: sometimes he writes about them from the position of their compatriot (the “we”-attitude), while at other times they are the Others, different from him (the “they”-attitude), especially when it comes to criticizing their folk customs and superstitions. As a special problem, Dositej mentions religious intolerance, but he sees its source in the ecclesiastical circles, especially the monastic orders, rather than the people as such, which brings him close to Fortis and Lovrić.

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