Poganska sila: slika Turaka u Vitezovićevu Odiljenju sigetskom
Pagan force: the image of Turks in Vitezović’s Odiljenje sigetsko

Summary/Abstract: The stereotypical images of Turks, a conquering force which represents a constant threat to Croatia and Europe, since the 15th century are the permanent place of the literary and semiliterary treatment of skirmishes between the Christian and Ottoman armies. And the most wellknown literary realisation by Pavao Ritter Vitezović – the "poem" Odiljenje sigetsko – will resort to many kinds of attributes of the attacking Turkish armies of which only a small part could be characterised as negative, with which an obvious departure from the then anti-Turkish productions was made. Following the traces of contemporary imagological research and the still relatively fresh attempts at the applying of their conclusions to Croatian literature (Dukić), Vitezović’s Odiljenje is viewed from the perspective of the stereotypical qualification of opponents, the Ottoman armies and their functions. The reasons of creating a considerably more moderate image of the Turks are found equally between the content and formal peculiarities of the text, but also in the reception of its orientation which to a great extent may also have caused the most tolerant literary relationship towards the enemy from the east in the Early Modern Age of our literature.

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