On the basis of textual and contextual analysis of texts, knowledge of folkloristics, history and sociology, we have identified depictions of Islam and members of Islam in lite-rature and folklore. We hypothesize that images of the Other might have formed along these themes. The article examines whether the stereotyping of Islam and its mostly negative image, known from folklore and literary texts, have influenced attitudes towards Islam as a religion and, consequently, its members, and whether this negative image can be transformed into a positive one over time. We analysed selected folk songs, folk tales, and literary texts from Aškerc to the present with regard to the representation and conceptualization of Islam. Based on the analysis of texts and theoretical findings, we find that the image of Muslims/Turks in the 19th century folklore and literature, portrays the Other ontologically, religiously and culturally different, which in turn causes resistance. However, when the poet Aškerc visits the Muslim environment at the end of the 19th century, a temporal and personal break from the period of the Turkish invasions occurs; stereotyping is already interrupted, a new expe-rience of contact with Islam even impresses him, he discovers similarities with Christianity and is fascinated by the exotic. But there are still critical tones in his poems. The negative image of the adherent of Islam is prevalent in folklore and literature of the 19th century, since the collective memory of Turkish savagery and the connection of Islam and Muslims with violence is extremely persistent. It is different in the literature of the First World War. The reason for the change was the existential threat of all participants in the war that con-sequently caused the lack of the fear from the Other of the Muslim religion. After 1991, the attitude towards the Muslim Other is presented in a neutral way, except for the images from the Arab world, a world unknown and too far from us, that may be slightly negative. The article sought to capture the diversity of attitudes towards the Muslim Other as could be seen from the representations. The folklore and literary image of Islam is thus not a recipe for dialogue with the Other and the different but merely a possibility to identify single- or mul-tiple-layered images through these representations. However, contemporary interreligious trends cannot be applied to the analysis of these images nor to their contextual framework. The contemporary awareness that dialogue can take place only on a personal level, that it is possible only along with the acceptance of cultural and religious diversity, which results from transcending the doctrinal and dogmatic commandments of Islam and Christianity, is also seen in some of the analysed texts.
|
