Travels among “backward heathens”: J. I. Bajza’s “The Adventures and Experiences of the Young Man René” as a frontier orientalist fantasy

Year, pages: 2019, 45 - 60

This article analyzes the Slovak novel René mládenca príhody a skúsenosti (1783–1785) by Jozef Ignác Bajza as a frontier orientalist fantasy. Unlike in Western European orientalist texts, where images of alien Muslim cultures served as a justification for imperialism, here they are used to fashion a Slovak modernity, confirming the Slovak people’s Christian, European and Slavic identity at a time when it was politically just starting to come into being as a nation. It is further argued that the novel departs from the typical Western orientalist fantasy, figured as a heterosexual heroic romance, towards the narrative of homo-social nationalist self-fashioning.

Pucherová, D. 2019. Travels among “backward heathens”: J. I. Bajza’s “The Adventures and Experiences of the Young Man René” as a frontier orientalist fantasy. In World Literature Studies, vol. 11, no.2, pp. 45-60. 1337-9275.

Pucherová, D. (2019). Travels among “backward heathens”: J. I. Bajza’s “The Adventures and Experiences of the Young Man René” as a frontier orientalist fantasy. World Literature Studies, 11(2), 45-60. 1337-9275.

Publisher: ÚSvL SAV, v. v. i.