Zmiana modelu kulturowego w Serbii na przełomie XIX i XX w. na podstawie opowiadania „Ibisz-aga” Stevana Sremaca

Abstract

The article provides an analysis of Stevan Sremac’s short story Ibisz-aga, which illustrates the change of customs that was gradually taking place in the 19th-century Serbia. This was the time of the formation of a specific cultural paradigm that joined the elements of the Osmanli tradition and the ideas of the middle-class Europe. This transformation of the cultural paradigm was characterized by the slow national emancipation, as well as the modernization. Their aim was to take over and assimilate the style of life which was dominant in Europe at that time. The 19th century marks the period of the slow formation of independent Serbian state, although due to the historical circumstances not all territories were liberated from the Turkish authority simultaneously. Because of the Turks’ centuries-old presence on the Balkan Peninsula, the 19thcentury modernization processes were seen there as the marginalization of the Osmanli legacy, which was considered the expression of lower culture. However, contrary to the elites’ intentions, through the subsequent decades, at least for a part of the Serbian society these were the values of Western Europe that symbolized everything that was alien, antagonistic and potentially dangerous for the traditional state of affairs. Sremac’s short story perfectly displays its author’s sympathies and antipathies. Unlike the stereotypical approach present in the 19th-century literature, the writer perceives Turks as the guardians of these values which are indirectly opposed to the ones that Western Europe – through the Serbs from Vojvodina – offered the Serbian state.