Tussen balkanisme en oriëntalisme: Emants over Bosnië en Herzegovina

Abstract

This article is an analysis of a travel journal written by the well-known Dutch novelist Marcellus Emants who, although strongly inspired by Naturalism, displayed a preference for romantic oriental images. Being solidly informed about the economic, political, multi-confessional and multi-ethnical reality of Bosnia and Herzegovina at the beginning of the twentieth century, he noted observations that would become typical for a future Balkan discourse in the Netherlands. Nevertheless, his attention was primarily drawn to the muslim society, because it allowed him to indulge in romatic visions of an oriental paradise lost.