EUROPE IN THE MIRROR OF BOSNIAN WOMAN

In the encounter with Bosnia, its citizens and their way of living, through travelogues and newspaper descriptions, through architecture of Bosnian pavilions at large world exhibitions of the late 19th century, through graphic maps, drawings and paintings, European authors, artists and architects often discover Orientalist approach and discourse. According to Edward Said, Orientalism can also be understood as a way of thinking, as the enormously systematic discipline by which European culture was able to manage – and even produce – the Orient politically, sociologically, militarily, ideologically, scientifically and imaginatively during the post-Enlightenment period, and European culture gained its strength and identity by setting itself off against the Orient as a sort of surrogate and even underground self (Said, 1979, 3). Thus, for instance, Bosnian pavilion at the exhibition in Vienna was designed in the Neo-Moorish style – a style which corresponded to the view of Bosnia as something exotic, different, the “other” in the Western European cultural context, and therefore to express this Orientalizing view, styles were used which were not indigenous for this environment. Elements of the Neo-Moorish style were also used by the consummate director of the National Museum and editor-in-chief of Glasnik Zemaljskog muzeja, Ćiro Truhelka, PhD (1865–1942) when decorating part of the hall of the Community Hall in 1903.

Texts by Wilma pl. Kallay, wife of Benjamin Kallay, Austro-Hungarian Minister of Finance and governor of Bosnia and Herzegovina (1882–1903), published in Nada, the most significant magazine for social and cultural affairs published by Land Government (1895–1903), reveal such a view to a large extent. Describing the Bosnian Muslim woman as “a child of grateful and unadulterated nature” whose trust can be gained by “interest in trifles that interest her”, Wilma pl. Kallay claims:

The Mohammedan woman is like a kind-hearted, simple child, she is scared of the unknown and you can win her trust and liking only by a common consistent interest in trifles that interest her. However, she is also like a child of grateful and unadulterated nature. She sincerely rejoices every knick-knack. (...) Of course, conversation is fairly limited, although one should not think that Mohammedan women are not capable of it. It is by no means true. I have often had the opportunity to find out how sharp-witted some Mohammedan women are (...) (Wilma pl. Kallay, “O našem ženskom svijetuˮ, Nada, no. 10, 15.5.1895., p. 18).

About a hundred years after the text by Wilma pl. Kallay, a poster entitled Bosnian Girl (2003) was created by Šejla Kamerić. On the poster, over the face of the artist with a straight and unflinching gaze there is a superimposed graffito of an unknown Dutch soldier, a member of UNPROFOR units from the base in Potočari (1994–1995), a graffito which was preserved on the photograph by Tarik Samarah, and where the Bosnian Muslim girl was described as stinking, toothless, moustached. Wilma pl. Kallay was not familiar, or did not want to be familiar, with Muslim women who wrote poetry, such as Umihana Čuvidina (1795–1870) and Habiba Rizvanbegović Stočević (1845–1890); with a transcriber of the Qur'an from the 18th century Amina, a daughter of Mustafa Čelebija, from the neighborhood of Žabljak in Sarajevo; with numerous women – benefactors among Muslim women of Bosnia, or with Begzada Bašagić Gavrankapetanović, who was faced with the threat of being deprived of her land in the area of Počitelj, and thus of means for educating her children, and who wrote a letter to the Austrian king and tsar in Bosančica script in 1902.

Although the text by Wilma pl. Kallay does not have a crude, offensive and denigrating tinge like the Dutch graffito, it opens space for reflection about whether anything has changed at all in the perception of Muslim women of Bosnia by Europe over the past hundred years, in the years when Muslim women engendered a large number of scientists, doctors, artists, university professors, many of whom have been part of European science and culture. Or do the Orientalizing stereotypes “about limited conversation”, though “a couple of sharp-witted Mohammedan woman” still dominate?

References:

• Said, Edward W. (1979), Orientalism, Vintage Books, A Division of Random House, New York.

• Nada, no. 10, 15.5.1895.

• Art Collection Telekom, https://www.art-collection-telekom.com/en/collection/bosnian-girl