Three Literature Pictures of Jews and Muslims Co-existence in Ottoman Bosnia

Abstract

The paper presents three literary images of the coexistence of Jews and Muslims in Ottoman Bosnia. The pictures chronologically represent a hodogram of coexistence from the 16th to the beginning of the 20th century. The first picture is Sušić's short story Šta učini Don Daniel Rodriga, in which the author first shows the early relationship between Bosnian Muslims and Jews in trade between the Ottoman Empire and the Venetian Republic, and then the social controversies that accompanied that process. The second picture is based on Bašeski's Ljetopis and presents a picture of coexistence in the daily life of Sarajevo in the 18th century, where it does not only include the beautiful and positive, but also the negative representations. However, this picture shows the dynamic connections between Muslims and Jews at the national level, but also the differences and tensions conditioned by the social, religious, and political context. The third picture represents the positive relationship between Muslims and Jews in the example of literary representations of Sarajevo’s Purim. Here we analyze the different interpretations of this event, as well as how much they, regardless of evident contradictions, together influenced the shaping of the discourse about this holiday of Sarajevo’s Jews.