The Portrayal of Africa in the Newspaper Zgodnja Danica from 1849 to 1859
The Portrayal of Africa in the Newspaper Zgodnja Danica from 1849 to 1859

Summary/Abstract: The article focuses on the image of Africa and Africans in the Zgodnja Danica newspaper among Slovenians in the period fom 1849 to 1859. At that time, the Catholic mission for Central Africa under the leadership of Ignacij Knoblehar was also supported by the Austrian Empire for the reasons of a potential colonial expansion, while the decade coincided with the beginning of the Slovenian nation-building process. After 1848, however, the non-absolutist regime and the principles of Catholic ideology prevailed, so that only two newspapers were allowed to be published in Slovenian, one of them Zgodnja Danica. Luka Jeran, the editor of the journal and strong promoter of the mission, published, translated, and censored numerous leters and reports by Knoblehar and his co-workers that presented the missionary’s view of the physical aspects and people of what are now Egypt, Sudan, and South Sudan. The land was portrayed as “distant” and as possessing an “unhealthy climate”. In contrast, the people were portrayed, on the one hand, as bright, beautiful, and skilled, while on the other hand, they were deemed as “lazy and undeveloped”, as they were seen fom the Western perspective of development and progress. Moreover, the articles written by people who had never been to Africa generated the stereotype of the “helpless and poor” African, while the land was portrayed as “dark” and “dangerous”. As a part of the prevailing image, numerous “fundraisers” in support of the Central African mission reveal not only how Slovenians saw Africa and Africans, but also how they saw “themselves” in contrast to “the others”, forming an “autostereotype” of the Slovenian who can “help” those who, in their perception, needed their assistance.

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