Orthodox Christian-Muslim Encounters in Early Ottoman Central Rumeli: Textual Perspectives from South Slavic Literature
Orthodox Christian-Muslim Encounters in Early Ottoman Central Rumeli: Textual Perspectives from South Slavic Literature

Summary/Abstract: The article examines narratives of the Orthodox Christian-Muslim encounters in the early Ottoman Central Rumeli (15th–17th centuries), with a focus on the depiction of events and interactions in a variety of Orthodox Christian textual sources: hagiographies of saints and new martyrs, stories of relic translations, Damaskin collections, and marginal notes (pripiski). The sources illustrate a wide range of interactions, from day-to-day social contacts to acts of confrontation and trials of faith. Encounters with Muslims are divided into two groups: encounters with Muslim authorities and encounters with ordinary Muslims. The article aims to identify characteristics of images of Muslims that are stable across genres and over time, as well as patterns unique to certain sources. Dynamic changes in the representation of inter-religious encounters are traced when possible. Analyzing the sources, the author puts Orthodox Christian images of Muslims in the context of their perception of the Ottoman conquest and the sultan authority. The author highlights the main differences in the representation of encounters with two groups of Muslims: while life under the Ottoman rule became a familiar environment, which made interactions with Ottoman authorities rather practical and more or less “peaceful”, with certain shifts and variety in the image of the sultan, encounters with ordinary Muslims remain a source of tension and conflict throughout the period under consideration. The author concludes that Orthodox Christians built a framework of double normality that combined adaptability to the Ottoman political and social realities with efforts to preserve their identity and resist the influence of Islam.

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