TRAVELS AMONG “BACKWARD HEATHENS”: J. I. BAJZA’S “THE ADVENTURES AND EXPERIENCES OF THE YOUNG MAN RENÉ” AS A FRONTIER ORIENTALIST FANTASY

This article analyses the Slovak novel “René mládenca príhody a skúsenosti” (1783–1785) by Jozef Ignác Bajza as a frontier orientalist fantasy. Unlike in Western European orientalist texts, where images of alien Muslim cultures served as a justification for imperialism, here they are used to fashion a Slovak modernity, confirming the Slovak people’s Christian, European and Slavic identity at a time when it was politically just starting to come into being as a nation. It is further argued that the novel departs from the typical Western orientalist fantasy, figured as a heterosexual heroic romance, towards the narrative of homo-social nationalist self-fashioning.