Islam, Christianity and the Making of Czech Identity, 1453–1683 by Laura Lisy-Wagner (review)

Abstract

<p>This is a courageous and ambitious undertaking. The author examines narratives about the Czech lands wherein Czechs played central roles and Czech identity was developed in relation to both East and West. The main focus of this book is on looking east and interacting with Islam and the Ottoman Empire. Laura Lisy-Wagner argues that the writings by Czechs that she has investigated are of considerably more significance than simply reflecting Czech attitudes toward Muslims. There is, in a real sense, a melding of East and West that results in the creation of liminal space and identity. Her study builds toward the conclusion that the narratives give voice to perspectives from the frontiers of Europe shedding light on historic binaries and accentuating what it means to be European, non-European, Christian, or Muslim. In these textual narratives, Lisy-Wagner believes such boundaries are ultimately rendered meaningless. Adopting the idea of beaches and islands from the work of Greg Dening on cultural and colonial encounters in Oceania, Lisy-Wagner suggests that her texts from early modern Europe provide a rhetorical space in which different cultures could meet and in these rhetorical spaces, identities could be challenged, disassembled, and reconstructed. In this way, national and cultural identities are subordinated to wider influences and factors. Notions of monolithic Czech or Islamic identity are dismissed while diversity and plurality within those historic taxonomies are exploited. What was the Turk? Who or what was Czech? One was as Czech as the next man (or woman). This book takes a specific focus and suggests that Czech relations with Islam and Christianity were fundamental for the development of what it meant to be Czech in the early modern world.</p>