Against Exoticism and Folklore: The Designation “Muslims in Our Literature” in Literary Criticism Between the Two World Wars

Three different concepts of Muslim identity were formed in interwar Yugoslavia. The integration model (Bjelevac) views Muslims as “non-national” and therefore suitable for fitting into a supranational Yugoslavism based on a class or ideological platform. The synthetic model (Mitrinović) bases Yugoslav identity on the cultural-religious synthesis of Orthodoxy, Catholicism and Islam. The national model (Salihagić), on the other hand, insists on the affirmation of Bosniak identity (Bosniak) as a separate national category, emphasizing that the primary goal is the preservation of existential survival within the framework of the Yugoslav community. The process of defining the identity of Muslims in the interwar period took place through different stages and conceptual definitions - from Yugoslavianism, through Serbs and Croats, to Bosniaks - where the term “Muslim” was most often subordinated to superior categories. Different historical and political contexts conditioned constant changes in its interpretation, so Muslims could simultaneously be covered by a regional, national or state-political identity. In literary-historical discourse, this was manifested through a multitude of definitions that, in addition to confirming the instability of the concept, also emphasized its complexity in the state-political framework of the interwar period. In interwar periodicals, the term Muslim literature functioned as an indicator whose meaning depended on the ideological and critical viewpoint of the author, and it was understood to have different, often contradictory meanings. This was followed up in the second half of the 20th century by the discussions of Muhsin Rizvić and Staniša Tutnjević: while Rizvić insisted on the continuity and specificity of Muslim literature in the interwar period, Tutnjević disputed these theses, believing that it was an ideological projection and retroactive reading. The discussions from the 1980s and 1990s showed how unstable and burdened with ideological interpretations the concept remained, although in more recent scholarship the term Bosniak literature has emerged as a relatively stable designation.