ISLAMIC AND BOSNIAN ELEMENTS (THEMES AND MOTIFS) FAVORED IN THE BOSNIOAN POETRY

Abstract

A Bosniac has never been the man of the orient. However, a Bosniac has never been the man of the west, either. A Bosniac poet is somewhere in-between. On the one hand, deep within his being he feels an oriental predestination, and, on the other, he never fully succeeds in fulfilling it; he is always fulfilling it as a westerner. The full congruence of the Bosniac poets and their oriental spiritual component is impossible to find. However, it seems possible to point to the certain elements of that spiritual component that sustain it for centuries. The Islamic and Bosnian elements (themes and motives) the Bosniac poets used most often are themes from the life of the Bosniacs; Bayram (Eid), Ramadan, Hajj, Hijrah and Jannazah motifs, sevdalinka (Bosniac traditional love song) motifs and Bosnian syncretism motifs.