Islam, Christianity and the Making of Czech Identity, 1453-1683

Working through the descriptive and ethnographic texts produced by Czech speakers about Islam and the Ottoman Empire, this study brings to light how they used this discourse to create Czech identities. Rather than simply constructing identity in opposition to the Islamic Other, Laura Lisy-Wagner investigates how the authors played the Holy Roman and Ottoman Empires off each other, creating a culturally autonomous space for themselves in between.

Laura Lisy-Wagner is Assistant Professor of History at San Francisco State University, USA.