Skandinavci o Srbima i Srbi o Skandinavcima tokom devetnaestog veka

The period between the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century marks the beginning of modern cultural transfer between the South Slavic and Nordic peoples, as this is when Scandinavian writers and travellers – but also Swedes, Norwegians and Danes from other walks of life – began to record and publish their impressions from visits to the northernmost/European parts of the Ottoman Empire. The aim of this work is to present the available historical material in a way that best illustrates the development of the content and form of cultural transfer between Serbia and the Nordic countries in this early modern phase, during the late eighteenth, throughout the nineteenth and the early twentieth century. In methodological terms, the work relies on the Cultural Transfer Approach to achieve this goal. This method aims to process different forms of intercultural exchange, primarily those forms that take place through the circulation of various texts, discourses, practices and knowledge. Research results indicate that during the early nineteenth century – due to the small number of qualified/educated Serbs who had the means to travel to the north of Europe and to transfer new knowledge from Scandinavia to the mother country – the cultural transfer between Serbia and the Nordic countries mainly took place in the direction from Serbia to Scandinavia, and not the other way around. This began to change in the late nineteenth century. On the other hand, historical evidence indicates that Scandinavians mostly spoke positively of the Serbian people, while they perceived Serbia as an exotic (but also a backward) country.