Skewed Balkan view?

A band of cold-blooded murderers roam the dangerous gorges of the Balkans. The good, represented by Kara Ben Nemsi and his comrades, must overcome difficult obstacles, but, in the end, are able to defeat the criminal gang. This is the plot operating in Karl May's stories set in what in May's day was considered the Orient - specially flavored with Balkan ingredients like revenge, murder and hatred for German readers. This is how the author created his adventures that entertained generations of readers - and continue to do so.

May himself certainly wouldn't have believed that his novels - such as "Through the Gorges of Balkans" or "In the Rubble of Paradise" - would ever have such an impact on how the Germans view the Balkans. It was never his most cherished setting, especially if one considers his interest for the American Wild West or the North African part of the Ottoman Empire.

No room for politics

The Balkans only make it into May's work as one part of his six-part series on the Orient. With that said, however, his stories of robbers had an extraordinary effect on readers, one that's perhaps unparalleled in the canon of German literature.

"He was a fantastic storyteller," said Peter Brenner of the Technological University of Munich, "but also an extremely clever author."

Brenner told DW that May's ability to make his fantastical stories even plausible for German readers was a testament to his literary abilities. "He took up certain long-standing stereotypes regarding the Balkans and the Orient and used them in a way that allowed him to work off what was expected from his readers. This was the main source of his startling resonance."

When May wrote his Balkans novels at the end of the 19th century, the entire region was plagued by uprising. Various Balkan tribes were already involved in liberation battles against the Ottoman Empire. May did make use of the topic of the Ottomans' decline in his books, but he rarely focused much on political aspects.

"We can most certainly assume that May was well aware of these liberation movements. But for him they were nothing more than bands of robbers. He wasn't able to take any national movements seriously," Brenner said.

Never in the Balkans

Was this stance based on May's affinity for the Ottoman Empire? Or was he simply averse to the idea of replacing his standard subjects, which did fit well in these Balkan settings, with such liberation movements? There are no definitive answers to these questions among active May researchers. One thing they all agree on, however, is that May knew very little about the region - where he had never once been.

This is how the following mistakes emerged in his works: Firstly, he assumes in "Land of the Skipetars" that Serbian and Albanian were a single language. Even names of towns and other geographic details are flawed.

Nevertheless, May has had great influence on the world that came after him, historian and Albanian scholar Michael Schmidt-Neke said in an interview with DW. "It was frankly unbelievable. Just take the title of the book 'Land of the Skipetars' as one instance. We use this term 'Skipetar' all the time in literature and film. May more or less introduced Germans to this word."

Adventure novels, not textbooks

Despite his never having been to the region, not everything that May wrote about the Balkans was taken out of thin air. His criticism of the corruption in the Ottoman Empire corresponded to the way things really were. He was extremely uncompromising in this regard.

In the end, Karl May's Balkans novels weren't read for their astute geographic and cultural assessments of the way things were there. They contained exciting stories that met the expectations and satisfied the fantasies of his young readers.

And there was no ill-will to what Karl May did: Or at least he was convinced of this. At the end of his life, which was equally as enthralling as his literature, he said: "My will has always been good and pure."

Author: Lindita Arapi / glb
Editor: Sean Sinico