Issue 12 – July 2026Logos et Littera – Journal of Interdisciplinary Approaches to TextISSN: 2336-9884 doi: 10.31902/LL.12.2026.5 © The AuthorCultural Imperialism and Hegemonic Discourse: How the Image of the Negative "Other" is Created – Stieglitz and MontenegroAna Minić6, Balša Ivanović7, University of Montenegro, Faculty of Philology, NikšićAbstract: This article delves into the exploration of cultural imperialism's boundaries and the intertwined hegemonic dis­course, which was promulgated through one of the 19th century’s most favored literary genres – travelogue. This genre held significant sway, influencing the shaping of public opinion and the broad acceptance of perceptions about oneself and oth­ers. The notion of cultural imperialism here aligns with Said's elucidation of this multifaceted concept. For the exploration of hegemonic discourse, Van Dijk’s "ideological square" method was employed, allowing for the unravelling of both explicit and implicit expressions of Austrian and German ethnocentrism. By default, this ethnocentrism demeaned members of other nations, particularly the Slavs and, in this context, the Montenegrins, Stieglitz, in his travel narrative, harnesses the medium of literary work, which traditionally should rest on objective facts, to advance the notion of colonizing, disciplining, and "civi­lizing" so-called "savage" peoples. He justifies the seizure of foreign territories by pointing to their perceived cultural defi­ciencies or underdevelopment, which he argues can only be rectified under German dominance. The impact of Stieglitz's travel writing was profound not solely due to his standing as a renowned writer of the period but largely because he provided accounts of Montenegro drawn from personal observations. As the first German to set foot in Montenegro, his travelogues greatly influenced subsequent visitors to this South Slavic region during the reign of Petar II Petrović Njegoš, the secular and spiritual leader of Montenegro and its national poet.Keywords: Stieglitz, Montenegro, hegemonic discourse, ethnocentrism, cultural imperialism, travel writing.1. IntroducionHeinrich Stieglitz8 was the first German to visit Montenegro during the reign of Petar II Petrović Njegoš9. He stayed in Montenegro in 1839, and his observations about the country were summarized in his travel 6 ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0000-8072-9691, e-mail: amijovic@ucg.ac.me.7 ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0008-8930-5180, e-mail: balsai@ucg.ac.me. 8 Heinrich Stieglitz (February 22, 1801 – August 23, 1849) was the son of a Jewish merchant, and due to circumstances in Germany, Stieglitz was baptized in 1815. He was part of the bourgeois liberal circles but maintained connections with aristo­cratic families to secure support from powerful figures. He was friends with the professor of classical languages, Christian Friedrich Wilhelm Jacobs, to whom he dedicated his first book about Montenegro, and this friendship likely led him to en­gage in literature. He studied in Göttingen but did not accept a position in the department of literary history and aesthetics, as he believed it might interfere with his literary creativity, so he moved to Leipzig. There, he became acquainted with Romantic literature and painting, which directed him towards glorifying the idea of Germany's national greatness and unity. In Leipzig, he mingled with the circles of the greatest German writers, especially Ludwig Tieck, and corresponded with Heinrich Heine, Ferdinand Freiligrath, Ludwig Uhland, and many others. However, in the history of the German national movement, which he admired, he remained remembered as an epigone, and in German literature, he is known more for the suicide of his wife, who undertook the act to inspire him to create great works of art, than for his poetic work (Konstantinović 1960: 82-83; Eler­majer-Životić 1991: 1-59; Bekić 2004: 191-197).9Petar II Petrović Njegoš (November 13, 1813 – October 10, 1851) was a Montenegrin ruler (1830-1851), bishop, poet, and philosopher. Njegoš was an enlightened ruler who aimed to modernize the state. Politically, he sought to strengthen the state by establishing a legal order, founding the Senate, and having personal guards known as "perjanici," who acted as his personal protection and also served as the state's police force. He established a prison, created a stockpile of goods, and founded numerous other institutions. One of his significant achievements was the establishment of a school, as Njegoš was deeply committed to educating his people. He was consecrated in Saint Petersburg before the Russian Tsar Nicholas, during which he purchased a printing press and brought it to Montenegro. It operated in Cetinje, the Montenegrin capital, 42

Logos et Littera – Journal of Interdisciplinary Approaches to Text ISSN: 2336-9884 Issue 12 – July 2026 10.31902/LL.12.2026.5 © The Authorwritings "Ein Besuch auf Montenegro" (1841) and "Istrien und Dalmatien" (1845). The first of these is regarded as his best and most successful work. Stieglitz is one of those writers whose work had a pro­found influence on most travelers who visited Montenegro after him, not only during Njegoš's reign but throughout the entire 19th century and the early 20th century. As a result, his work attracted great inter­est from German audiences and scholars, as well as from local readers10, who mostly focused on his first travelogue.His second travelogue, "Istrien und Dalmatien," which will be the focus of this paper, re­mained in obscurity for unknown reasons, and even Friedhilde Krause, a well-known German Slavic scholar, librarian, and compiler of bibliographies of literature on Montenegro in German, does not men­tion it. Attention to the significance of the content and the idea proclaimed by Stieglitz in this travelogue—namely the Germanization and colonization not only of Montenegro and Boka Kotorska but also of the entire Dalmatian region—is drawn by Konstantinović, who emphasizes the need to uncover Stieglitz’s ambivalent attitude toward Montenegro (Konstantinović 1960, 90-91). In his two travel writings, a no­ticeable shift in the prevailing discourse is evident. While the first travelogue occasionally contains praise and heroic discourse, in the second, the author completely diverges from that tone and depicts the country and its people in an extremely negative light. Throughout the entire work, the language and themes reveal a hegemonic discourse tied to cultural imperialism—marginalizing foreign culture and advocating a process of discipline and civilization through the occupation of the land on which he has fallen.Such a shift in attitude toward Montenegrins and all other South Slavs should not be surprising if one considers Stieglitz’s life and activities in Germany more deeply. The political circumstances in Germany compelled Stieglitz to seek ways to adapt to the current situation, which led him not only to convert to Catholicism but also to endorse a policy that belittled Slovenes and emphasized fears of Pan-Slavism, as well as of the Ottoman Empire.In this paper, we will reflect on this fragment of the past not only because it remains unexamined and unexplained, but also because we often return to the past when we want to understand the present—in other words, to understand whether that past is truly over or whether it continues in different forms and what influences it triggers (Said 1993, 3).from 1834 to 1852. The type from the printing press was later melted down into lead bullets, as the Montenegrins were en­gaged in major battles against the Turks (Andrijašević 2016: 138-144; Pavićević 2004: 171-172).10 Between 1841 and 1849, eight reviews of Stieglitz's book "Ein Besuch auf Montenegro" were published, written by promi­nent liberal publicists and politicians. The editors of these reviews included Karl Ernst Gotthelf Gersdorf, the chief editor of the newspaper Morgenblatt; Wolfgang Menzel, a political publicist; Jakob Philipp Fallmerayer; Hermann Marggraff, a literary historian and poet; Joseph Müller, a doctor and writer; Franz Petter, a professor of German stylistics and substitute lecturer in mathematics and navigation; Heinrich Edler von Littrow (who signed his review of Stieglitz's book as Heinrich Worttil), a professor of German and Romance studies; Adelbert von Keller; and Božidar Petranović, a lawyer and writer, who was a strong opponent of Montenegrin independence and a major supporter of Austrian and German expansive absolutism toward the South Slavic lands. Domestic critics included Lazar Tomanović, Vasa Čubrilović, Vladimir Ćorović, Radosav Medenica, Ljubomir Durković-Jakšić, Miljan Mojašević, Zoran Konstantinović. Another of Stieglitz's travel writings received significantly less attention; in German journalism, it was more noticed than among South Slavic circles, where it was mentioned in reviews by Ivan Kukuljić, Ivan Brozović, and Ivan Pederin—albeit very late, a hundred years after Brozović and Vladimir Ćorović. The German reviews were written by Wolfgang Menzel, Karl Gersdorf, Jakob Philipp Fallmerayer, Johann Christian Bähr, Levin Schücking, and an anonymous reviewer from Vienna (Elermajer-Životić 1991: 262-294).43

Logos et Littera – Journal of Interdisciplinary Approaches to Text ISSN: 2336-9884 Issue 12 – July 2026 10.31902/LL.12.2026.5 © The Author2. Travelogue – A Space for Promoting Global Politics and Imperial AmbitionsModern theoretical thought defines the travelogue as a literary genre that rests on five general criteria. At its core lies the journey, transformed into an objectively narrated story about foreign lands and peo­ples. It is non-fictional in nature and employs fictional devices only to interpret facts (Lisle 2006, 35–43). Travelogues must be based on difference, established between the subject of discourse (the writer) and the object of discourse (the “other”). The “other,” as the object of description, should not only be spatially distanced but may also be temporally distanced, since the writer can “go back through time,” which results in an evolutionist explanation of the level of development of a civilization—one that is not different merely because it is geographically remote, but also because it is at another, most often lower, stage of development, unprepared to experience the level of modernization (Lisle 2006, 43). It should be borne in mind that travelogues could only be objective within the already established political and ideological worldviews of the travel writer, who possessed a certain intellectual background and who could, consciously or unconsciously, use the space of the travelogue as his own maneuvering ground for promoting various forms of knowledge and both positive and negative stereotypes about the “other­ness” of a foreign land. This further means that writers were in a position to propagate different ideolo­gies, and all these elements could significantly influence the degree of objectivity and truthfulness of the content described.Thus, travelogues were not always an “objective” representation of the reality of the “other,” since the language of the travelogue also enabled “communication with the social and political context” (Van Dijk 2015, 466). These relations, which could be “hidden or transparent,” often concerned domination, dis­crimination, power, and control (Wodak and Meyer 2001, 13). Writers, under the guise of cultivation, progress, and disciplining, advocated the expansion of their own culture through colonization, so that (cultural) imperialism was legitimized by the allegedly lower level of development of others, while “colo­nialism was almost always the consequence of imperialism” (Said 1993, 3). Imperialism here certainly denotes an “attitude of domination over distant territories,” whereby one state “controls the political sovereignty of another state,” and this could be achieved “by force, political collaboration, economic, social, or cultural dependence” (Said 1993). And while colonialism was always the direct application of force, and Stieglitz calls for conquest, imperialism existed “in the general cultural sphere, as well as in political, ideological, and social practice” (Said 1993). It is certain that these phenomena were not sim­ple manifestations of occupation and conquest, but were instead driven by various “ideological notions that certain cultures and peoples were almost begging for domination,” which, on the other hand, was reinforced linguistically. Thus, in the vocabulary of the classical “imperial culture of the nineteenth cen­tury,” terms such as “inferior, subordinate and subjected people, dependence, expansion, authority” ap­pear (Said 1993). Precisely such terminology is typical of Stieglitz’s travelogue, in which the author de­scribes the country he visited as a “dead civilization.” According to Edward Said, in his renowned book Orientalism, a dead civilization is one that is incapable of recognizing itself; the traveler seeks al­most extinct traces of past glory (Said 2008, 123), which is why he also engages with material evidence, just as Stieglitz does. All of this represents some of the fundamental features of Orientalist discourse, elements of which were present in almost all travelogues about Montenegro of this period, established precisely under the strong influence of Stieglitz’s work. In such a culture and society, the Orthodox peo­ple in Boka are placed in a “subordinate” position (216), to which the author adds “intolerance” among the peoples of Boka (206). Yet, authority and a “strong impartial fairness towards all nationalities and religions” are attributed to the Austrian authorities (206), who are portrayed as capable of controlling and protecting against “brigand neighbors,” “dangerous neighbors,” and “unwelcome nocturnal visitors” (212, 213).44

Logos et Littera – Journal of Interdisciplinary Approaches to Text ISSN: 2336-9884 Issue 12 – July 2026 10.31902/LL.12.2026.5 © The AuthorTravel writers mostly emerged within dominant Western civilizations in order to document other coun­tries, cultures, and peoples. By categorizing, criticizing, and passing judgment on other parts of the world, the travel writer was able to maintain his privileged position (Wheatley 2007, 1220). From such a position, the dominant group exercised power over society as a whole, but also forged alliances and se­cured the consent of subordinated groups (Blackledge 2005, 45), with that hegemony being expressed through discourse. Discourse should be regarded as a form of social practice tied to social structures and the social sphere, from which its pluralism arises—something that is by no means merely a linguis­tic problem but also a sociological one (Titscher et al. 2000, 146).In interpreting Stieglitz’s travelogue on Montenegro, we must take into account the way in which the au­thor constructed the narrative about this country, how he presented the general acceptance of his views on the current situation, and how he positioned himself—something that fully corresponds to hege­monic discourse (Fairclough 2013, 64), which naturalizes certain ideologies so thoroughly that they ap­pear neutral or taken for granted (Fairclough 2013, 30). Hegemonic discourse is “a socially dominant form of discourse that becomes normalized as common sense through ideological processes, sustain­ing power relations and making them appear natural and unquestioned” (Fairclough 2013, 265). Fur­thermore, Stieglitz fits perfectly into the notion of a “contact zone” (Pratt 1991, 34), where hegemonic discourse highlights cultural differences, which this travel writer underscores just as strongly as his own privileged perspective. Travelogues—especially Western, and particularly German ones—often foster a Eurocentric discourse by emphasizing the superiority of the traveler’s culture while marginalizing the cultures being visited (Said 1978, 29–113). Stieglitz’s second travelogue is a clear example of a supe­rior stance toward the entire society in which he conducts his observations.In the context of uncovering cultural imperialism and hegemonic discourse, we will rely on Van Dijk’s “ideological square” (Van Dijk 2011), according to which “group members will tend to speak or write positively about their own group, and negatively about out-groups they define as opponents, competi­tors or enemies, while de-emphasizing their own bad things and the other group’s good things” (Van Dijk 2011, 397).The relationships between the traveler and both his own and the foreign culture in Stieglitz’s travel­ogue Istrien und Dalmatien, as well as the way in which a negative image of the foreign land is shaped and imperialist ambitions are promoted through hegemonic discourse—something that was certainly not meant to be part of an objectively narrated text such as a travelogue—we will interpret using a pat­tern that:1. emphasizes the positive aspects of the traveler’s own culture;2. highlights the negative characteristics of the foreign culture;3. minimizes or even omits the traveler’s own shortcomings;4. downplays the positive features of the foreign culture or labels them as exceptions.3. The Traveler's CultureAccording to Van Dijk’s “ideological square,” what is emphasized above all are the positive aspects of the traveler’s culture and its positive self-representation (Van Dijk 2000), which in Stieglitz’s portrayal is more than a dominant constant. The author takes two approaches in emphasizing his own culture, 45

Logos et Littera – Journal of Interdisciplinary Approaches to Text ISSN: 2336-9884 Issue 12 – July 2026 10.31902/LL.12.2026.5 © The Authorwhich is not only positive but also superior. He first notes that Germans and Italians make up a signifi­cant part of the population of the Bay of Kotor11 and points out that they are mostly employed in the mili­tary and in various administrative positions in the towns of the Bay, meaning that they occupy positions of power through which they exercise control and governance. Stieglitz further observes that the Italian language naturally plays an important role in the society of the Bay, since “one can communicate every­where in Italian” (Stieglitz 1845, 205).Italians and the Italian language certainly impressed him, as they were part of Western culture and the center of Heinrich Stieglitz’s interest, who had set out along the Adriatic coast with the intention of writ­ing an epic work on the history of Venice (Elermajer-Životić 1991, 102–103). Ideological comments, in which the author’s own Western culture is clearly emphasized in contrast to the South Slavs, promote a positive stance toward the Austrian occupation—not only toward that occupation, but also conveying the view that Boka was the heir of the Republic, enriching and completing the Bay’s territories, since un­der Venetian rule “the people of Boka, like all Dalmatians, enthusiastically submitted” (Stieglitz 1845, 205). These ideological comments, on one hand, reveal the author’s perspective and opinion of the country he visited, but on the other hand, they so weakened this travelogue that it is difficult to find the poetic experiences of Stieglitz—the romantic—who had largely expressed his poetic skill in his first travelogue on Montenegro, Ein Besuch auf Montenegro.In glorifying the importance of his homeland, the author resorts to an open campaign promoting Aus­trian rule as the only hope for the preservation of Boka and goes even further, advocating for Germany’s expansion to the Adriatic Sea and the colonization of the Bay of Kotor. He does this through a poem, untitled, dedicated to Roßbach and Spanner. They were military commanders in 1838 who led Austrian troops in conflict with the Montenegrins, when they were defeated at Paštrovska Gora, part of the Mon­tenegrin coastal mountain range between Mount Lovćen and Rumija. The poem later had a significant impact and was well received in the Austrian war-propaganda press during World War I (Elermajer-Živ­otić 1991, 246).Stieglitz further states that the Germanization of the Bay of Kotor was not only necessary but that “Aus­trian rule, as the heir of an allied friend and benefactor of its predecessor,” was joyfully accepted, and that this climate should be timely exploited as a method for fostering the dominance of Austrian, Italian, and German ethnocentrism (Stieglitz 1845, 235; Elermajer-Životić 1991, 231).4. The Foreign CultureIn this travelogue, the author opts for a sharp confrontation with the foreign culture, presenting his own culture and society not only as better but as superior, while depicting the foreign culture as backward and possessing a series of deficiencies that can only be corrected through external influence. Such negative characterization is foreseen in Van Dijk’s “ideological square” (Van Dijk 2000). To justify his stance, the writer evokes historical events, carefully selecting only those that support his viewpoint and interpreting them so as to emphasize the benefits experienced by the Slavic peoples only when they were under the rule of the Venetian Republic or Austria. One example is the emphasis on the historical moment when Boka came under the Venetian Republic—“the only power that could provide them pro­tection from the threatening Turkish danger” (Stieglitz 1845, 210). Another historical fact, serving as a 11The Bay of Kotor, or simply Boka, is a bay on the Adriatic coast which, at the time Stieglitz wrote his travelogue, did not be­long to Montenegro.46

Logos et Littera – Journal of Interdisciplinary Approaches to Text ISSN: 2336-9884 Issue 12 – July 2026 10.31902/LL.12.2026.5 © The Authorprelude to the discrediting, belittling, and slandering of the Montenegrins, is the conquest of Boka led by Petar I Petrović Njegoš12 and Russian troops, when, for a short time, the “Montenegrin dream of extend­ing rule to the sea” was realized (210).Through his description of the architecture of Boka, the author also openly attacks the Montenegrins, claiming that the Kotor city walls and the appearance of the Bay and its houses—with high walls and small windows, through which it was almost impossible for anyone to pass—were a consequence of the “dangerous neighborhood of the Montenegrins,” who needed to be kept at a distance. He adds that these “greedy neighbors from the hills” made life unbearable for the coastal inhabitants, rendering their houses typical and distinctive, and their way of life conditioned by constant fear during the day, with fre­quent “unwelcome nocturnal visits” (213).The author continues his expression of hostility toward the Slavs, particularly the Montenegrins, by openly attaching the most offensive epithets, always linked to the warlike nature of the Montenegrin people, turning them into a synonym for war and perpetual emergency threatening from the east. He often does not even name them directly, qualifying them only as “dangerous neighbors,” “brigand neighbors,” or “unwelcome nocturnal visitors” (212–213). However, the list of negative qualifications does not end there. The Montenegrins are portrayed not only as bandits and brigands—hordes spread­ing fear and evil—but also as a people who value nothing that belongs to others, not even churches. The author claims they are destroyers of churches and household hearths, who merely “lie in wait” from their barren, steep hills to commit plunder and secure some benefit for themselves (238).Such a shift in the portrayal of the same people raises numerous questions and dilemmas, logically prompting an explanation for the diametrically opposed, overtly hostile depiction of the Montenegrins in the travelogue Istrien und Dalmatien compared to Stieglitz’s first travelogue on Montenegro. These negative, yet highly suggestive and effective observations about the Montenegrins—and the negative portrayal of all Slavs—stem from a personal conflict, as the author was himself in search of his national identity, with occasional feelings of national alienation ultimately transforming into a firm allegiance to the German nation (Elermajer-Životić 1991, 250). On the other hand, the author fully embraced Ger­manization for personal benefit and to safeguard his own life during the rapid rise of the anti-Jewish campaign in German periodicals of the 1840s, which was certainly accompanied by anti-Slavic senti­ment. Thus, the author not only promoted Greater German patriotism but also supported anti-Slavic propaganda (Elermajer-Životić 1991, 251).5. The Traveler and Their FlawsVan Dijk identifies in the “ideological square” a third phenomenon concerning the traveler’s own short­comings, which are minimized or even omitted (Van Dijk 2000). In Stieglitz’s case, there is no need for extensive discussion, as he not only fails to mention any deficiencies of his own culture and tradition but 12Petar I Petrović Njegoš (1748–1830) was the Montenegrin metropolitan and, from 1784, the ruler of Montenegro, leading his army in all battles. He achieved numerous significant victories over the Turks, was wounded several times on the battle­field, and was later canonized as a saint and entered into the church calendar as Saint Petar of Cetinje. Petar I maintained excellent cooperation with the Russians for many years, conducting attacks on coastal regions alongside them. The most famous and greatest Montenegrin victory achieved with Russian assistance was the defeat of Napoleon’s troops and the expulsion of French forces from the territories of the Bay of Kotor and Dubrovnik; during this war, Korčula was also con­quered several times (Pavićević, 2004: 65–69). He was succeeded on the Montenegrin throne by Petar II Petrović Njegoš.47

Logos et Littera – Journal of Interdisciplinary Approaches to Text ISSN: 2336-9884 Issue 12 – July 2026 10.31902/LL.12.2026.5 © The Authoralmost entirely omits them, as if a culture without flaws exists! However, there is a single exception to this rule. The travel writer was particularly interested in the religiosity of the inhabitants of Boka and the numerical relationship between followers of different faiths, especially between Catholics and Orthodox Christians. Reporting that there were purely Catholic settlements, he emphasizes their hostile attitude toward other faiths, particularly the Orthodox, but notes that among the Orthodox a similar stance ex­isted, though they expressed it more discreetly, and their “intolerance was more concealed” (Stieglitz 1845, 206).In relation to this type of religious intolerance, the author mentions an ancient unwritten law in Dobrota, a “predominantly Catholic municipality in Boka,” stating that “no Orthodox family may re­main in the town for longer than twenty-four hours, and furthermore, under no circumstances may a ser­vant of the Orthodox faith serve for more than three years in the house of a resident of Dobrota” (216).However, the author does not fully criticize even this treatment of the Orthodox population of Boka and Montenegro by the Catholics; rather, he attempts to justify it, presenting it as a consequence of the fact that “the richest and largest settlement of Boka” suffers from the “all too well-known, often tested greed of brigand neighbors from the east,” adding that the Orthodox of the coastal regions resemble the Mon­tenegrins, their neighbors to the east (214).In addition to the suffering of the people of Boka at the hands of the Montenegrins, Stieglitz laments even more that, despite the “strong impartial fairness toward all nationalities and religions,” the powerful Austrian authorities were powerless in regulating the relations among the peoples of Boka, since in his time “hatred and mutual persecution were stronger here than anywhere else in the Austrian monarchy” (206). Just as he was sparing in his criticisms of the society from which he came and of his own cultural heritage, he was equally frugal in his praise of the culture of the foreign country he visited.6. Virtues of the Foreign CultureAccording to Van Dijk’s interpretation, the fourth element consists of the positive characteristics of the foreign culture, which are either minimized or presented as exceptions (Van Dijk 2000). Whether com­menting on historical events or inter-neighbor relations, Stieglitz uses the space of his travelogue exclu­sively for the malicious portrayal of the foreign culture—not only to underscore its national inferiority (El­ermajer-Životić 1991, 233) and justify his colonialist intentions, but also to convince the German public of the correctness of an anti-Slavic stance, which was disseminated through the press of the time as well as through travelogues, one of the most popular literary genres of the period. This primarily con­cerns the Montenegrins, but also anyone living outside Montenegro who resembles them, whether in lifestyle or dress.While Stieglitz was highly impressed by certain parts of the Bay of Kotor—Kotor, Risan, and Herceg Novi—which reminded him of Venetian cities, anything associated with the Montenegrins was seen as backward and destructive. The author records that it was precisely in these towns, which so beautifully evoked the era of ancient Rome, that influences of elements foreign to that civilization were visible. He emphasizes that the society had adopted some primitive, barbaric customs, similar to those of their mountain neighbors, including the constant carrying of weapons, decorating houses with arms, and a continual need to shoot, for “the Illyrian is the most passionate friend of firing. No people on earth ex­pend so much gunpowder as these regions” (Stieglitz 1845, 233).The author, with particular reverence, singles out the people of Risan, as they claimed descent from the Romans and “prided themselves on preserving pure Roman blood,” which is why he describes them as 48

Logos et Littera – Journal of Interdisciplinary Approaches to Text ISSN: 2336-9884 Issue 12 – July 2026 10.31902/LL.12.2026.5 © The Authorunique among the inhabitants of Boka, and their clothing as an authentic Roman warrior costume (Minić 2022, 115). One of the few successful poetic images in this travelogue—burdened with factual data, historical and geopolitical issues, wars, conquests, and matters of rulership—is his description of an or­dinary Risan inhabitant:“Strikingly visible are these graceful features in a long, loose green dolman over a tightly, richly embroi­dered vest, with a wide belt of Morocco leather edged with silver or gold over pleated trousers fastened below the knees with colored embroidered bands. In addition, tastefully decorated stockings, shining weaponry, and a cheerful red fez perched atop proud, dark heads” (226).In contrast to this almost singularly positive portrayal, there is an extremely negative depiction of the Krivošijani13, who not only “live off robberies” and for whom “blood feuds are still alive,” but who are also backward in other customs. Moreover, they are said to “generally get along well with neighboring Mon­tenegrin tribes, with whom they often secretly go to war against the Turks” (230).In conclusion, it can be argued that, judging by his account, Heinrich Stieglitz had little inclination to ex­press an affirmative stance toward any phenomenon related to the Montenegrins or to anyone closely associated with them. He rather adopted a negative and dismissive attitude toward this South Slavic people, thereby abandoning his initial view of them as a heroic nation—a view that many Europeans, including Germans14 of his time, had expressed in the most laudatory terms. These accounts still testify to the freedom-loving and heroic history of Montenegro, which, despite all challenges, managed to with­stand the assaults of the vast and powerful Ottoman Empire.7. ConclusionHeinrich Stieglitz is permanently linked to Montenegro through his travelogue Ein Besuch auf Montene­gro, as he was not only the first German to visit Montenegro during the reign of Njegoš, and not only pre­sented this country to German and European audiences, but, within the framework of his political world­view, personal beliefs, and opinions, he also produced a remarkably strong and surprisingly positive account characterized by a predominantly laudatory tone. In his travelogue, he sought to remain impar­tial and objective, striving to be a friend of the country to the extent that he criticized all those authors who unjustly belittled Montenegro, its people, and its ruler in contemporary German journals (Stieglitz 1841, 14).We attempted to explain why this stance drastically reversed and transformed into nothing short of open hostility toward the Montenegrins by closely examining events in Stieglitz’s life and his problem­atic position in a society in which he desperately sought acceptance—one that, at the time, was satu­rated with antisemitic, anti-Slavic, and racist propaganda. Consequently, his second travelogue is marked by expressions of cultural superiority, portraying cultural imperialism and colonization as the 13The Krivošije are a Montenegrin tribe and a geographic region in the mountainous areas above Risan and Kotor; today, this territory belongs to the municipality of Kotor.14Great friends of Montenegro who have described the country in travelogues include Bartolomeo Biasoletto (“Reise Sr. Ma­jestät des Königs Friedrich August von Sachsen durch Istrien, Dalmatien und Montenegro im Frühjahr 1838,” 1842), Robert Cyprien (“Die Slawen der Türkei, oder die Montenegriner, Serbier, Bosniaken, Albanesen und Bulgaren, ihre Kräfte und Mit­tel, ihr Streben und ihr politischer Fortschritt,” 1844), Johann Georg Kohl (“Reise nach Istrien, Dalmatien und Montenegro,” 1851), and later Felix Philipp Kanitz, Kurt Hassert, and, certainly, the renowned Slavicist Gerhard Gesemann.49

Logos et Littera – Journal of Interdisciplinary Approaches to Text ISSN: 2336-9884 Issue 12 – July 2026 10.31902/LL.12.2026.5 © The Authoronly solutions for imposing order, civilizing, and cultivating the backward and wild regions of Montene­gro and today’s southern Montenegro.The result of such a work is a highly opaque structure, which required simplification with the help of KAD as a sociological and linguistic detector, and simultaneously as a filter for identifying equality and domi­nance expressed through language, sometimes in hidden, sometimes in overt forms. In this context, KAD served as a methodological framework for this type of analysis, allowing us to divide the issue into several categories: 1. the traveler is superior, his culture is at a far higher stage of development, and the logical outcome would be for this culture to exist, enrich, and discipline the indigenous people; 2. uncivi­lized behavior, barbarism, banditry, constant desire for conflict, the custom of blood feuds, and frequent armed confrontations provoke sharp confrontation from the foreign traveler; 3. personal shortcomings are almost negligible or entirely omitted; 4. everything related to the Montenegrins is marked as poten­tially dangerous, destructive, and primitive, so that any praise or characteristic that could be considered a virtue is absent.Nevertheless, it must be noted that the author reveals his contradictory attitude toward the South Slavs, especially the Montenegrins, and in the travelogue Istrien und Dalmatien, he positioned himself as a propagator of Austrian occupational authority and a bearer of the vision of governance by the Greater German Empire (Elermajer-Životić 1991, 249). Yet, the image he shaped is not entirely negatory. Stieglitz, in conveying folk epic poetry in both his travelogues, had a clear vision of which poems to present to the German reading public (in the first travelogue, mostly Njegoš’s poems; in the second, satirical poems about Montenegrins and humorous poems from the Boka region). In both cases—in­cluding the second travelogue—he transmitted the life of folk poetry guided by Herder’s and Grimm’s idea of respecting other cultures (Elermajer-Životić 1991, 249), and for that, he should be acknowl­edged.ReferencesAndrijašević, Živko M. 2016. Istorija Crne Gore. Beograd: Atlas fondacija; Vukotić media.Bekić, Tomislav. 2004. "Njemački književnik i putopisac Hajnrih Štiglic i njegovo djelo 'Jedna posjeta Crnoj Gori'." In Pos­jeta Crnoj Gori. Podgorica: CID.Blackledge, Adrian. 2005. Discourse and Power in a Multilingual World. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.Elermajer-Životić, O. 1991. "Štiglicov život i rad." In Iz nemačko-jugoslovenskih književnih veza: Hajnrih Štiglic (1801–1849). Beograd: Srpska akademija nauka i umetnosti, posebna izdanja, knjiga DCVIII.Fairclough, Norman. 2013. Critical Discourse Analysis: The Critical Study of Language. London/New York: Routledge.Ivanovas, T. E., and H. Blinkevičienė. 1999. "Philosophy in the Kitchen." Journal of Identity 33 (2): 231–245.Konstantinović, Zoran. 1960. Deutsche Reisebeschreibungen über Serbien und Montenegro. München: Verlag O. Olden­bourg.Krause, F. 1988. Crna Gora: literatura na njemačkom jeziku, bibliografija. Cetinje: Centralna biblioteka.Lisle, Debbie. 2006. The Global Politics of Contemporary Travel Writing. New York: Cambridge University Press.50

Logos et Littera – Journal of Interdisciplinary Approaches to Text ISSN: 2336-9884 Issue 12 – July 2026 10.31902/LL.12.2026.5 © The AuthorMinić, Ana. 2022. "Njemački putopisi o Crnoj Gori za vrijeme vladavine Petra II Petrovića Njegoša." Doctoral dissertation, University of Belgrade.Pavićević, Branko. 2004. Istorija Crne Gore, knjiga 4: Sazdanje crnogorske nacionalne države 1796–1878. Podgorica: Istorijski institut Crne Gore.Pratt, Mary Louise. 1991. "Arts of the Contact Zone." Profession, 33–40. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25595469.Said, Edward W. 2008. Orijentalizam. Translated by Drinka Gojković. Beograd: Biblioteka XX vek.Said, Edward W. 1993. Culture and Imperialism. New York: Vintage Books.Stieglitz, Heinrich. 1845. Istrien und Dalmatien: Briefe und Erinnerungen. Stuttgart/Tübingen: J. G. Cotta'sche Buchhand­lung.Stieglitz, Heinrich. 2004. Posjeta Crnoj Gori. Podgorica: CID.Titscher, Stefan, Michael Meyer, Ruth Wodak, and Eva Vetter. 2000. Methods of Text and Discourse Analysis. London: Sage.Van Dijk, Teun A. 2000. Ideology and Discourse: A Multidisciplinary Introduction. Barcelona: Pompeu Fabra University.Van Dijk, Teun A. 2011. "Discourse and Ideology." In Discourse Studies: A Multidisciplinary Introduction, edited by Teun A. van Dijk, 379–407. London: Sage.Van Dijk, Teun A. 2015. "Critical Discourse Analysis." In The Handbook of Discourse Analysis, edited by Deborah Tannen, Heidi E. Hamilton, and Deborah Schiffrin, 2nd ed., 466–485. Malden, MA: Wiley Blackwell.Wheatley, Steven. 2007. "The Global Politics of Contemporary Travel Writing. By Debbie Lisle." The Journal of Politics 69 (4):1220–1222.Wodak, Ruth, and Michael Meyer, eds. 2001. Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis. London: Sage.Autors’ BiographiesAna Minić was a teaching assistant at the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Montenegro, where she taught German liter­ature at the undergraduate and master's levels. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Belgrade in 2022 with a dis­sertation examining German travelogues on Montenegro during the reign of Petar II Petrović Njegoš. Her research focused on German literature, German–Montenegrin literary and cultural relations, and literary translation.Balša Ivanović is a doctoral candidate and teaching assistant at the Faculty of Philology of the University of Montenegro. His research interests include translation studies, discourse analysis, corpus analysis. His doctoral dissertation examines discourse analysis of ECHR judgements in English rendered in respect of Montenegro and their translations into Montenegrin. He was awarded a prestigious Summer Visiting Doctoral Research Fellowship at Boston College as one of ten recipients around the world.51