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Construction of Otherness: The Establishment of Studio Photography in Sarajevo more present in visual representations of the Balkans, especially with respect to the perception of Muslim women, than stated in written sources. The card asks for an in-depth examination of additional visual material, which will prove or disprove my educated guess. This example clearly shows that, especially with respect to research on perception patterns, it is indispensible to include visual sources and question theories predominantly based on textuality, which was Todorova’s approach. Dichotomies of Representations on Picture Postcards The photograph and the picture postcard are closely intertwined in history (Starl & Tropper 2010), because photographs were very often used as a template for postcards. In the picture postcard, interpretations and attributions can be even more stressed and directed through combining different visual motifs, for example to a collage or through an image-text combination. Illustration 169 shows a street scene in front of the Catholic St. Augustine School and the Seminary Church in Sarajevo. On the left-hand side, one can see a woman and a man in urban clothes walking arm in arm. In the middle of the image there are men in traditional clothes, who are leading sumpters. On the other hand, illustration 168 shows a postcard with a scene in front of the Hadzijska Mosque in the district Alifakovac. A group of veiled women is moving in front of the mosque, amidst other people in urban clothes who are passing by. Fabricated for a foreign audience, these two picture postcards are examples of the many postcards that all emphasize two subjects: (1) The Oriental Muslim element of the city and (2) the modernization processes initiated by the Austro-Hungarian presence. Both images are characterized by pairs of opposites, with a strong dichotomy between tradition and urbanity represented by the urban clothing versus traditional clothing. Also, the physical closeness of the couple in city dress (ill. 169) contrasts with the disembodiment of the veiled Muslim woman (ill. 170). If the city dress, the clothing in European style called a /a franga, addresses the individual, the rural and orientally influenced dress called a /a turca symbolizes the collective. The “rural collective” itself is either homogeneously male (ill. 169) or female (ill. 168). On these postcards, pairs of opposites can be read in the architecture, too. The Viennese-style construction of the occupiers differs entirely from the Bosnian style of architecture and from the Moorish Revival architecture, which was imported as well. To underpin the role of architecture in the perception of Sarajevo and its inhabitants, I would like to present a postcard showing the interior of the Town Hall built between 1892 and 1894 (ill. 170). This card was produced in the interwar period and, therefore, also proves the continuation of this influence on perception over time. The Town Hall was designed in neo-Moorish style, which was trying to imitate Oriental designs but was not a reference to traditional Bosnian architecture. In fact, it was a style inspired by the Moorish architecture of Spain as well as the Mameluk architecture of Egypt and Syria. These designs created Orientalism and, therefore, showed how the construction authority interpreted the city and its people: 381
