(Balkan Cruelty)
The brutal behavior of the Turkish army in its oppressive wars against the Greeks (and other Balkan Christian peoples). In the scenes, light-skinned women are being humiliated, ravished, and raped by darker- skinned Turkish soldiers.
On the first card, set within a church, an Eastern Orthodox priest is bound to a railing and forced to witness several naked women being sexually abused by Turks. Three of the women struggle against their captors while a fourth, in the foreground, appears to have passed out. It is an affront not only to white womanhood, but to Christianity itself on the part of the savage outsider.
A second card depicts a Turkish soldier viciously attacking a woman; her terror is reflected on her face and by her frantic attempt to physically resist. The soldier’s hand is claw-like as he restrains the woman and his eyes are filled with lust. The juxtaposition of dark skin to light skin is highlighted as is clothed to unclothed bodies.
On a third card, a male villager has been hanged, and the naked captives are being presented by the soldiers to their officers.
The white woman as a symbol of innocence, purity and virtue has persisted as a powerful image throughout recent centuries