The eyes of princess Simonida
In the countries that once belonged to the Ottoman Empire, the frescoes and icons of Orthodox churches often depict saints who have had their eyes gouged out. This fact was frequently reported by Balkan travellers of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, including such well-informed authors as the French consul general at the court of the Vizier of Epirus, Ali Pasha (Pouqueville 1813: 114), the first Russian consul in Sarajevo (Gil’ferding 1859: 230, 313.), an Anglican clergyman (Denton 1862: 90, 148, 197, 211), the Russian consul in Prizren (Jastrebov 1913: 27), a Russian archaeologist (Kondakov 1909: 131, 178), an Austrian archaeologist (Kanitz 1909: II: 296, 358), and several British travellers (Mackenzie and Irby 1878: I, 195–96; Durham 1904: 219; 1905: 122; 1914: 91; Askew 1916: 64). In all cases, the perpetrators were Turks or Albanians, i.e. Muslims whose motive was iconoclasm and/or barbarism. The phenomenon seems to be typical of the Balkans and evokes astonishment and dismay in the reader.