A great part of the Romanian national history is composed of battling the Turks and being the gate that holds the Ottoman Empire back. I was wondering how is this seen in the history of Turkey and in the western countries. Is this documented or is it more like "unrest at the western borders"?
Not actually a historian, but I can tell you that during my history *lessons back in school (in Italy, although we used Austrian text books, if relevant) it was definitely teached more like "unrest at the western borders". Except from the mention of Vlad III, we didn't hear much about Southeastern Europe until the first WW. If that's what you're asking for.
Edit: words.
Edit 2: link to the wiki page regarding the Italian ministerial history program for classic gymnasium. Also sorry for the (bad) google-translation, couldn't find it in English.
Edit 3: today's not my day. It's actually the eastern border from our point of view.
"unrest at the
westerneastern borders"
One interesting point that is often made is that, at least in Hungarian ruled Transylvania, many of the Orthodox inhabitants were actually quite happy to see the Turks. This is a bit that often gets somewhat brushed under the rug, but given that the Ottomans did not discriminate between Orthodox and Catholic and generally had a hands off approach to religious policy they often formed the better of the available options.