Deconstructions of the Russian Empire in Western Travel Literature

Deconstructions of the Russian Empire in Western Travel Literature PDF Author: Dimitrios Kassis
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1527561291
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 122

Get Book Here

Book Description
Situated between Europe and Asia, Russia has systematically challenged the European theories attached to nationhood due to its geopolitical and cultural peculiarities. After the rise of European nationalist movements, imperial Russia posed a threat to the very existence of the Germanic empires of Britain, Germany and Austria, and was frequently evoked to epitomise European barbarism, paganism, despotism and the Orient. In its struggle to acquire a new identity, which would bridge the gap with Western empires, Russia could not conform to the rising Anglo-Saxon movements that sought to glorify Nordic supremacy at the expense of the Oriental Other. Drawing upon this binary opposition between the Orient and the Occident, the Russian Empire concentrated on the development of its own nation-building theories, which managed to incorporate the ascending Pan-Slavic wave into its nationalist agenda. The anti-Western rhetoric that often characterised Russian politics contributed to the subversion of the conventional Western perspective of the Orient and the emergence of Eurasianism as a political theory that exalted the different traits of its imperial system. This book sets the focus on the representations of the Russian Empire from 1792 until 1912 in the field of travel literature. To this end, it selects British and American travel narratives of the aforementioned period to explore all aspects of Russian identity and culture. For this reason, it addresses major issues attached to Russian history and culture that were investigated by Western travellers in their attempt to approach the Russian Empire.

Deconstructions of the Russian Empire in Western Travel Literature

Deconstructions of the Russian Empire in Western Travel Literature PDF Author: Dimitrios Kassis
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1527561291
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 122

Get Book Here

Book Description
Situated between Europe and Asia, Russia has systematically challenged the European theories attached to nationhood due to its geopolitical and cultural peculiarities. After the rise of European nationalist movements, imperial Russia posed a threat to the very existence of the Germanic empires of Britain, Germany and Austria, and was frequently evoked to epitomise European barbarism, paganism, despotism and the Orient. In its struggle to acquire a new identity, which would bridge the gap with Western empires, Russia could not conform to the rising Anglo-Saxon movements that sought to glorify Nordic supremacy at the expense of the Oriental Other. Drawing upon this binary opposition between the Orient and the Occident, the Russian Empire concentrated on the development of its own nation-building theories, which managed to incorporate the ascending Pan-Slavic wave into its nationalist agenda. The anti-Western rhetoric that often characterised Russian politics contributed to the subversion of the conventional Western perspective of the Orient and the emergence of Eurasianism as a political theory that exalted the different traits of its imperial system. This book sets the focus on the representations of the Russian Empire from 1792 until 1912 in the field of travel literature. To this end, it selects British and American travel narratives of the aforementioned period to explore all aspects of Russian identity and culture. For this reason, it addresses major issues attached to Russian history and culture that were investigated by Western travellers in their attempt to approach the Russian Empire.

Dystopian Depictions of Serbia in British Travel Literature

Dystopian Depictions of Serbia in British Travel Literature PDF Author: Dimitrios Kassis
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1527577058
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 110

Get Book Here

Book Description
Without any doubt, one of the European regions that has never ceased to trouble the Westerner traveller is the Balkan Peninsula, which functioned as a terra incognita within the British travel canon, and served as the transit point to the Ottoman Empire or the Old Grecian world. At a time when Anglo-Saxonism occupied a prevalent position in British political discourse, the Balkan Peninsula came to epitomise all the negative qualities of the Orient that British travellers were anxious to apply to alien countries that were far removed from the nation-building agenda of the Empire. As such, classified as the fringe of the Orient, Serbia was persistently depicted as a politically unstable region, inhabited by primitive ethnic groups that could possibly threaten the viability of the British imperialist interests in European Turkey. In the light of the Serbian national struggle to promote the idea of a South-Slavic Union or forge an identity against the Austrian and Ottoman Empires, some British travellers undertook a journey to all the Balkan states where Serbians formed the majority of the population to demonise the War of Liberation of the Balkan states against the Ottoman yoke, treating it as visible evidence of Russian Expansionism. This book concentrates on dystopian British imagology of Serbia as a travel destination, including travel accounts produced from 1717 until 1911, a year prior to the outbreak of the First World War. The travel texts incorporated into this volume shed light on all the conceptualisations of the Balkans, addressing the sociopolitical conditions that sparked the national awakening of Serbia.

Representations of the North in Victorian Travel Literature

Representations of the North in Victorian Travel Literature PDF Author: Dimitrios Kassis
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1443875155
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 370

Get Book Here

Book Description
Travel literature has always been associated with the construction of utopias which were founded on the idea of unknown lands. During their journeys in foreign lands, British travellers tended to formulate various critical opinions based on their background knowledge of the country visited. Their attempts to interpret other nations were often misinterpretations of the peoples in question as the Other. At the close of the eighteenth century, when Grand Tourism started to fade away and travelling became a mainstream activity for the middle-class Briton, travel writers attempted to identify with.

The Turkish Connection

The Turkish Connection PDF Author: Deniz Kuru
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 311075729X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 290

Get Book Here

Book Description
The volume provides the first (internationally and even in Turkey’s own case) elaboration of Global Intellectual History debates with regard to late Ottoman and Turkish Republican periods. It covers both individuals and groups as carriers of ideas (what we call in the volume ideational entrepreneurs) and simultaneously concepts and ideologies that emerge(d) in the interaction of Turkey’s intellectuals and scholars with their, mostly Western, counterparts. Additionally, it includes examples of its non-Western engagements, broadening the usual focus on Turkish-Western relationships. The contributions are of relevance both for specific studies on Turkish intellectual history and for broader audiences looking for new material in the novel Global Intellectual History framework. Also, the readings serve as helpful sources for courses on Intellectual History, European and Middle Eastern Studies, Turkish History, Global History, and related Area Studies courses. Specific chapters pertain further to broader study areas.

The Oxford Handbook of the Ends of Empire

The Oxford Handbook of the Ends of Empire PDF Author: Martin Thomas
Publisher:
ISBN: 0198713193
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 801

Get Book Here

Book Description
The Oxford Handbook of the Ends of Empire offers the most comprehensive treatment of the causes, course, and consequences of the collapse of empires in the twentieth century. The volume's contributors convey the global reach of decolonization, analysing the ways in which European, Asian, and African empires disintegrated over the past century.

The American Steppes

The American Steppes PDF Author: David Moon
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107103606
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 473

Get Book Here

Book Description
Explores the transnational movements of people, plants, agricultural sciences, and techniques from Russia's steppes to North America's Great Plains.

The Russian Cage

The Russian Cage PDF Author: Charlaine Harris
Publisher: S&S/Saga Press
ISBN: 1481494996
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 304

Get Book Here

Book Description
#1 New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author Charlaine Harris is at her best in this alternate history of the United States where magic is an acknowledged but despised power in this third installment of the Gunnie Rose series. Picking up right where A Longer Fall left off, this thrilling third installment follows Lizbeth Rose as she takes on one of her most dangerous missions yet: rescuing her estranged partner, Prince Eli, from the Holy Russian Empire. Once in San Diego, Lizbeth is going to have to rely upon her sister Felicia, and her growing Grigori powers to navigate her way through this strange new world of royalty and deception in order to get Eli freed from jail where he’s being held for murder. Russian Cage continues to ramp up the momentum with more of everything Harris’ readers adore her for with romance, intrigue, and a deep dive into the mysterious Holy Russian Empire.

Two Lands, New Visions

Two Lands, New Visions PDF Author: Janice Kulyk Keefer
Publisher: Coteau Books
ISBN: 9781550501346
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 340

Get Book Here

Book Description
A collection of stories from Canada and Ukraine. Typical is Ways of Coping, set in 18th century Ukraine and written by Myrna Kostash, a Canadian-Ukrainian. As a Polish lord forces himself on his Ukrainian maid, the woman finds comfort in the thought the Cossacks will soon revenge her in kind.

In-Between Empire

In-Between Empire PDF Author: Raymond Patton
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350498653
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 281

Get Book Here

Book Description
Exploring how Polish writers positioned themselves as neither colonized nor colonizers, In-Between Empire analyses their literary works on empire during the 19th and 20th centuries to explore how they negotiated their in-between position in the global imperial hierarchy. Leveraging this vantage point, they claimed the unique ability to represent the South to the West, constructing a Polish national identity in conversation with both imperial and anti-imperial currents, and influencing international discourse on colonialism and its legacy. Written at the nexus of historical and literary studies of imperial and colonial discourse, Patton centres Poland and Eastern Europe in debates that have frequently excluded these perspectives. Showing how these Polish writers attempted to portray anticolonial solidarity with non-European victims of colonialism, yet also employed European colonial tropes, each writer demonstrated a distinctive ability to identify the tensions and flaws of imperialism, whilst simultaneously reconciling those tensions to themselves as 'exceptional Europeans', innocent of colonialism, by alternating between metropolitan and peripheral perspectives. In doing so, they informed transnational discourses and policies on colonialism, decolonization, the Cold War and beyond.

Women Writing Greece

Women Writing Greece PDF Author: Vassiliki Kolocotroni
Publisher: Rodopi
ISBN: 904202481X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 257

Get Book Here

Book Description
Women Writing Greece explores images of modern Greece by women who experienced the country as travellers, writers, and scholars, or who journeyed there through the imagination. The essays assembled here consider women's travel narratives, memoirs and novels, ranging from the eighteenth to the late twentieth century, focusing on the role of gender in travel and cross-cultural mediation and challenging stereotypical views of 'the Greek journey', traditionally seen as an antiquarian or Byronic pursuit. This collection aims to cast new light on women's participation in the discourses of Hellenism and Orientalism, examining their ideological rendering of Greece as at once a luminous land and a site crossed by contradictory cultural memories. Arranged chronologically, the essays discuss encounters with Greece by, among others, Lady Elizabeth Craven, Lady Hester Stanhope, Lady Montagu, Lady Morgan, Mary Shelley, Felicia Skene, Emily Pfeiffer, Eva Palmer, Jane Ellen Harrison, Virginia Woolf, Ethel Smyth, Christa Wolf, Penelope Storace and Gillian Bouras, and analyse them through a variety of critical, historical, contextual and theoretical frames.