The travelogue of Robert Porter as a primary source on studying the Caucasus image visualisation by the Europeans in the first decades of XIX c.
https://doi.org/10.31143/2542-212X-2022-2-22-36
EDN: BGOZNY
Abstract
The paper focuses on the analysis of the travel notes by the famous British artist and traveller Robert Ker Porter, who visited the North Caucasus on the trip to the Middle East in 1817-1820. The travelogue full text has not been translated into Russian yet and is being introduced to Russian scientific public for the first time. Its author became one of the first English travellers who discovered the exotic land and its inhabitants in the English-speaking public, whose vivid images are still in use in the English-speaking sector of Caucasian studies. The article points out the Orientalist nature of the Caucasus people's descriptions: the Cossacks, Kalmyks, Kabardians, Chechens and Ossetians, with whom the author of the travel notes had contacted, but mainly conveyed a set of well-established Eurocentric stereotypes, filling them with vivid regional details. The travelogue also reflects the nature of the traveller’s relations with the Imperial authorities in the region, contains sketches of the daily life of the settlements and frontier dwellers. The author concludes the “dualistic” vision of the Caucasus by the traveller: the admiration for nature and mountains fancifully mixed with the fear of being captured by the inhabitants of the foothills.
About the Author
D. S. Tkachenko
North Caucasus Federal University
Russian Federation
Russian Federation
Dmitrii S. Tkachenko – Doctor of Science (History)
Stavropol
References
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Review
For citations:
Tkachenko D.S. The travelogue of Robert Porter as a primary source on studying the Caucasus image visualisation by the Europeans in the first decades of XIX c. E-Journal “Kavkazologiya”. 2022;(2):22-36. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.31143/2542-212X-2022-2-22-36. EDN: BGOZNY
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