Образ и место восточного города на страницах записок английских путешественников в конце XVI – первой трети XVII века

Abstract

In the present papers there is analysis of different views presented in the English travel writings. The purpose was to show what early modern English perceptions of ‘Eastern’ cities and their inhabitants as ‘another’ culture were. The author analyzes the constants making an image of east Eastern city, and reveals the mechanism of designing of ‘another’ space by the English travellers. In the article the common and specific things in their perception of different countries is emphasized. In the English travel writing about the East, a city and inhabitants quickly becomes (become) the focus of the civilized/barbaric binary. That allowed Europeans to declare their superiority over the most powerful and impressive non-European civilizations during early modern times. The author used a wide range of sources, including diaries of travellers, ship magazines, memoirs and the descriptions of travel written by eyewitnesses upon returning home, letters of travellers to friends and acquaintances.