Czech Tropics

Abstract

Bohemia, a small land-locked country which never had an Asian colony, was itself for long periods “ colonized” and exoticized by its more powerful European neighbours. What do the jungle, the ocean, brave Acehnese fighters, mestizos, or self-confident British and Dutch colonists mean to Czechs ? What dreams and nightmares, truths and half-lies do these images embody ? How do they mirror and refract both fresh perceptions and inherited imagery ? How can one write about them without explaining away the raw power and truth of personal impressions, fictional narratives, or poetic metaphors, without fitting them into pre-existent colonial and postcolonial schemes of power and meaning – such as labelling them as colonial, anti-colonial, Orientalist, European, Czech, same or different ? Starting from the avant-garde poet Konstantin Biebl, who visited Java in 1926, the essay goes on to reflect on the writings of other Czechs who travelled to the Malay archipelago in the colonial period.