Identity and borders: seventeenth-century Hungarian travellers in the West and the East

Abstract

The survey discusses the identity and self-image of seventeenth-century Hungarian and Transylvanian travellers as conveyed through their travel texts. The cultural borders in the mental map of the travellers coincided with the eastern and south-eastern borders of Transylvania. They placed themselves in the same position as their Western European contemporaries. Although the general tone of their diaries was one of admiration, they did not make explicit comparisons to the disadvantages of their home. There are also some cases of criticism on a civilisational basis towards the West, which shows that the travellers felt that they were on equal grounds to the West. The few cases of auto-stereotypes also show that some travellers tended to reinforce even the negative stereotypes attributed to Hungarians in order to question the Western discourse which placed them on a lower grade on a scale of civilisation. Towards their Eastern neighbours, the travellers tended to use a condescending tone: qualities such as boorishness, lack of education and barbarity were attributed to Russians, Wallachians and Moldavians. The worst reputation belonged to the Ottomans: in their case, even if – in a very few cases – tolerance and understanding came into picture, there was no possibility of acceptance. Hungarian travellers only used the discourse of their own inferiority towards Western Europeans when it was a part of their political agenda – otherwise, they included themselves in the concept of the region, imagined on the basis of erudition and Latin education – which they more and more often called Europe.