Returns to the wide world: errant Bohemian images of race and colonialism

Abstract

ABSTRACTAlthough located at the centre of Europe, Bohemia was for much of its history dominated by a European empire. This essay reflects on a constellation of anti-racist, anti-colonial sentiments in the writings (1877–1944) of a number of Czechs who travelled to the Dutch East Indies. These feelings include an alienation from the imperial nations of “the West”; a sense of kinship with colonised peoples of “the East”; the collapsing – through images of blending and mirroring – of certain distinctions essential to colonial racism; and, often, a feeling of the absurdity of the Czech traveller’s own presence, ideas and dreams. An exploration of Bohemian perspectives and imagination, and a reflection on insignificance and being out of place, can contribute to a more nuanced understanding of European representations than that afforded by dominant colonial and postcolonial narratives that generalise about Europe based on views limited to the imperial nations.