Revisiting the revolution: a Norwegian Nazi in 1930s Mexico

Abstract

How did a Nazi travel writer end up being an enthusiast of the Mexican Revolution, celebrating the Indians who had accomplished it? This article studies the travelogues of Norwegian Per Imerslund (1912–1943). It places Imerslund's depictions of Mexico and its revolution in the context of his journeys, his writing and publishing strategies, and the political discourses circulating in the Europe and Mexico of the 1930s and 1940s. It shows how Imerslund wrote and rewrote the revolution – an ordinary war in his early writings, an exemplary struggle of the Indian people in later ones. Revisiting Mexico, Imerslund also revisited his conception of the country, its history and its inhabitants. The analysis draws on Bakhtin's concept of dialogism to suggest a reading that balances a consideration of travel narratives as products of discourse, on the one hand, and an acceptance of them as expressions of an evolving and maturing writer, on the other.