Samoyeds at the Budapest Zoo in 1882: Exploitation or Collaboration?

Abstract

The article explores the history of the exhibit of a group of five Samoyeds in the Zoological Garden of Budapest in June-July 1882. A special attention is given to issues of organizing the Samoyeds’ trip to Europe, to the prehistory of their exhibiting, to the specific cultural context presenting them in Hungary, where the Samoyeds were presented as distant relatives of the Hungarians, one of the authors of that time even wrote about “brothers in the zoo”. Particular attention is also paid to the question of whether the Samoyeds were exposed to their exploitation by the impresario, or the Samoyeds actively and voluntarily participated in this show, independently defining the boundaries of their participation. It is noted that although the texts talk about the diseases of the Samoyeds, about making them drinking alcohol, about unusual food for them, about their melancholy, and finally, about the death of one of them in the same summer, at the same time they also mention their pride in themselves, about their gaiety, enterprise, the ability to dashingly drive a sled with reindeer, etc. As a result, the indications of the texts look contradictory, which reflects both the literary structure of the studied texts and the complex reality of the exhibitions themselves, in which the Samoyeds took part in Budapest and other cities.