The image of Crimea among British travelers Edward Clarke and Reginald Heber at the turn of the 18th-19th centuries

Nikita I Khrapunov

doi:10.22363/2312-8674-2019-18-4-883-903

Abstract

This paper analyses two books by British travellers oﬀering accounts of Crimea in the ﬁrst decades of the Russian period in its history. Crimea became a stage in Western Grand Tour, oﬀering a possibility to view and discuss diﬀerent phenomena: Mediterranean environment, cultural heritage sites, multiethnic populations confessing diﬀerent religions, the change of Crimea’s political status, and the ﬁrst results of Russia’s attempts of its integration. The comparison of these two travelogues with other sources and the materials supplied by current researches has uncovered who the British mind interpreted Crimean realities. The travellers created uniﬁed image of Crimea featuring its past, present, and future. The travelogues under analysis uncover the features of researchers’ thinking in the period of transition from the Enlightenment to the Romanticism. This way, the notion of ethnic processes actually restricted to the search for modern parallels of ancient ethnic names. The books under study reﬂect a complicated and controversial process of Crimea’s integration into the Russian Empire. Heber considered the future as economic progress and therefore thought it necessary to develop Crimean trade, infrastructure, and economy, building them into all-Russia and all-Europe network. Clarke’s opinion of Russia was distinctly negative, therefore he thought desirable to ‘return’ Crimea to the Ottomans. The travellers created several stereotypes, such as the ideas of ‘earthly paradise’ in Crimea, ‘Tatar laziness,’ ‘golden age’ of the Crimean khanate, or ‘barbarous destruction’ of cultural heritage monuments by Russians, still existing in Western mind.

Highlights

Crimea became a stage in Western Grand Tour, offering a possibility to view and discuss different phenomena: Mediterranean environment, cultural heritage sites, multiethnic populations confessing different religions, the change of Crimea’s political status, and the first results of Russia’s attempts of its integration
The general outlook and extensive knowledge of such travelers enabled them to create a credible image of the peninsula in the West
The travelogues studied in this article demonstrate the characteristics of a way of thought during the transition from the Enlightenment to the Romantic era, when science had not yet completely separated from literature

Summary

Introduction

‘The capture of the Crimea excited the attention of all Europe,’ wrote the famous British traveler Edward Daniel Clarke, who visited the peninsula in 1800.1 Russia’s conquest of Crimea 17 years earlier had not just changed the balance of power in the Black Sea region. Recent publications discuss the influence of European perceptions about the East on Clarke’s travelogue, address such questions as using archeology for ideological purposes, justify the ‘barbaric’ nature of Russia, as well as Heber’s views on the Crimea’s society and economy.[8] Today, the study of travelogues applies discursive analytic tools developed by historical science, literary criticism, political science, and cultural studies.[9] The purpose of this article is to reveal the image of Crimea that Clarke and Heber fashioned The juxtaposition of this image with other sources and the results of modern researches will uncover how Crimean realities were transformed in the British mind. Russia’s role in Crimea’s fate as described by the travelers will be be assessed, along with their speculations about its prospects, which affected the views of future generations

Life details of Edward Clarke and Reginald Heber

Conclusions

Библиографический список