In recent years, historians have paid particular attention to travel accounts and guides as historical sources. Narratives of travel often tell as much (or more) about travelers than about the places they visit, but accounts also often prove important in defining those very places both internally and abroad. In particular, many historians have addressed the role of empire and imperialism in travel writing: constructing narratives of travel in some ways expresses power, imperial or not, over the subjects of that narrative.
The Russian case is a peculiar one. Travel narratives provided the first images of early Russia to Western audiences, and in some ways those very early narratives affected many later images, as well. By the nineteenth century, too, Russia’s empire was a peculiar one. It was undeniably an imperial power, with control over vast lands and many peoples. But it was an empire that also, in some ways, felt itself colonized by foreign ideas (as one mid-century nationalist put it, “as India is to the English, so Russia is to the Germans”). Therefore, travel narratives written by Russians themselves or by foreigners visiting Russia should provide a source of particular interest.
In your research project, you will examine some facet of Russian imperial history using travel narratives (Robarts Library has many in its stacks, yet more are available online, either through the library’s website or through Google Books) as primary sources.
First, by Friday, February 8, you should have read (and reviewed) a scholarly monograph that deals specifically with travel narratives as sources (a short bibliography is attached, but if you find another book, you’re welcome to read and review it). The review is due electronically at 5pm that day.
Second, in lieu of a regular class meeting the week of February 13, I will have extra office hours to meet with you all to discuss your research project. That means that by this time you should have at least a vague sense of what you’re interested in investigating. If you wish to work on an alternative project, your research proposal is due at your meeting.
Finally, your 12-15 page research paper is due on the Friday after the last day of class, April 5, electronically.
One last thing: I HIGHLY RECOMMEND Booth, Colomb, and Williams, The Craft of Research as a resource for conducting research and writing research papers. Not everything will be useful for this project, but they way it outlines the basic tasks of research is extremely useful, and even insightful.
Travel Bibliography
Adickes, Sandra. The Social Quest: The Expanded Vision of Four Women Travelers in the Era of the French Revolution. New York: Peter Lang, 1991.
Andreeva, Elena. Russia and Iran in the Great Game: Travelogues and Orientalism. London: Routledge, 2007.
Bohls, Elizabeth A. Women Travel Writers and the Language of Aesthetics 1716-1818. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1995.
Buzard, James. The Beaten Track: European Tourism, Literature, and the Ways to Culture, 1800-1918. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Chard, Chloe. Pleasure and Guilt on the Grand Tour: Travel Writing and Imaginative Geography 1600-1830. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1999.
Gilroy, Amanda, Ed. Romantic Geographies: Discourses of Travel, 1775-1844. Manchester & New York: Manchester University Press, 2000.
Glendening, John. The High Road: Romantic Tourism, Scotland, and Literature, 1720-1820. New York, NY: St. Martin's, 1997.
Jarvis, Robin. Romantic Writing and Pedestrial Travel. Basingstoke: Macmillan; New York: St. Martin's Press, 1997.
Korte, Barbara. English Travel Writing from Pilgimages to Postcolonial Explorations. Catherine Matthia, trans. New York: St. Martin’s, 2000.
Marinova, Margarita D. Transnational Russian-American Travel Writing. New York: Routledge, 2011.
Moir, Esther. The Discovery of Britain: The English Tourists 1540-1840. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1964.
Poe, Marshall. A People Born to Slavery: Russia in Early Modern European Ethnography, 1476-1748. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 2000.
Pratt, Mary Louise. Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation. London: Routledge, 1992.
Redford, Bruce. Venice and the Grand Tour. New Haven, NJ: Yale UP, 1997.
Schönle, Andreas. Authenticity and Fiction in the Russian Literary Journey, 1790-1840. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000.
Stafford, Barbara Stafford. Voyage into Substance: Art, Science, Nature, and the Illustrated Travel Account, 1760-1840. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1984.
Suranyi, Anna. The Genius of the English Nation: Travel Writing and National Identity in Early Modern England. Newark: University of Delaware Press, 2008.
Tsigakou, Fani-Maria. The Rediscovery of Greece: Travellers and Painters of the Romantic Era. New Rochelle, NY: Caratzas Brothers, 1981.
Turner, Katherine. British Travel Writers in Europe 1750-1800: Authorship, gender and national identity. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2001.