Tomasz Ewertowski | Shanghai International Studies University (original) (raw)
Books by Tomasz Ewertowski
In "Images of China in Polish and Serbian Travel Writings (1720-1949)", Tomasz Ewertowski examine... more In "Images of China in Polish and Serbian Travel Writings (1720-1949)", Tomasz Ewertowski examines how Polish and Serbian travelers described China, surveys various factors which influenced their style of writing, and illustrates the social, political and intellectual context that determined their different representations of the Middle Kingdom. The corpus includes a vast array of texts written by more than 80 authors who traveled to China from the 18th to the mid-20th century, including sources that have not been published. Besides making new facts and sources accessible, the research presented in this book introduces a comparative perspective and provides a thorough literary and cultural analysis of the aforesaid travelogues.
https://brill.com/view/title/57522?contents=editorial-content
Papers by Tomasz Ewertowski
Wacana, Journal of the Humanities of Indonesia, 2024
This article explores cross-cultural encounters and identities discourses in selected Polish and ... more This article explores cross-cultural encounters and identities discourses in selected Polish and Russian travelogues about the Netherlands East Indies. Poles and Russians could travel to the Netherlands East Indies thanks to advantages afforded Europeans by the colonial system. Their occupations (for example, a privileged tourist, colonial scientist, diplomat) often made them suitable imperial agents. They defined themselves as Europeans but, as Eastern Europeans, they occupied an ambiguous position: Russians came from a land-based, economically backward “empire of the periphery“ (Boris Kagarlitsky 2008); Poles came from a semi-peripheral European nation subjected to foreign rule and, from their common experience of subjugation, some Polish authors were able to sympathize with the colonized peoples. Hence, a comparative approach leads to various insights into representations of colonial Indonesia.
Escaping Kakania: Eastern European Travels in Colonial Southeast Asia (edited by Jan Mrázek), 2024
The paper examines ethnic comparisons in narratives about Southeast Asia written by Polish and Se... more The paper examines ethnic comparisons in narratives about Southeast Asia written by Polish and Serbian travellers of Austro-Hungarian background in the period from the opening of the Suez Canal until the outbreak of the First World War. One of features of travel writing is to compare inhabitants of a visited country with the traveller’s own country. However, travelogues about Southeast Asia presented a more complex image than a mere binary opposition. Travellers often compared local populations with the Chinese and with Europeans. Polish and Serbian travellers from the then Austro-Hungarian empire identified themselves as members of a national group, as subject of Austro-Hungarian empire, as Europeans. A conventional opposition between “us” and “them” can be transformed into a multifarious discourse in which European “us” and Asian “them” are not monolithic structures. Therefore, this article presents a variety of voices on Southeast Asians, moving beyond binary thinking in categories of “East” and “West”. The corpus used in my research includes works by the following authors: the Serbs Milan Jovanović, Vlado Ivelić, the Poles Julian Fałat, Karol Lanckoroński, Marian Raciborski, Paweł Sapieha, Czesław Petelenz, Michał Siedlecki, and Hugo Zapałowicz.
Colloquia Humanistica, 2023 (12), 2023
The paper focuses on various dimensions of European identity in Polish and Serbian travel writing... more The paper focuses on various dimensions of European identity in Polish and Serbian travel writings about Asia in the period from the 1850s to the 1920s, examining several case studies that show how travellers often identified themselves as Europeans, but sometimes discussed various aspects of European identity and had many issues with this self-description. The analysis is based on a large corpus of Polish and Serbian travelogues, but works by Gustaw
Mobilities, 2023
The main aim of this article is to analyse experiences associated with steamship mobilities in th... more The main aim of this article is to analyse experiences associated with steamship mobilities in the years 1869–1891, with a focus on voyages to and from Asia via the Suez Canal. The source base includes lesser-known texts written by Polish, Russian, Serbian, and Indian authors that are examined using a twofold approach. The first is focused on the macroscale, scrutinising the networks in which travellers functioned, including other communication technologies and imperial webs. The second is focused on the microscale, on bodily experiences of travellers: how did they characterize their bodily position on board of the ship and factors which influenced it, as well as how did they describe their sensuous impressions.
Crossroads. A Journal of English Studies, 2023
The article explores the haptic aesthetic of selected Polish and Anglophone travelogues about the... more The article explores the haptic aesthetic of selected Polish and Anglophone travelogues about the island of Java: "Jawa – przyroda i sztuka" (1913) by a Polish biologist named Michał Siedlecki, and "Java, the Garden of the East" (1897) by the American writer Eliza Ruhamah Scidmore. A comparison of texts coming from different literary traditions should yield a deeper insight into the various aspects of conceptualising the haptic in travel writing. Java’s tropical environment provided travellers with new sensory experiences, consequently scrutinising how writers represented what they touched and felt, along with how descriptions of haptic sensations were associated with the ideological and aesthetic dimension of travel writing, can shed new light on how travel writing works and how multi-layered it is.
Poznańskie Studia Slawistyczne, 23, pp. 19-43, 2022
This article examines diverse travel narratives about steamship voyages to Asia in the first two ... more This article examines diverse travel narratives about steamship voyages to Asia in the first two decades after the opening of the Suez Canal, with special focus on journeys through the Suez Canal, Red Sea, and Indian Ocean. Sources include Polish, Serbian and Russian authors: Julian Fałat, Vlado Ivelić, Lucjan Jurkiewicz, Milan Jovanović, Vsevolod Krestovskiy, Karol Lanckoroński, Bronisław Piłsudski, Paweł Sapieha, Henryk Sienkiewicz, Ivan Yuvachev, Hugo Zapałowicz, and Ivan Zarubin. Given this variety of sources, consisting of 12 accounts in 3 languages, written by different types of travellers with dissimilar social backgrounds, it is possible to demonstrate avariety of phenomena that may be associated with steamship voyages. The two main issues examined here are: 1) the coexistence of multiple mobilities in the era of steam power, 2) different experiences of time while voyaging
Multilateral Relations, Many Perspectives: China and Central-Eastern Europe, 2022
Abstract: On the basis of a corpus comprising more than 80 authors, this article proposes a typol... more Abstract: On the basis of a corpus comprising more than 80 authors, this article proposes a typology of narrative voices in Polish and Serbian travelogues about China from the 18th to mid-20th century. The proposed types are the following: a man of letters, an ethnographer, a reporter, a scholar-interpreter, a believer, and a lover of the exotics. Each type is briefly discussed with reference to a few characteristic travelogues. Keywords: Travel writing; travel literature; Polish travel writing; Serbian travel writing; image of China; narrative voice
Wacana. Journal of the Humanities of Indonesia, 2022
The article analyses representations of the natural world in Indonesia and mainland Southeast Asi... more The article analyses representations of the natural world in Indonesia and mainland Southeast Asia in a corpus of Polish and Serbian travel writings for the period between the opening of the Suez Canal (1869) and the outbreak of the First World War (1914). The research is based on travel writings by twenty Polish and Serbian authors, who visited Southeast Asia during the period 1869-1914. Scrutinizing a corpus of such narratives should contribute to the study of perceptions of Southeast Asia, especially among travellers from very diverse backgrounds. The theoretical and conceptual framework of the article draws on works by other scholars who have analysed travel writings, imaginative geography, representations of Southeast Asia, and tropicality. The study focuses on four areas: 1) images of the luxuriant tropics, 2) images of the perilous tropics, 3) exploitation of its natural resources, and 4) nature and identity.
Indonesia and the Malay World, Mar 2022
This article attempts to analyse some images of Java in Polish travel writings from the second ha... more This article attempts to analyse some images of Java in Polish travel writings from the second half of the 19th century in a comparative framework, and linking the various aspects of representations of the island with the respective travellers’ background, social and intellectual trends of the epoch, and literary conventions. This approach is based on concepts of imagology, habitus and comparative reading. The travelogues by three Polish authors are analysed here: aristocrat, lawyer and politician Adam Sierakowski (1846–1912), soldier Henryk Sienkiewicz (1852–1936, a relative of a famous writer by the same name), and an apostolic delegate for the East Indies Władysław Michał Zaleski (1852–1925). Polish travel accounts are juxtaposed with texts written by English, American, Russian, and Javanese travellers: Charles Kinloch (1810–1893), Eliza Ruhamah Scidmore (1856–1928), V. Tatarinov (c.1860), Nikolai Miklouho-Maclay (1846–1888), and Radèn Mas Arya Candranegara V alias Purwalelana (1837–1885). The examples show that although some descriptive aspects of Java may be linked to national identity, far more fruitful would be a detailed examination of texts and contexts through a comparative analysis
Studies in Travel Writing, 2021
The railway is often characterised as one of the crucial innovations of the nineteenth century wh... more The railway is often characterised as one of the crucial innovations of the nineteenth century which transformed patterns of space and time, exposed people to the mechanical power of the industrial revolution, led to the formation of a panoramic perception of the world, and changed the economic circulation. In China, the new technology was adopted later than in Europe and America, and its development took place in a semi-colonial context. As such, the railway experience took on a different dimension there. Based on a corpus of Polish and Serbian travel writings about China, this article examines how travellers represented railways in the Middle Kingdom. Five main topics are discussed: (1) the railway as an icon of modernity; (2) the railway as a “purely European invention”; (3) Polish and Serbian patriotism as linked to the Chinese Eastern Railway; (4) the train as a space of interactions; (5) panoramic visions of China.
Voyages and Travel Accounts in Historiography and Literature, vol. 2, 2020
Starting from a semiotic definition of sight (MacCannell, Urry and Larsen, Culler), this article ... more Starting from a semiotic definition of sight (MacCannell, Urry and Larsen, Culler), this article analyses descriptions of common sights – rickshaws, braids, characters, dragons – from Polish and Serbian travelogues about China against their socio-cultural background. This perspective can help analyse how particular objects are seen by travellers as representative of China and how descriptions of sights may acquire multifarious dimensions. The article refers to previous research on Serbian and Polish travel writings, so the corpus includes a vast array of texts, written by authors who travelled to China in the second half of the 19th and the first half of the 20th century.
Przegląd Humanistyczny, 2018
The main goal of the paper is to show how a discourse on the so-called ‘yellow race’ functioned i... more The main goal of the paper is to show how a discourse on the so-called ‘yellow race’ functioned in the Polish and Serbian travel writing from the second half of the 19th century and first half of the 20th century. An analysis of the semantics of the term ‘yellow race’ is also proffered.
Paying attention to Serbian and Polish authors can broaden our understanding of the imperial and racial dimension of representation of China. In the modern period, Poland and Serbia did not take part in exploitation of China; on the contrary, these countries themselves became objects of imperial domination. Nevertheless, when travellers from Poland or Serbia visited China, they often represented imperial institutions of foreign powers, e.g. as soldiers in the Russian army. Their outlook on the world was formed by intellectual trends born in Western Europe, like Darwinism. However, Poles and Serbs, being victims of imperialism themselves, were in a better position to understand the people of this East Asian nation. Therefore, we find an interesting ambivalence. Additionally, choosing Polish and Serbian travel writings also allows us to see whether representatives of a Catholic Slavic nation and an Orthodox Slavic nation had different attitude towards race issues
Borders and Beyond. Orient-Occident Crossings in Literature, 2018
This is a draft version of a chapter in the book Borders and Beyond. Orient-Occident Crossings in... more This is a draft version of a chapter in the book Borders and Beyond. Orient-Occident Crossings in Literature edited by Adam Bednarczyk, Magdalena Kubarek, Maciej Szatkowski, published in 2018 by Vernon Press, link: https://vernonpress.com/book/436
The topic of the paper is the image of the Great Wall of China in Polish and Serbian travel writing. This construction is recognized as a historical border of China proper, which made it also a border zone between sedentary, farming Chinese civilization and nomadic or semi-nomadic peoples from the steppes and forests. In the paper we will analyze how the Great Wall was presented by Polish and Serbian travelers, who wrote about China in the 18th, 19th and the first half of the 20th century. We will concentrate not only on narratives a physical construction, but mostly on cultural and axiological aspects of descriptions of the famous edifice. The methodology of research is based on Vladimir Gvozden’s concept of travel writing, imagology, Pratt’s idea of a contact zone, Edwards Said’s concept of creative geography and as well as on post-colonial theory.
The aim of this article is to disrupt the “optocentric” paradigm that dominates criticism on trav... more The aim of this article is to disrupt the “optocentric” paradigm that dominates criticism on travel writing. The main focal points are scent-based impressions and their formulation and function in the text. To this end, the article analyzes a sampling of Polish and Serbian travel writing on China from the turn of the twentieth century.
The main aim of the article is to examine the ideological background and socio-political framewor... more The main aim of the article is to examine the ideological background and socio-political framework of two different images of the Chinese communities in Southeast Asia as presented in two travelogues respectively written by the Polish clergyman Wadysaw Micha Zaleski and Serbian writer and doctor Milan Jovano-vi. Southeast Asia is treated as a " contact zone " whereby different communities are intertwined in a struggle for hegemony. The writers' trips to Asia were conditioned by European capitalistic expansion; however, being respectively Polish and Serbian, they came from countries which were also oppressed by great powers. Analysis of their travel writings shows how imperialist and orientalist discourse might have been influenced by various factors. Differences between the two writers issued mostly from their different outlooks on the world; Jovanovi being liberal, and Zaleski being conservative and Catholic.
Historically, Northeast China (Manchuria) was a border zone between China and the nomadic peoples... more Historically, Northeast China (Manchuria) was a border zone between China and the nomadic peoples, as well as between the Russian and Qing empires since the 17th century. In the second half of the 19th and first half of the 20th century, a number of factors (penetration by foreign powers, collapse of the Qing Empire, revolution in Russia, Japanese expansion and demographic changes) transformed this area into " a contact zone " in the sense given by Mary Louise Pratt. The main focus of the article is the way in which this contact zone was described by Polish and Serbian travellers. Their accounts can provide a special outlook, because Poland and Serbia did not participate extensively in the colonial penetration into China, however, Serbs and Poles travelled there, often representing Russian institutions. Therefore they were observing China as agents of an imperial power, but they did not identify themselves fully with it. Our analysis of the image of Northeast China as a contact zone will be divided into three broad sections: 1) political and military expansion 2) economic and demographic relations 3) transcultural phenomena of everyday life.
Spotkanie polonistyk trzech krajów - Chiny, Korea, Japonia - rocznik 2018/2019, 2018
The topic of the paper are the descriptions of Korea in Polish travel writing before 1918. The pr... more The topic of the paper are the descriptions of Korea in Polish travel writing before 1918. The primary focus is the works of following Polish authors: Jan Kalinowski, Paweł Sapieha, Hugo Zapałowicz, Józef Gieysztor, Wacław Sieroszewski, Stefan Bryła. The written accounts analysed above have a number of common features, especially describing Korea in comparison with China and Japan. However, the travelers’ views seem to be determined by their social and intellectual background and personal predilections.
Slavica Wratislaviensia, 2018
The topic of the paper is descriptions of Chinese cuisine in Polish and Serbian travel writing. T... more The topic of the paper is descriptions of Chinese cuisine in Polish and Serbian travel writing. The primary focus of the paper is the works of following Polish and Serbian authors: Konstanty Symonolewicz, Witold Urbanowicz, Bronisław Grąbczewski, Milan Jovanović, Milutin Velimirović, Miodrag Pavlović. Methodology of research is based on postcolonialism and imagology.
The paper concentrates on descriptions of official Chinese dinners. Topic of food and eating habits is treated as a one of the ways of creating the otherness. Following particular issues are analyzed: chopsticks, rice, tea, excess and magnificence, cultural relativism.
Tema rada je opis kineske kuhinje u poljskim i srpskim putopisima. Glavni izvori su putopisi sledećih autora: Konstanty Symonolewicz, Witold Urbanowicz, Bronisław Grąbczewski, Milan Jovanović, Milutin Velimirović, Miodrag Pavlović. Metodologija članka je zasnovana na postkolonijalizmu i imagologiji.
U radu se posebna pažnja poklanja opisima zvaničnih kineskih ručkova. Tema hrane i kulinarskih običaja je posmatrana kao jedna od metoda za kreiranje drugosti. Detaljno su analizirane sledeće teme: štapići, pirinač, čaj, višak i veličanstvenost, kulturni relativizam.
In "Images of China in Polish and Serbian Travel Writings (1720-1949)", Tomasz Ewertowski examine... more In "Images of China in Polish and Serbian Travel Writings (1720-1949)", Tomasz Ewertowski examines how Polish and Serbian travelers described China, surveys various factors which influenced their style of writing, and illustrates the social, political and intellectual context that determined their different representations of the Middle Kingdom. The corpus includes a vast array of texts written by more than 80 authors who traveled to China from the 18th to the mid-20th century, including sources that have not been published. Besides making new facts and sources accessible, the research presented in this book introduces a comparative perspective and provides a thorough literary and cultural analysis of the aforesaid travelogues.
https://brill.com/view/title/57522?contents=editorial-content
Wacana, Journal of the Humanities of Indonesia, 2024
This article explores cross-cultural encounters and identities discourses in selected Polish and ... more This article explores cross-cultural encounters and identities discourses in selected Polish and Russian travelogues about the Netherlands East Indies. Poles and Russians could travel to the Netherlands East Indies thanks to advantages afforded Europeans by the colonial system. Their occupations (for example, a privileged tourist, colonial scientist, diplomat) often made them suitable imperial agents. They defined themselves as Europeans but, as Eastern Europeans, they occupied an ambiguous position: Russians came from a land-based, economically backward “empire of the periphery“ (Boris Kagarlitsky 2008); Poles came from a semi-peripheral European nation subjected to foreign rule and, from their common experience of subjugation, some Polish authors were able to sympathize with the colonized peoples. Hence, a comparative approach leads to various insights into representations of colonial Indonesia.
Escaping Kakania: Eastern European Travels in Colonial Southeast Asia (edited by Jan Mrázek), 2024
The paper examines ethnic comparisons in narratives about Southeast Asia written by Polish and Se... more The paper examines ethnic comparisons in narratives about Southeast Asia written by Polish and Serbian travellers of Austro-Hungarian background in the period from the opening of the Suez Canal until the outbreak of the First World War. One of features of travel writing is to compare inhabitants of a visited country with the traveller’s own country. However, travelogues about Southeast Asia presented a more complex image than a mere binary opposition. Travellers often compared local populations with the Chinese and with Europeans. Polish and Serbian travellers from the then Austro-Hungarian empire identified themselves as members of a national group, as subject of Austro-Hungarian empire, as Europeans. A conventional opposition between “us” and “them” can be transformed into a multifarious discourse in which European “us” and Asian “them” are not monolithic structures. Therefore, this article presents a variety of voices on Southeast Asians, moving beyond binary thinking in categories of “East” and “West”. The corpus used in my research includes works by the following authors: the Serbs Milan Jovanović, Vlado Ivelić, the Poles Julian Fałat, Karol Lanckoroński, Marian Raciborski, Paweł Sapieha, Czesław Petelenz, Michał Siedlecki, and Hugo Zapałowicz.
Colloquia Humanistica, 2023 (12), 2023
The paper focuses on various dimensions of European identity in Polish and Serbian travel writing... more The paper focuses on various dimensions of European identity in Polish and Serbian travel writings about Asia in the period from the 1850s to the 1920s, examining several case studies that show how travellers often identified themselves as Europeans, but sometimes discussed various aspects of European identity and had many issues with this self-description. The analysis is based on a large corpus of Polish and Serbian travelogues, but works by Gustaw
Mobilities, 2023
The main aim of this article is to analyse experiences associated with steamship mobilities in th... more The main aim of this article is to analyse experiences associated with steamship mobilities in the years 1869–1891, with a focus on voyages to and from Asia via the Suez Canal. The source base includes lesser-known texts written by Polish, Russian, Serbian, and Indian authors that are examined using a twofold approach. The first is focused on the macroscale, scrutinising the networks in which travellers functioned, including other communication technologies and imperial webs. The second is focused on the microscale, on bodily experiences of travellers: how did they characterize their bodily position on board of the ship and factors which influenced it, as well as how did they describe their sensuous impressions.
Crossroads. A Journal of English Studies, 2023
The article explores the haptic aesthetic of selected Polish and Anglophone travelogues about the... more The article explores the haptic aesthetic of selected Polish and Anglophone travelogues about the island of Java: "Jawa – przyroda i sztuka" (1913) by a Polish biologist named Michał Siedlecki, and "Java, the Garden of the East" (1897) by the American writer Eliza Ruhamah Scidmore. A comparison of texts coming from different literary traditions should yield a deeper insight into the various aspects of conceptualising the haptic in travel writing. Java’s tropical environment provided travellers with new sensory experiences, consequently scrutinising how writers represented what they touched and felt, along with how descriptions of haptic sensations were associated with the ideological and aesthetic dimension of travel writing, can shed new light on how travel writing works and how multi-layered it is.
Poznańskie Studia Slawistyczne, 23, pp. 19-43, 2022
This article examines diverse travel narratives about steamship voyages to Asia in the first two ... more This article examines diverse travel narratives about steamship voyages to Asia in the first two decades after the opening of the Suez Canal, with special focus on journeys through the Suez Canal, Red Sea, and Indian Ocean. Sources include Polish, Serbian and Russian authors: Julian Fałat, Vlado Ivelić, Lucjan Jurkiewicz, Milan Jovanović, Vsevolod Krestovskiy, Karol Lanckoroński, Bronisław Piłsudski, Paweł Sapieha, Henryk Sienkiewicz, Ivan Yuvachev, Hugo Zapałowicz, and Ivan Zarubin. Given this variety of sources, consisting of 12 accounts in 3 languages, written by different types of travellers with dissimilar social backgrounds, it is possible to demonstrate avariety of phenomena that may be associated with steamship voyages. The two main issues examined here are: 1) the coexistence of multiple mobilities in the era of steam power, 2) different experiences of time while voyaging
Multilateral Relations, Many Perspectives: China and Central-Eastern Europe, 2022
Abstract: On the basis of a corpus comprising more than 80 authors, this article proposes a typol... more Abstract: On the basis of a corpus comprising more than 80 authors, this article proposes a typology of narrative voices in Polish and Serbian travelogues about China from the 18th to mid-20th century. The proposed types are the following: a man of letters, an ethnographer, a reporter, a scholar-interpreter, a believer, and a lover of the exotics. Each type is briefly discussed with reference to a few characteristic travelogues. Keywords: Travel writing; travel literature; Polish travel writing; Serbian travel writing; image of China; narrative voice
Wacana. Journal of the Humanities of Indonesia, 2022
The article analyses representations of the natural world in Indonesia and mainland Southeast Asi... more The article analyses representations of the natural world in Indonesia and mainland Southeast Asia in a corpus of Polish and Serbian travel writings for the period between the opening of the Suez Canal (1869) and the outbreak of the First World War (1914). The research is based on travel writings by twenty Polish and Serbian authors, who visited Southeast Asia during the period 1869-1914. Scrutinizing a corpus of such narratives should contribute to the study of perceptions of Southeast Asia, especially among travellers from very diverse backgrounds. The theoretical and conceptual framework of the article draws on works by other scholars who have analysed travel writings, imaginative geography, representations of Southeast Asia, and tropicality. The study focuses on four areas: 1) images of the luxuriant tropics, 2) images of the perilous tropics, 3) exploitation of its natural resources, and 4) nature and identity.
Indonesia and the Malay World, Mar 2022
This article attempts to analyse some images of Java in Polish travel writings from the second ha... more This article attempts to analyse some images of Java in Polish travel writings from the second half of the 19th century in a comparative framework, and linking the various aspects of representations of the island with the respective travellers’ background, social and intellectual trends of the epoch, and literary conventions. This approach is based on concepts of imagology, habitus and comparative reading. The travelogues by three Polish authors are analysed here: aristocrat, lawyer and politician Adam Sierakowski (1846–1912), soldier Henryk Sienkiewicz (1852–1936, a relative of a famous writer by the same name), and an apostolic delegate for the East Indies Władysław Michał Zaleski (1852–1925). Polish travel accounts are juxtaposed with texts written by English, American, Russian, and Javanese travellers: Charles Kinloch (1810–1893), Eliza Ruhamah Scidmore (1856–1928), V. Tatarinov (c.1860), Nikolai Miklouho-Maclay (1846–1888), and Radèn Mas Arya Candranegara V alias Purwalelana (1837–1885). The examples show that although some descriptive aspects of Java may be linked to national identity, far more fruitful would be a detailed examination of texts and contexts through a comparative analysis
Studies in Travel Writing, 2021
The railway is often characterised as one of the crucial innovations of the nineteenth century wh... more The railway is often characterised as one of the crucial innovations of the nineteenth century which transformed patterns of space and time, exposed people to the mechanical power of the industrial revolution, led to the formation of a panoramic perception of the world, and changed the economic circulation. In China, the new technology was adopted later than in Europe and America, and its development took place in a semi-colonial context. As such, the railway experience took on a different dimension there. Based on a corpus of Polish and Serbian travel writings about China, this article examines how travellers represented railways in the Middle Kingdom. Five main topics are discussed: (1) the railway as an icon of modernity; (2) the railway as a “purely European invention”; (3) Polish and Serbian patriotism as linked to the Chinese Eastern Railway; (4) the train as a space of interactions; (5) panoramic visions of China.
Voyages and Travel Accounts in Historiography and Literature, vol. 2, 2020
Starting from a semiotic definition of sight (MacCannell, Urry and Larsen, Culler), this article ... more Starting from a semiotic definition of sight (MacCannell, Urry and Larsen, Culler), this article analyses descriptions of common sights – rickshaws, braids, characters, dragons – from Polish and Serbian travelogues about China against their socio-cultural background. This perspective can help analyse how particular objects are seen by travellers as representative of China and how descriptions of sights may acquire multifarious dimensions. The article refers to previous research on Serbian and Polish travel writings, so the corpus includes a vast array of texts, written by authors who travelled to China in the second half of the 19th and the first half of the 20th century.
Przegląd Humanistyczny, 2018
The main goal of the paper is to show how a discourse on the so-called ‘yellow race’ functioned i... more The main goal of the paper is to show how a discourse on the so-called ‘yellow race’ functioned in the Polish and Serbian travel writing from the second half of the 19th century and first half of the 20th century. An analysis of the semantics of the term ‘yellow race’ is also proffered.
Paying attention to Serbian and Polish authors can broaden our understanding of the imperial and racial dimension of representation of China. In the modern period, Poland and Serbia did not take part in exploitation of China; on the contrary, these countries themselves became objects of imperial domination. Nevertheless, when travellers from Poland or Serbia visited China, they often represented imperial institutions of foreign powers, e.g. as soldiers in the Russian army. Their outlook on the world was formed by intellectual trends born in Western Europe, like Darwinism. However, Poles and Serbs, being victims of imperialism themselves, were in a better position to understand the people of this East Asian nation. Therefore, we find an interesting ambivalence. Additionally, choosing Polish and Serbian travel writings also allows us to see whether representatives of a Catholic Slavic nation and an Orthodox Slavic nation had different attitude towards race issues
Borders and Beyond. Orient-Occident Crossings in Literature, 2018
This is a draft version of a chapter in the book Borders and Beyond. Orient-Occident Crossings in... more This is a draft version of a chapter in the book Borders and Beyond. Orient-Occident Crossings in Literature edited by Adam Bednarczyk, Magdalena Kubarek, Maciej Szatkowski, published in 2018 by Vernon Press, link: https://vernonpress.com/book/436
The topic of the paper is the image of the Great Wall of China in Polish and Serbian travel writing. This construction is recognized as a historical border of China proper, which made it also a border zone between sedentary, farming Chinese civilization and nomadic or semi-nomadic peoples from the steppes and forests. In the paper we will analyze how the Great Wall was presented by Polish and Serbian travelers, who wrote about China in the 18th, 19th and the first half of the 20th century. We will concentrate not only on narratives a physical construction, but mostly on cultural and axiological aspects of descriptions of the famous edifice. The methodology of research is based on Vladimir Gvozden’s concept of travel writing, imagology, Pratt’s idea of a contact zone, Edwards Said’s concept of creative geography and as well as on post-colonial theory.
The aim of this article is to disrupt the “optocentric” paradigm that dominates criticism on trav... more The aim of this article is to disrupt the “optocentric” paradigm that dominates criticism on travel writing. The main focal points are scent-based impressions and their formulation and function in the text. To this end, the article analyzes a sampling of Polish and Serbian travel writing on China from the turn of the twentieth century.
The main aim of the article is to examine the ideological background and socio-political framewor... more The main aim of the article is to examine the ideological background and socio-political framework of two different images of the Chinese communities in Southeast Asia as presented in two travelogues respectively written by the Polish clergyman Wadysaw Micha Zaleski and Serbian writer and doctor Milan Jovano-vi. Southeast Asia is treated as a " contact zone " whereby different communities are intertwined in a struggle for hegemony. The writers' trips to Asia were conditioned by European capitalistic expansion; however, being respectively Polish and Serbian, they came from countries which were also oppressed by great powers. Analysis of their travel writings shows how imperialist and orientalist discourse might have been influenced by various factors. Differences between the two writers issued mostly from their different outlooks on the world; Jovanovi being liberal, and Zaleski being conservative and Catholic.
Historically, Northeast China (Manchuria) was a border zone between China and the nomadic peoples... more Historically, Northeast China (Manchuria) was a border zone between China and the nomadic peoples, as well as between the Russian and Qing empires since the 17th century. In the second half of the 19th and first half of the 20th century, a number of factors (penetration by foreign powers, collapse of the Qing Empire, revolution in Russia, Japanese expansion and demographic changes) transformed this area into " a contact zone " in the sense given by Mary Louise Pratt. The main focus of the article is the way in which this contact zone was described by Polish and Serbian travellers. Their accounts can provide a special outlook, because Poland and Serbia did not participate extensively in the colonial penetration into China, however, Serbs and Poles travelled there, often representing Russian institutions. Therefore they were observing China as agents of an imperial power, but they did not identify themselves fully with it. Our analysis of the image of Northeast China as a contact zone will be divided into three broad sections: 1) political and military expansion 2) economic and demographic relations 3) transcultural phenomena of everyday life.
Spotkanie polonistyk trzech krajów - Chiny, Korea, Japonia - rocznik 2018/2019, 2018
The topic of the paper are the descriptions of Korea in Polish travel writing before 1918. The pr... more The topic of the paper are the descriptions of Korea in Polish travel writing before 1918. The primary focus is the works of following Polish authors: Jan Kalinowski, Paweł Sapieha, Hugo Zapałowicz, Józef Gieysztor, Wacław Sieroszewski, Stefan Bryła. The written accounts analysed above have a number of common features, especially describing Korea in comparison with China and Japan. However, the travelers’ views seem to be determined by their social and intellectual background and personal predilections.
Slavica Wratislaviensia, 2018
The topic of the paper is descriptions of Chinese cuisine in Polish and Serbian travel writing. T... more The topic of the paper is descriptions of Chinese cuisine in Polish and Serbian travel writing. The primary focus of the paper is the works of following Polish and Serbian authors: Konstanty Symonolewicz, Witold Urbanowicz, Bronisław Grąbczewski, Milan Jovanović, Milutin Velimirović, Miodrag Pavlović. Methodology of research is based on postcolonialism and imagology.
The paper concentrates on descriptions of official Chinese dinners. Topic of food and eating habits is treated as a one of the ways of creating the otherness. Following particular issues are analyzed: chopsticks, rice, tea, excess and magnificence, cultural relativism.
Tema rada je opis kineske kuhinje u poljskim i srpskim putopisima. Glavni izvori su putopisi sledećih autora: Konstanty Symonolewicz, Witold Urbanowicz, Bronisław Grąbczewski, Milan Jovanović, Milutin Velimirović, Miodrag Pavlović. Metodologija članka je zasnovana na postkolonijalizmu i imagologiji.
U radu se posebna pažnja poklanja opisima zvaničnih kineskih ručkova. Tema hrane i kulinarskih običaja je posmatrana kao jedna od metoda za kreiranje drugosti. Detaljno su analizirane sledeće teme: štapići, pirinač, čaj, višak i veličanstvenost, kulturni relativizam.
Spotkania polonistyk trzech krajów - Chiny, Korea, Japonia. Rocznik 2016/2017, 2017
Canton in Polish Travel Writing of the First Half of the 20th Century The topic of the paper are... more Canton in Polish Travel Writing of the First Half of the 20th Century
The topic of the paper are the descriptions of the city of Canton in Polish travel writing of the first half of the 20th century. The primary focus is the works of following Polish authors: Halina Bujakowska, Roman Fajans, Antoni Ferdynand Ossendowski, Witold Urbanowicz. Methodology of research is based on imagology and postcolonialism. The analysis of the image of Canton will concentrate on three broad topics: 1) Canton as the heart of China, 2) Canton as a city of contrasts, 3) curiosities of Canton.
Celem artykułu jest przekroczenie paradygmatu wzrokocentrycznego rozpowszechnionego w refleksji n... more Celem artykułu jest przekroczenie paradygmatu wzrokocentrycznego rozpowszechnionego w refleksji nad podróżopisarstwem. Głównym obiektem zainteresowania są reprezentacje wrażeń zapachowych: sposób ich tworzenia oraz funkcja w tekście. W tym celu analizowane są wybrane polskie i serbskie teksty podróżopisarskie na temat Chin z drugiej połowy XIX i pierwszej połowy XX wieku.
Multilateral Relations, Many Perspectives: China and Central-Eastern Europe, 2022
The volume is a result of multilateral co-operation of researchers interested in the relation bet... more The volume is a result of multilateral co-operation of researchers interested in the relation between China and Central-Eastern Europe, described from many perspectives (e.g. literary studies, education, economy). This diversity helps to understand bilateral fascination, relations and influences of two distant cultural regions, located at two ends of the Silk Road in the past, reactivated now by the „One Belt, One Road” initiative. This collection of articles brings a vivid, multi-dimensional picture of relations between China and Central-Eastern Europe in the past and presence, presenting some opportunities for the future co-operation of the partner universities especially from China and Poland.
![Research paper thumbnail of Sieroszewski, Poland, Sakha: Questions of Identity [Book Review: Kyunney Takasaeva (Künnej Takaahaj) (2020), Jakuckie prace Wacława Sieroszewskiego i zmiany kulturowe narodu Sacha, Warszawa: Wydawnictwo DiG]](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/109733363/thumbnails/1.jpg)
](Colloquia Humanistica, 2023
The article presents the book entitled Jakuckie prace Wacława Sieroszewskiego i zmiany kulturowe ... more The article presents the book entitled Jakuckie prace Wacława Sieroszewskiego i zmiany kulturowe narodu Sacha [Wacław Sieroszewski's Yakut Works and the Sakha Nation's Cultural Changes] by Kyunney Takasaeva (Künnej Takaahaj). This work combines two main threads: an analysis of Wacław Sieroszewski's works, and reflections on the history, political situation, and cultural identity of the Sakha (Yakut) people. The article positions Takasaeva's book within the field of identity studies.
Zbornik Matice srpske za slavistiku, 2014
Zbornik Matice srpske za slavistiku, 2014