"How smart Ancient Egyptians were!" The Oriental Other in fictional travelogues of Václav Matěj Kramerius (1802-1808)
2014
Abstract
The main goal of the study is to discuss the ways in which the Oriental Other was performed in fictional travelougues published by Matěj Václav Kramérius (d. 1808), the most successful author of early 19th-century Czech literature. His comprehensive imagery of the Other was linked both to period's biopolicts and post-Enlightenment discourses of social reform.
Basing on decriptions of the Orient which were mostly positive - as it was in the case of Ancient Egypt -, Kramérius developed visions not only of an well-functioning society but also of an "ideal member" of the Czech nation.