Representations of African "exotic" nature and the colonial hunt in late 19th-century Bohemian travelogues
Abstract
In East Central Europe, last three decades of the 19th century witnessed an increasing interest in both travelling to non-European regions and representing them in a travel literature. In my paper, I would like to talk about the colonisation of nature, particularly the hunt of "exotic" animals in Sub-Saharan Africa.
These discourses and representations were elaborated also in Czech travelogues written during the so-called scramble for Africa (e.g., by Emil Holub). By doing so, I will also emphasize the entanglement of noncolonial regions in the colonial power relations.
Developing the latest approaches of animal history, I understand nature and particularly the animals as concepts significant to human history. In the period concerned, Travel literature not only contributed to making a specific kind of knowledge about nature but had also presented the ways of dealing with it.
While analysing the travelogues, I consider the hunt a specific and meaningful case of a human-animal encounter. By means of representation, influenced by the science of enlightenment and the nature/culture dichotomy, nature of Sub-Saharan Africa had been constructed as wild, uncivilized, and dangerous Other to the European civilized and rational self.
Within the framework of evolutionary discourse, the whole region was understood as a part of nature, which must be rationalised and hence colonised and improved. This epistemological framework influenced next generations of readers in the 20th century.
In addition to this general framework, I will point out the specific position of Czech travellers in global power relations. In their travelogues, the hunt is normalized and performed in several regimes.
Animals were seen as a source of meat, natural objects to be exhibited or dangerous enemies, which must be exterminated to make the land suitable for the spreading of European civilisation. This will be analysed not only in textual, but also in visual sources.